Then came shame. Like the evilest of the evil Things it had been lurking in the background waiting its turn,--it was its turn now. Margaret stood quite still, _ashamed_. She could not name the strange feeling, for she had never been ashamed before, but she sat there a piteous little figure in the grip of it. It was awful to be only nine and feel like that! To shrink from going home past Mrs. Streeter's and the minister's and the Enemy's!--oh, most of all past the Enemy's!--for fear they'd look out of the window and say, "There goes an adopted!" Perhaps they'd point their fingers.--Margaret closed her eyes dizzily and saw Mrs. Streeter's plump one and the minister's lean one and the Enemy's short brown one, all pointing. She could feel something burning her on her forehead,--it was "Adopted," branded there. The Enemy was worst. Margaret crept under the fence just before she got to the Enemy's house and went a weary, roundabout way home. She could not bear to have this dearest Enemy see her in her disgrace. Moth--She That had Been--would be wondering why Margaret was late. If she looked sober out of her eyes and said, "This can't be my little girl, can it?" then Margaret would _know for certain_. That would be the final proof. The chimney was in sight now,--now the roof,--now the kitchen door, and She That Had Been was in it! She was shading her eyes and looking for the little girl that wasn't hers. A sob rose in the little girl's throat, but she tramped steadily on. It did not occur to her to snatch off her hat and wave it, as little girls that belonged did. She had done it herself. The kitchen door was very near indeed now. It did not seem to be Margaret that was moving, but the kitchen door. It seemed to be coming to meet her and bringing with it a dear slender figure. She looked up and saw the soberness in its dear eyes. "This can't be my little girl, can--" but Margaret heard no more. With a muffled wail she fled past the slender figure, up-stairs, that she did not see at all, to her own little room. On the bed she lay and felt her heart break under her awful little checked apron. For now she knew for certain. Two darknesses shut down about her, and in the heart-break of one she forgot to be afraid of the other. She had always before been afraid of the night-dark and imagined creepy steps coming along the hall and into the door. The things she imagined now were dreadfuler than that. This new dark was so much darker! They thought she was asleep and let her lie there on her little bed alone. By-and-by would be time enough to probe gently for the childish trouble. Perhaps she would leave it behind her in her sleep.