coloured flags. [Pg 18] Again the joyous note of youth and gladness sounded in Miss Mason’s heart. She gave a queer little gruff laugh. “Wonderful!” she thought. “Like the fairy tales I used to read when I was little. Now I’m part of the fairy tale. Can hardly believe it. Yet it’s true.” [Pg 19] [Pg 19] CHAPTER II ANCIENT HISTORY ANCIENT HISTORY OUTWARDLY Miss Mason was not unlike certain pictures of the fairy godmother who escorted Cinderella to the ball. Being a fairy godmother, no doubt that old lady’s heart was every bit as young as Miss Mason’s, so the similarity may very likely have extended still further. O Of the fairy godmother’s previous history there is no known record. Miss Mason’s history was the public property of the little town in which she lived. It is not unduly lengthy. It also cannot be termed exciting. Miss Mason became an orphan at the age of five. Her mother had been a pretty Irish girl, only daughter of a penniless Irish gentleman; and not having had enough of poverty in her own home, she gave her heart to one, Dick Mason, a struggling painter, who was as ugly as he was gay and light-hearted. In spite of poverty she had seven years of such happiness as falls to the lot of few women. Then Dick was killed riding a friend’s young unbroken mare, and a month later his wife followed him; dying—if such a complaint truly exists—of a broken heart. [Pg 20] [Pg 20] Their one child, Olive, was left penniless, and with only one relation in the world—a Miss Stanhope, a wealthy and eccentric cousin of her father’s, who was at this time a maiden lady of thirty. A sense of duty as stern and uncompromising as Miss Stanhope’s own appearance induced her to offer the child a home. Duty also prompted her to look well after her physical welfare, and
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