"I hope she will--oh, I do hope so!" she said eagerly. "She is so dear, and I want to please her so much, but I'm afraid I'm very stupid." "You are not stupid at all," declared Marjorie loyally. "You are much cleverer than I am about lots of things. It isn't your fault if you've never been taught to sew." "There wasn't any time to learn at Miss Brent's," said Undine; "there were always such a lot of errands, and so many parcels to be carried home. I suppose if I had learned before the earthquake I shouldn't remember now." "I don't know," said Marjorie thoughtfully; "you must have learned to read, and you haven't forgotten that." "No, nor to write either. It's very queer about the things I remember and those I don't. Mr. Jackson used to asked me a great many questions, and he wrote down some of the things I told him, to show to a society he belonged to. Once a very funny thing happened. I had taken a dress home to a lady, and was waiting in the hall while she tried it on, to see if it had to go back for any alterations. There were some people in the parlor talking French. I don't know how I knew it was French, but I did, and I understood almost everything they said. I told Mr. Jackson, and he was so interested. He made me tell Miss Brent, too, and he wanted her to put another advertisement in the newspapers, but she said she hadn't any money to waste in advertising, and that if I had any relatives they would have come for me long ago." "It's the most interesting thing I ever heard of in my life," declared Marjorie. "Aunt Jessie says she is sure your friends must have been educated people, because you never make mistakes in grammar." Undine looked pleased. "I'm glad your aunt thinks that," she said. "I should hate to talk in the way some of the girls at Miss Brent's did. They used to laugh at me and call me stuck up, but I didn't want to be like them. I hate rough girls. I dream about my mother sometimes, and I know she would be sorry to have me grow up rough and coarse." "It seems so strange that you can't even remember your mother," said Marjorie, reflectively. "I can't imagine that anything could possibly happen to me that would make me forget Mother." A shadow crept into Undine's face, and the troubled, frightened look came back into her eyes. "I don't know," she said, wearily; "I don't know anything. Oh, Marjorie, it frightens me so sometimes." There was a quiver in the girl's voice, and kind-hearted Marjorie laid a protecting hand on hers.