"I don't like the look of it," said Mrs. Aliston fretfully. Then, "Is Clara going to sleep! Why you girls insist on having her when you could motor smoothly with a footstool and cushions and all the windows closed,—Oh! My heart!"  Cecilia turned a sympathetic eye toward Mrs. Aliston.  "It is nothing, my dear," said Mrs. Aliston in answer to her look, "nothing to one who is used to suffering. Oh, dear, what a sorry thing this world is, when we are poorly equipped to meet it. Who was that who passed us? Not Lady Grenville-Bowers?" 

 Cecilia nodded and stopped Clara so that Mrs. Aliston could feast her eyes on the holy dust titles were kicking up. It was not Lady Grenville-Bowers, but Mrs. Aliston was happily unconscious of it, and Cecilia had learned the proper use of lies. After Mrs. Aliston again settled she went back to the original subject.  "Let me see," she said, speculatively; "perhaps there will be some one crossing to whom it will be suitable to confide you. I dislike so intensely this running about alone,—my dear! please watch that beast! Yes, more than likely there will be some one. I know so many people, many of whom some would feel privileged to know! I'll look about. I dislike so intensely this idea of your crossing alone. It is rather, pardon me, dear, common,—middleclass. Yes, I'll look about. No doubt some one may be found." 

 Cecilia nodded absently. She had learned to "yes" and "no" at the proper times with Mrs. Aliston, quite without a listening attention. Strangely, she was thinking of some one else beside her father, John or Father McGowan. This some one who had been the leading man of her dreams for a great many years. In fact, ever since she had rescued a sick and dying tabby. 

 She had carried his true voice with her wherever she went.... Often when things called men had asked for her hand because it held money, a genuine voice had echoed through the years. 

 "Pussy needs some Mothersills,——" she would hear, and then with an absurdly little-girl feel for being so influenced, she would gently discourage. 

 There had been some who really loved; some loving with an air of condescension showing through their manner,—others truly, and with humbleness. Some poor, weak, with only love as recommendation. Some just ordinary men,—one or two made big by what they felt for small Cecilia. 

 And with them all, something was wrong. She heard the echo of a nice boy's voice, as he bought a small girl a "choclut soda," and a sundae all-over-whipped-cream, and she 

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