“‘Some kind of a party?’” she repeated in unconscious mimicry.  “You mean you gave a party?  A real Christian party?  As recently as last winter?  And you can’t even remember what kind of a party it was?” Something in her slender brown throat fluttered ever so slightly.  “Why, I’ve never even been to a Christian party—­in all my life!” she said.  “Though I can dance in every language of Asia!

“And you’ve got sisters?” she stammered.  “Live silk-and-muslin sisters?  And you don’t even know where they are?  Why, I’ve never even had a girl friend in all my life!”

Incredulously she lifted her puzzled eyes to his.  “And you’ve got a house?” she faltered.  “And you’re not going to keep it?  A real—­truly house?  And you don’t even know what color it is?  You don’t even know what color your own room is?  And I know the name of every house-paint there is in the world,” she muttered, “and the name of every wall-paper there is in the world, and the name of every carpet, and the name of every curtain, and the name of—­everything.  And I haven’t got any house at all—­”

Then startlingly, without the slightest warning, she pitched forward suddenly on her face and lay clutching into the turf—­a little dust-colored wisp of a boyish figure sobbing its starved heart out against a dust-colored earth.

“Why—­what’s the matter!” gasped Barton.  “Why!—­Why—­Kid!” Very laboriously with his numbed hands, with his strange, unresponsive legs, he edged himself forward a little till he could just reach her shoulder.  “Why—­Kid!” he patted her rather clumsily.  “Why, Kid—­do you mean—­”

Slowly through the darkness Eve Edgarton came crawling to his side.  Solemnly she lifted her eyes to Barton’s.  “I’ll tell you something that Mother told me,” she murmured.  “This is it:  ’Your father is the most wonderful man that ever lived,’ my mother whispered to me quite distinctly.  ’But he’ll never make any home for you—­except in his arms; and that is plenty Home-Enough for a wife—­but not nearly Home-Enough for a daughter!  And—­and—­”

“Why, you say it as if you knew it by heart,” interrupted Barton.

“Why, of course I know it by heart!” cried little Eve Edgarton almost eagerly.  “My mother whispered it to me, I tell you!  The things that people shout at you—­you forget in half a night.  But the things that people whisper to you, you remember to your dying day!”

“If I whisper something to you,” said Barton quite impulsively, “will you promise to remember it to your dying day?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Barton,” droned little Eve Edgarton.

Abruptly Barton reached out and tilted her chin up whitely toward him.  “In this light,” he whispered, “with your hat pushed back like—­that!—­and your hair fluffed up like—­that!—­and the little laugh in your eyes!—­and the flush!—­and the quiver!—­you look like an—­elf!  A bronze and gold elf!  You’re wonderful!  You’re magical!  You ought always to dress like that!  Somebody ought to tell you about it!  Woodsy, storm-colored clothes with little quick glints of light in them!  Paquin or some of those people could make you famous!”