“Did n’t she love you all the time, anyway?”

For answer the small maiden shut her eyes tightly and shook her head rapidly and decidedly.

“Why do you think she did n’t love you all the time?”

“’Cause sometimes she was n’t good to me.”

“Did you love her all the time?”

Another decided head-shaking.

“You did n’t?  Why?”

“I did n’t love her when she did n’t love me.  But my new mamma loves me all the time an’ all day an’ all night an’ every day an’ every night an’ always.  An’ we dust have the bestest times togevver, an’ I love her dust all I can love anybody.”  She hugged her chubby arms close up to her breast as if she had them around the loved one’s neck, screwed up her pretty face, and gave the little grunt with which childhood expresses the fulness of its affection.

“Did you see the tourist man take your gone-away mamma away?”

“No, I didn’t see him, but he did, ’cause once she went to take a walk an’ ’en he never came back any more.”

“And did n’t she ever come back?”

“’Course not!” She looked at me in wide-eyed amazement at my ignorance.  “One day she said for me to stay there ’cause she was going to take a walk.  An’ I cried to go too, an’ ’en she picked me up quick an’ hugged me tight an’ kissed me.  An’ ‘en she put me down an’ said no, she was going too far.  An’ she took off her ring, her pretty gold ring, ‘at she never let me have before, an’ said to play wif it and when papa come give it to him.  An’ I did, an’ papa readed a letter ’at was on the table, an’ ‘en he fell down on the bed an’ cried.  An’ I put my hand on his face an’ said, ’Poor papa, what’s ‘e matter?’ An’ ’en he took me up in his arms, an’ we bofe cried, an’ cried, an’ cried.  An’ he said, ‘Poor little girl!’”

She paused a moment, and then, with the air of one summing up a long discourse, she exclaimed, “An’ that’s why I ’ve got a gone-away mamma!”

I stroked the little one’s hand, which nestled confidingly in mine, and said, half absently, “And she never came back?”

The child had fallen into a reverie, her big violet eyes fastened on the ground at our feet, but my words roused her into sociability again and she chattered on: 

“No, ’course not, she never comed back.  But one day ’ere was a letter, all alone dust for me, an’ my papa called me an’ said, ’Here is a letter for my little girl; now, I wonder who it’s from?’ She said this with the quaintest imitation of grown-up condescension addressing a child, waited a moment, as if to give to suspense its proper effect, and then went on: 

“He tored it open an’ inside the en’lope was dust a tiny bit of a letter wif just a little bit of reading and writing on it.  An’ ’en my papa dropped it ‘s if it was a yellow-jacket an’ he said, great big an’ loud, ‘Money! from them!  Don’t touch it, child!’ An’ he frowed it in the fire.  But I did n’t see no money and I wanted to keep my letter, ‘cause it was all mine.  But I had my new mamma then, an’ when I cried she writed me another letter.”