“Never mind!” said the Lady, very quickly and a little unsteadily, “I’ll tell you a story instead--shall I?” So the Blue Linen Lady told her a really wonderful story. It was about a dwarf who was made of gold, all but his heart, and about what a terrible time he had trying to pretend that he was a truly, flesh and blood person. It made him so unhappy to have to pretend all the time that he got _scandalous_ cross to everybody, and nothing could please him. His gold kept getting harder and harder till he could move only with the greatest difficulty, and it looked as if his heart were going golden too. And if it did, of course he would die. But one night, just as the soft outside edges of his heart began to take on a shining tinge, a little boy ran out in the road where the dwarf was passing, and in the dark mistook him for his father, and jumped up and threw his arms about the dwarf’s neck and hugged him. And of a sudden the dwarf’s heart began to beat, and when he got in the house, he saw that he wasn’t gold any more, and he wasn’t a dwarf--but he was straight and strong and real. “And so,” the Lady ended it, “you must love every grown-up you can, because maybe their hearts are turning into gold and you can stop it that way.” “An’ must _you_ love every children?” asked Littlegirl, very low. “Yes,” said the Lady, “I must.” “An’ will you love me an’ be my muvver?” asked Littlegirl. The Blue Linen Lady sighed. “You dear little thing,” she said, “I’d love it--I’d love it. But I truly haven’t any place for you to live--or any time to give you. Come now--I’m going to get you some candy and take you back where you belong--_in an automobile_. Won’t that be fun?” But when she turned for the candy, Littlegirl slipped out the door and ran and ran as fast as she could. (She had thanked the lady, first thing, for the thick, frozen, foamy chocolate, so _that_ part was all right.) And Littlegirl went round a corner and lost herself in a crowd--in which it is far easier to lose yourself than in the woods. And there she was again, worse off than before, because she had felt how it would feel to feel that she had a mother. The Earth--who would have shaken its head if it could without disarranging everything on it--said things instead to its Shadow--who was by now on the other side of the world from the City. “Shadow, dear,” said the Earth, “what _do_ you think of that?” “The very Uttermost Spaces are ashamed for her,” said the Shadow. But of course the Blue Linen Lady had no idea that the Earth and its Shadow and the Uttermost Spaces had been watching to see what she did.