There’s some truth in that! I’m going to show father my new bonnet, and he doesn’t care if I do whistle!” Mrs. Ware gazed after her as she floated down the veranda and disappeared around the corner of the house, tilting her skirts and whistling. “I did hope Charlotte wouldn’t be so trying after she became a young lady!” she said in soft, plaintive tones. “Never mind, mother. She doesn’t really mean to be trying. She does it just the same as she pinches the kitten’s tail, to make it meaow. If you don’t pay any attention to her she’ll quit much sooner.” Mrs. Ware crossed the room to her daughter, pressed an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. “I’m so glad you happened to meet Jeff Delavan,” she murmured. “If he comes to see us, and I’m sure he will--” she glanced at the warmer color that flushed Rhoda’s face, smiled, and went on, “What did you buy for yourself, dear?” CHAPTER II “Father! Can these things be true? Oh, how terrible it is! Do such things really happen now, in this country?” Rhoda Ware rushed into her father’s office, her cheeks wet with recent tears, her voice vibrating on the verge of sobs. Dr. Ware looked up from the medical work he was reading in some surprise. For it was unusual for her to give way, at least in his presence, to so much agitation. His professional eye took quick note of her excited nerves. In the same glance he saw that she held a book tightly grasped in her trembling hands and read its title. But he did not betray in either words or manner the fact that he had noticed it or the satisfaction that it gave him. “Sit down, Rhoda, and calm yourself,” he said quietly. “What is it you want to know about? Something you’ve been reading?” “Yes. It’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Father, isn’t it exaggerated? Can it be true?” Appeal sounded in her tones, the longing of a sensitive nature to be assured that what it has suffered in imagination no human being has been called upon to suffer in the thousandfold of reality. He noted her hurried breathing, with the catch of a half-sob in it now and then, and as he looked into her appealing eyes the man and the father in him drew back from saying what he wished to say lest he add to her hurt and the physician counseled not to increase her excitement. But the believer in a cause urged him to strike while the iron was hot. And it was the believer that won, after a mere moment of hesitation. “You heard what they said at Levi Coffin’s, about many of the incidents of the book being based on fact. But what you have read there is only a drop in the bucket!”