"It's the seven bears story--_life size_!" she screamed. And opened her eyes to Richard Wiltoner. Like a silver bomb the bell whizzed by his head. "Get out of my room!" she screamed. "Get out of my room before I'm expelled again!" "Silly!" laughed Richard Wiltoner. "I'm visiting in your house! They told me to answer your bell!" "My house?" collapsed Daphne. "Don't blame this house on me! I don't even know where I am!" "Why, you're in your own home!" laughed Richard Wiltoner. "Just wait a minute and I'll call your people. . . . Everybody rushed outdoors to help a horse that fell on the ice." "Fell on the ice? How nice," mused Daphne. "Why--why, I can rhyme again!" [228] she exulted suddenly with softly clapping hands. "Why, I'd forgotten all about it!" Then a little bit bewilderedly the white brow clouded. "Richard," she asked, "you--you said 'everybody' rushed out. What do you mean--'everybody'?" "Why, your father, Mr. Bretton," said Richard, "and Mrs. Bretton." "'Mrs. Bretton?'" jumped Daphne. Very limply she sank back into her pillows again. "Oh, I knew it," she said. "I've waked in the wrong story!" Quite severely she seemed to hold Richard responsible for the mistake. "Oh--no, Richard," she corrected him. "In the story I belong in there's no Mrs. Bretton. Just Mr. Bretton!--Mr. Jaffrey Bretton!--a tall man," she endeavored to illustrate, "with snow-white hair!" "The very lad," laughed Richard, "and Mrs. Bretton. She's a brick! She's got red hair. Oh, I didn't mean to be funny!" he apologized hastily. "Funny?" flamed Daphne. Flushing, paling, flushing again--a dozen conflicting emotions seemed surging through her brain. [229] "Richard?" she questioned. "Have you ever lost anything?" "I've lost both my parents," said Richard, "and three sisters--and I don't remember any of them." "Haven't you anything left?" asked Daphne. "I've got one brother," said Richard. "The crippled brother, you know? And my horse, Brainstorm." "Do you love them?" questioned Daphne. "I love Brainstorm," said Richard. "I've had trouble, too," sighed Daphne. "I've lost my father and my hair." "Someone seems to have found your father," laughed Richard in spite of himself. "But whatever in the world have you done with your hair?" "That's just it, Richard," said Daphne. "Will you look in the top bureau drawer?" Flushing forty colors Richard opened the top bureau drawer. He was handsome enough when he wasn't embarrassed. But under embarrassment he glowed like stained glass with a light behind it. "There are [230] ribbons here," he pawed. "And--and things! But no hair!" "Oh, isn't it--awful?" shivered Daphne. "Well, is there a hair brush? I would so like to look all right when my--my stepmother comes." "Just as though she hadn't seen you looking all kinds of wrong for weeks and weeks!" scoffed Richard. But very obediently he brought the hair brush. "Just where do you think you'd better begin?" worried Daphne.