"Why--because I'm so tall, I suppose," said the May Girl. "And not so very specially bright. Oh, not nearly as bright as I am tall!" she hastened to assure me with her pretty nose all crinkled up for the sheer emphasis of her regret. "Life's rather hard, you know, on tall women," she confided sagely. "Always trying to take a tuck in them somewhere! Mother was tall," she observed; "and Father, they say, was always and forever trying to make her look smaller--especially in public! Pulling her opinions out from under her! Belittling all her great, lovely fancies and ideas! Not that he really meant to be hateful, I suppose. But he just couldn't help it. It was just the natural male-instinct I guess of wanting to be the everythinger--himself!" "What do you know of the natural male 'instinct'?" I laughed out in spite of myself. "Oh--lots," smiled the May Girl. "I have an uncle. And my grandmother always keeps two hired men. And for almost six months now I've been at the Art School. And there are twenty-seven boys at the Art School. Why there's Jerry and Paul and Richard and--and----" "Yes, but your father and mother?" I pondered. "Just how----?" "Oh, it was when they were walking downtown one day past a great big mirror," explained the May Girl brightly. "And Mother saw that she was getting round-shouldered trying to keep down to Father's level--it was then that she ran away! It was then that she began to run away I mean! To run away in her mind! I heard grandmother and Dr. Brawne talking about it only last summer. But I?" she affirmed with some pride, "oh, I've known about being tall ever since I first had starch enough in my knees to stand up! While I stayed in my crib I don't suppose I noticed it specially. But just as soon as I was big enough to go to school. Why, even at the very first," she glowed, "when every other child in the room had failed without the slightest reproach some perfectly idiotic visitor would always pipe up and say, 'Now ask that tall child there! The one with the yellow hair!' And everyone would be as vexed as possible because I failed, too! It isn't my head, you know that's tall," protested the May Girl with some feeling, "it's just my neck and legs! "You certainly are entrancingly graceful," I smiled. How anybody as inexpressibly lovely as the May Girl could be so oblivious of the fact was astonishing! But neither smile nor compliment seemed to allay to the slightest degree the turmoil that was surging in the youngster's mind. "Why, even at the Art School," she protested, "it's just as bad! Especially with the boys! Being so tall--and with yellow hair besides--you just can't possibly be as important as you are conspicuous! And yet every individual boy seems obliged to find out for himself just exactly how important you are! But no matter what he finds," she shrugged with a gesture of ultimate despair, "it always ends by everybody getting mad!" "Mad?" I questioned.