Betty Wharton glanced over the group, as they ascended the steps. Not a girl was as handsome as her _protégée_. They had come in a coach, and the child had just a light scarf thrown over her shoulders. Her frock was of some white crapy stuff, the bodice cut square in the neck after the fashion of the day, and edged with a bit of lace; the short waist defined with a soft blue silk sash. Her curls were caught up high on her head, with a blue bow, and every movement seemed to shake off a shower of gold. Where the chin melted in her neck, and the neck sloped to her shoulder, there were exquisite lines. "That's the little girl from Pittsburg," exclaimed Anton Wetherell. "I didn't suppose they could raise anything like that. She's not so little, either; why, she must be well on to fifteen. Some connection of that old French lawyer, de Ronville. I wonder if he means to make her his heir? I fancy there's a good deal of money." "Miss Wharton has been making much of her, it seems, and she isn't the one to fall into a mistake." The elder ladies greeted her cordially. There was such a charming simplicity about her and her enjoyment of everything was infectious. She gravitated to the younger girls, and Belinda was really fascinated with her. They played some games, and she was so ready to assent to what they proposed, so frank to admit her ignorance of some things, that they were all ready to help her and explain. Presently they sat on the grass in a little ring, and asked her about Pittsburg. Was it a great city? "Oh, you would think it very queer," she said laughingly. "Only the rivers are beautiful, and the hills, and the woods over opposite. But the people"--then she flushed a little, but she was too honest to embellish--"well, they are Scotch, and Irish, and English, and a few from the East, but now those folks are going out to Ohio. And----" "But you're French," said one of the girls. "Though I thought all French people were dark." "Mother and grandmere have beautiful dark eyes and hair. So has my little brother Felix. But my father has blue eyes, and I don't know where the yellow hair came from. That was why my mother called me Daffodil." "What an odd, pretty name. And your hair is beautiful, like silk. Does it curl that way without----" For little girls and big ones, too, had their hair put up in curl papers, or the hairdresser used tongs. "Oh, yes, it curls naturally, and tangles, too. When I was little I wanted it cut off, there were such awful pulls. But mother wouldn't, because father was away soldiering, and when he came home he wouldn't hear to it. One grandfather used to call me Yellowtop." The nearest girl was petting one of the soft, silky curls. Another said, "Can you talk French? I'm studying it at school. It's awful hard and queer."