At length Ann brought her to the present.

“Fledra dear, can you realize that little Mildred is your own sister, and that Mildred’s mother is yours?  Oh, Darling, you ought to be the happiest girl in the world!”

“I’m happy, all right,” said Fledra gravely; “only, I feel sorry for Katherine.  Somehow, we changed Daddies, didn’t we?”

“Yes, Dear, and I feel for her too,” lamented Ann.  “I can’t see how she’s going to bear it.”

“Maybe she’s been a praying,” said Fledra, “as I did when I thought I was coming to Lem.  It does help a lot.”

“Dear child, dear heart,” murmured Ann, “your faith is greater than mine!  Katherine Vandecar is a saint, and—­and so are you, Fledra.”

“No, I’m not.”  The girl dropped her eyes and flushed deeply.

“Oh, but Fledra, you are!” Then a new thought entered Ann’s mind, and she hesitated before she continued.  “Fledra, will you tell me something about Mr. Brimbecomb?  I mean—­you know—­the trouble you spoke of in your letter to him?”

Fledra flashed a startled glance.

“Did he dare show it to you?”

“No, no, Fledra; he dropped it, and Horace found it.”

“Is that the way you knew where I’d gone?”

“Yes, and on account of it Floyd went to the governor’s house.”

“Oh, why did you let Floyd go out?  He is so ill!” Her eyes were reproachful.

Ann, with a smile, kissed the girl.

“Dear, unselfish child,” said she, “don’t you understand that, if he hadn’t gone, you wouldn’t have your strong, big father, nor would little Floyd be now with his mother?”

“Maybe our mother’ll make Floyd well,” cried Fledra.  “Oh, she couldn’t help but love him, could she, Sister Ann?”

“And it will be impossible for her not to love you, Deary,” exclaimed Ann, wiping her eyes.  “But now you must dress.  Have you still the clothes you wore away from home?”

“Yes, I have them; but they’re all mussed.  I fell in the lake, and got them all wet, and they’re wrinkled now.  They’re up in the loft.  Wait—­I’ll get them.”  She was scrambling up the ladder as she spoke, and her last words were uttered in the darkness of the loft.

Ann could hear the girl moving about overhead, and heard the dragging of a box across the floor.  Then another sound broke upon her ears, and before she could move toward the door it opened, and a shabby, one-armed man shuffled in, followed by Everett Brimbecomb.

* * * * *

After Everett had disappeared across the little bridge, Scraggy closed the rickety door of her hut and went fidgeting about in the littered room.  Long she brooded, sniveling in her bewilderment.  Something hazy, something out of the past, knocked incessantly upon her demented brain.  This something touched her heart; for she whimpered as does a hurt child when the hurt is deep and the child’s mother is not near.  She still missed Black Pussy, and when she thought of the loss of her only friend wilder paroxysms of frenzied grief filled the shanty.