The child approached with a dainty deference that won the rich woman instantly—if she had not been won from the first. This was no laborer’s offspring. Mrs. Theddon was almost minded to believe in fairies after all. II The following day a pair of handsome grays stopped before the Corpus-Christi Orphanage. Mrs. Theddon alighted from her carriage, instructed her coachman to wait and went up the broken steps to the grim front door. The Orphanage was a mediocre double house in the poorer quarter of the city; only a battered sign tacked to the greenish clapboards indicated its character. Mrs. Theddon’s ring was answered by an angular female who believed in infant damnation, the prohibition issue and the curse of the idle rich. Her hair was drawn tightly from her square, sallow forehead, her shoulders were sharp, her face on a man would have created a perfect butler for the lower class motion pictures. “I am Mrs. Gracia Theddon,” announced the first, “and I have called to see you about a certain child you have here—a little Allegra Something-or-other.” “You mean you want to adopt her?” “If it’s possible.” “It isn’t possible! Allegra’s my own.” “So I understand. But I want little Miss Allegra myself and I’m—well—I’m prepared to make it worth while to be reasonable.” Thereat the Howland person thawed somewhat,—not much. “Come in,” she conceded. She led the way into a bare cheerless “office.” Mrs. Theddon sat down and raised her black veil. “I saw the child in the Park yesterday. I talked with her. And when I got home last night—in bed—I realized—how very much I should like to have such a little girl. I have no children. My husband was killed last year in the Philippines.” Miss Howland, it developed, was a “toe-tapper” and a Competent Person. Moreover, she had dealt with finicky patronesses of the Orphanage for years. She tapped her toe now, though her face maintained its wooden expression. “So I understand, Mrs. Theddon. But you see—I also love Allegra—she is such a help to me about the place——” “You don’t make that delicate little girl work!” “No, no! Not work! Merely a few chores to give her a sense of responsibility—looking after the younger children and all that. They are an awful care at times, Mrs. Theddon—an awful care.” Mrs. Theddon was duly solicitous. She knew the Howland type and how to “handle” it. Ten minutes were spent ingratiating herself into the superintendent’s sympathies and the Howland woman thawed. “But what do you know about the child?” Mrs. Theddon asked. “They found her in a hayfield over toward Ludlow ten years ago last summer. But no one reported a lost child. When the papers advertised her, no one came forward to identify or claim her. So they brought her here.” “And you don’t know her last name?” “Nothing about her whatever. I gave her the name Allegra, and of course when I adopted her, she got my own——” “Then you have legally adopted her?”