“We shall not quarrel about class,” Courtney Barr cut in with heavy dignity. “The important thing is that your mother is determined to have you, to fit you for the station to which she belongs. I believe she is making a mistake, both from your standpoint and from hers, but I am willing to agree to a sensible arrangement. Our plan now, Sally, is to put you into a conservative, rather obscure girls’ finishing school in the South. I have several relatives—‘poor relations,’ I suppose you would call them—in the South, and it is my suggestion that you enter school as my ward—mine, you understand, not your mother’s, so that any suspicion as to your real parentage will rest upon me, rather than upon her.” He arched his eyebrows at Sally, looking rather consciously noble, and she nodded miserably. “During the two years that you will be in school—” “Two years!” Sally echoed blankly. Two years more of loneliness, of not belonging, of being an orphan! “Two years will pass very quickly,” Courtney Barr assured her. “Enid, please control yourself! I am infinitely sorry to distress you in this manner, but it is the only sensible thing to do.” “Yes, Court,” Enid choked and buried her exquisite face in her small, useless-looking white hands. Sally put her arms about her mother, and leaned her glossy black head against the golden one. “I’ll try to be contented and happy, Mr. Barr. Of course I want to protect Mother—” “That is another thing, Sally,” Courtney Barr interrupted in an almost gentle voice. “You must try to remember not to refer to Mrs. Barr as your mother in the hearing of anyone—anyone! If we are going to protect her, we must begin now.” “Yes, sir,” Sally bowed her head lower so he might not see her tears. “Both Mrs. Barr and I will drop casual remarks about my pretty young ward in school down South, until our friends have become accustomed to the idea. You will be registered as Sally Barr, a distant relative of my own, and my ward. It is even probable that it would not be unwise to have you with us for a short time next summer. We have an estate on Long Island, you know. “As my ward and as my distant relative, you would not be particularly conspicuous, but our friends would meet you casually and be the less surprised when it became known that Mrs. Barr and I had decided to adopt you as our daughter. All our friends and acquaintances know that it has been a great grief to us that we have no children, and I believe our action in this matter would occasion no great surprise. The adoption itself will take place before your eighteenth birthday, while you are still in school. If there is any newspaper publicity, it will be of an innocuous kind, I hope.