Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/29

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THE MAKE-BELIEVER
17

house to where the other children were playing "fire-engine"; but she was not there. He inquired next door from the maid-of-all-work, and she told him that Miss Margaret's mother had arrived and taken her down town.

Even then he did not suspect what was in store for him. He thought to make all right by finding a picture of himself to give her; and the only picture that he had was one of his Sunday-school, in which he stood in the front row of a group of little girls. He wrapped it up complacently in a newspaper and left it with the servant for her.

He learned next morning that she had gone away to her home. He learned also that she had not liked the photograph; the servant returned it to him in small pieces—pieces which she had swept out from behind a bureau when she was cleaning the guest-chamber. He gathered from his aunt that Miss Margaret had been jealous of the twenty-odd little girls who were in the picture with him. She had left him without even saying good-bye.

III

Don went back to his play somewhat lonely for a day or two, but with no sentimental regrets. With the selfishness of his years, he forgot her in the excitement of returning to his home to find Frankie shorn of his locks and promoted to knickerbockers.