“I—I—Well, I guess it’s just because I’m not,” Carolyn May said desperately. “You see, after all, Miss Amanda, I’m only a charity child.”
“A what?” gasped Miss Amanda, almost dropping the salad dish she was herself wiping. “What are you, child?”
“I’m charity,” Carolyn May repeated, having hard work to choke back the tears. “You know—my papa and mamma—didn’t—didn’t leave any money for me.”
“Oh, my child!!” exclaimed Miss Amanda. “Who told you that?”
“I—I just heard about it,” confessed the little visitor.
“Not from Aunty Rose Kennedy?”
“Oh, no, ma’am.”
“Did that—Did your uncle tell you such a thing?”
“Oh, no! He’s just as good as he can be. But, of course, he doesn’t much like children. You know he doesn’t. And he just ’bominates dogs!
“So, you see,” added the child, “I am charity. I’m not like other little girls that’s got papas and mammas. Course, I knowed that before, but it didn’t ever seem—seem so hard as it does now,” she confessed, with a sob.