“That is true, but I suspect you are not quite so old.” And then the child tells her she is fourteen and does not have to go to school any more; and then—ah, Tibby heaves a sigh as she remembers the fluttering of her heart while Mrs. Wylie was talking with her husband, standing by the broken vehicle, and how she kept saying to herself, “I want to go! Take me! Take me!” She smiles as she remembers Mr. Wylie’s good-natured banter and his questions as to her trustworthiness and honesty. “As if my word would be of any worth if I were not honest,” she thinks. And then Mr. Wylie talks to her father, and—here she is, surrounded by all the luxury she coveted, with the tumult and noise of the great city beneath her window. Tibby rises from her chair and stretches her arms high above her head with a cat-like yawn, then walks with padding footsteps up and down the thick-carpeted room, and back and forth before the long mirror, smiling at the trim, well-dressed figure reflected therein. And the face in the mirror smiles back at her, till the dimples deepen in the blooming cheeks and the red-curved lips open to reveal the gleaming rows of teeth behind them. “Tibby, Tibby,” the girl whispers to the reflection, “your feet have been shod in French slippers and set in pleasant places. You have pretty gowns and dainty ribbons. If you are only a nurse-girl, you have much to be thankful for. You can learn to be a lady, and you must be very, very good, so these advantages shall not be taken away from you. It will be your own fault, your own fault, Tibby Waring, if you ever go back to—to—” She hesitates, and stopping before the mirror she looks long and searchingly into its crystal depths.