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“Shall I telephone for—?” Thomas brought a finger-bowl.

Gwendolyn stood up. A ride meant the limousine, with its screening top and little windows. The limousine meant a long, tiresome run at good speed through streets that she longed to travel afoot, slowly, with a stop here and a stop there, and a poke into things in general.

Her crimson cheeks spoke rebellion. “I want a walk this afternoon,” she declared emphatically.

“Use your finger-bowl,” said Jane. “Can’t you never remember your manners?”

“I’m seven today,” Gwendolyn went on, the tips of her fingers in the small basin of silver while her face was turned to Jane. “I’m seven and—and I’m grown-up.”

“And you’re splashin’ water on the table-cloth. Look at you!”

“So,” went on Gwendolyn, “I’m going to walk. I haven’t walked for a whole, whole week.”

“You can lean back in the car,” began Jane enthusiastically, “and pretend you’re a grand little Queen!”

“I don’t want to be a Queen. I want to walk.

“Rich little girls don’t hike along the streets like common poor little girls,” informed Jane.

“I don’t want to be a rich little girl,”—voice shrill with determination.

Jane went to shake her frilled apron into the gilded waste-basket beside Gwendolyn’s writing-desk. “You can telephone any time now, Thomas,” she said calmly.

Gwendolyn turned upon Thomas. “But I don’t want to be shut up in the car this afternoon,” she cried. “And I won’t! I won’t! I WON’T!”

Jane gave a gasp of smothered rage. The reddish eyes blazed. “Do you want me to send for a great black bear?” she demanded.

At that Gwendolyn quailed. “No-o-o!”

Jane shot a glance toward Thomas. It invited suggestion.

“Let her take something along,” he said under his breath, nodding toward a glass-fronted case of shelves that stood opposite Gwendolyn’s bed.

Each shelf of the case was covered with toys. Along one sat a line of daintily clad dolls—black-haired dolls; golden-haired dolls; dolls from China, with slanted eyes and a queue; dolls from Japan, in gayly figured kimonos; Dutch dolls—a boy and a girl; a French doll in an exquisite frock; a Russian; an Indian; a Spaniard. A second shelf held a shiny red-and-black peg-top, a black wooden snake beside its lead-colored pipe-like case; a tin soldier in an English uniform—red coat, and pill-box cap held on by a chin-strap; a second uniformed tin man who turned somersaults, but in repose stood upon his head; a black dog on wheels, with great floppy ears; and a half-dozen downy ducklings acquired at Easter.

“Much good takin’ anything’ll do!” grumbled Jane. Then, plucking crossly at a muslin sleeve, “Well, what do you want? Your French doll? Speak up!”

“I don’t want anything,” asserted Gwendolyn, “—long as I can’t have my Puffy Bear any more.” There was a wide vacant place beside the dog with the large ears.

“The little beast got shabby,” explained Thomas, “and I was compelled to throw him away along with the old linen-hamper. Like as not some poor little child has him now.”

She considered the statement, gray eyes wistful. Then, “I liked him,” she said huskily. “He was old and squashy, and it wouldn’t hurt him to walk up the Drive, right in the path where the horses go. The dirt is loose there, like it was in the road at Johnnie Blake’s in the country. I could scuff it with my shoes.”

“You could scuff it and I could wear myself out cleanin’, I suppose,” retorted Jane. “And like as not run the risk of gittin’ some bad germs on my hands, and dyin’ of ’em. From what Rosa says, it was downright shameful the way you muddied your clothes, and tore ’em, and messed in the water after nasty tad-poles that week you was up country. I won’t allow you to treat your beautiful dresses like that, or climb about, or let the hot sun git at you.”

“I’m going to walk.”

Silence; but silence palpitant with thought. Then Jane threw up her head—as if seized with an inspiration. “You’re going to walk?” said she. “All right! All right! Walk if you want to.” She made as if to set out. “Go ahead! But, my dear,” (she dropped her voice in fear) “you’ll no more’n git to the next corner when somebody’ll steal you!“

Gwendolyn was silent for a long moment. She glanced from Jane to Thomas, from Thomas to Jane, and crooked her fingers in and out of her twisted handkerchief.