“Not much, Mrs. Thed—mother. I always tried to do it to those littler than me. But I loved to do it!” the princess cried suddenly. “Let’s sit down in the rocker, child. And don’t weep any more. Because you’ll never know how much you are appreciated here.” The woman took the distraught, moist-eyed little girl in her arms. She tried to soothe her by singing a lullaby. She had a rich contralto voice, “trained” by a great Parisian master—for this!—to sing a little, parentless girl to sleep. Yet she had to stop half way. She found that her training had gone for naught. Her voice was cracked and jagged and uneven and broken. In that mellow pause, the child snuggled closer. She whispered in the dusk: “You’re just like a real mother, Mrs. Theddon. I guess I know now why some of the babies at the Home stopped crying when I began to rock them to sleep.” The future opened radiantly for Mrs. Gracia Theddon then. And the past dropped away, colorless and shallow and tinseled and wasted. “Listen, dear,” she said finally. “I’m going to ask if you’ll do something for me.” “I’ll do anything in the world for you—that I can.” “When Miss Howland took you into the Home, she called you Allegra. When she partly adopted you, she gave you her own name—Howland. So while you were at the Orphanage your name was Allegra Howland. But now that you’ve left that life behind you, your last name is Theddon, like my own.” “Yes’m.” “I don’t like the name Allegra. I want you to let me change that too. I’ve picked out a name I’d planned to call a little girl of my own, if one ever came.” “What is it, mother dear? I’m sure I’ll like it if you picked it out.” “It’s—Madelaine!” “It’s an awful pretty name,” said the child, after a moment’s silence. “It’s so soft-sounding and pleasant, like all the rooms here in your house—and your eyes and your voice—since I’ve been here and you started to love me.” “God help me!” whispered the rich woman. “Maybe You knew best, dear God. It’s worth the dreary wait, after all!” And so Madelaine Theddon came into existence. So she too started her journey—a daintier, softer journey—toward Life’s Hilltop and the lambent stars and the Amethyst Moment. III In the butler’s pantry old Murfins was straightening out the tradesmen’s orders for a dinner party. Stebbins, near-by, was polishing liqueur glasses with a flannel cloth. “But I’m thinking there’s going to be family fireworks, Steb, when the Ruggleses come home and hear what she’s done. They got an awful good opinion of themselves—those Ruggleses. Amos’s wife threw an awful fit, I heard, when her brother married the Missus which up to that time had been practically a Nobody. Now there’s a child from an orphanage come to get a look-see at the moneybags. Can you see ’em standing for it, Steb?” “The Missus is too smart to have any will drawed that them Ruggleses can break.”