------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VII EXQUISITE THINGS I Mrs. Gracia Theddon, writing in her upstairs library the Saturday morning after her visit to the Orphanage, was disturbed by one Murfins, her butler. Murfins merely thrust in his head, being florid and coatless from directing the cleaning of near-by rooms. “The small girl you spoke of Tuesday is here, ma’am,” was his simple way of announcing news to transcend all future events in Gracia Theddon’s life. The woman arose, gripping her chair-back with one hand, the other quieting her heart. “Bring her up, Murfins,” she directed huskily. It was a new rôle for Mrs. Theddon, that of mother. Capable of directing as brilliant a social galaxy as the annual Charity Ball, she waited unnerved for the advent of a tiny, dark-eyed stranger. Three minutes later the foster-mother beheld her new child come down the room. The Fairy Foundling had removed her twenty-cent hat of brown straw and shaken free her dusky, ribbonless tresses. She wore a drab Orphanage frock which only reached her knees, her stockings were thick and shapeless and her shoes had emphatically been selected for service and not for style. Yet the child in either sackcloth or satin would have divulged equal quality. There was no cheap sniggering bashfulness, no clodhopper shyness in her demeanor. But there was reserve and painful anxiety not unmixed with a little dread. Her cameo features were pale. Her delicate rosebud lips disclosed teeth like chips of porcelain. Her deep brown eyes—almost black—held that same queer calmness, but those eyes could easily turn starry, as Mrs. Theddon discovered in the next few moments. “Makes me think she’s always on the point of wanting to weep with happiness, yet smilin’ through tears that don’t quite come,” was old Murfins’ way of describing those eyes to Stebbins, the second man. To which sentiments Stebbins subscribed avidly,—though with picturesque variations. Six feet from Mrs. Theddon the little girl halted. “So you’ve come,” was all that perturbed woman could call up at the moment. She meant it kindly yet she realized it was the wrong thing—not at all cordial and maternal. And she greatly longed to be cordial and maternal and set riotously free the tenderness aching in her soul for expression. “Yes’m,” returned the Fairy Foundling, with a tight swallow,”—I’ve come.” “And you’d like to be my little girl?” “I’d like to be anybody’s little girl that” (swallow) “wanted me.” Mrs. Theddon sank sideways upon her chair. She could feel every throb of her heart, count its ragged beatings. Suddenly, as the wistful figure stood there, never so parentless, her frailness and smallness accentuated by the great room above her, the rich woman held out her arms. “Baby!” she cried brokenly. “Come!” Murfins went back to his cleaning.