It wasn't so pleasant to be called a monkey as a wild rose, but Miss Barry's smile was different from any her "help" had ever yet received from her. Perhaps she liked monkeys. Blanche Aurora came nearer, aware every moment of the fine materials touching her skin. "Well, well, so my niece hasn't got by the doll-dressing stage," said her mistress. The lenient tone restored confidence and unloosed an eager tongue. "Oh, Miss Barry, I ain't a doll. I'll work just as hard. I'll work harder. I've got aprons to cover me all up and I won't break a dish nor slam the silver. The aprons is the most beautiful you ever see and these stockings they feel just like silk." The reference to the stockings flowed forth because Miss Barry was stooping and running her hand down the slim leg. The watchers above were edified to see her lift up the pink skirt and examine the underwear. "You're good clear to the bone," declared Miss Belinda at last, approvingly. "Pretty sensible things, considering that Linda bought them." The speaker rose again to her full stature and looked curiously at her maid's head. "What under the canopy--" she began slowly. "Have you got a wig on?" The broad wavy braids, glinting in the sun as Blanche Aurora turned her head, seemed to bear no relation to the strained tightness usual over her temples. "No'm, it's my same horrid red hair, but I don't look at it, I look at the pink bow," was the eager response. "The kids at school was always teasin' me,"--a gulp of hurting memory interrupted the speech,--"they said I was the homeliest girl on the Cape, and it's nice for homely girls to have somethin' pretty on their heads so folks can look at that instead of at them." "H'm," returned Miss Barry, touched by the ingenuous burst. She had never suspected her willful help of feelings. "Well, you certainly look very nice, and I'm glad that you're happy." "Oh, Miss Barry, may I put some of the white shelf paper in the burer drawers in my room? Miss Linda told me to, and I'm to go back and get the rest o' the clo'es and and fix 'em nice in the burer." "You're going to keep them here, are you?" "Don't you think I'd better?" Blanche Aurora wrung her hands together eagerly. Miss Barry took a mental survey of the child's crowded home and the small marauders who would be likely to molest her treasures. She nodded. "Yes, that's best," she agreed sententiously, and instantly there was a pink flash, and a twinkling of white pipe-stem legs across the grass, and Blanche Aurora was not. CHAPTER XX BEHIND THE BIRCHES When Linda wrote to Chicago for the dresses to be sent on, she asked the caretaker of the house to send a photograph of her mother which she would find in her dresser drawer. The woman had been in doubt as to which picture was wanted, as there were several in the box indicated, so she had packed box and all, and it now lay on Linda's table waiting to be opened.