Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill EVELYN BYRD WHEN the girl whom Kilgariff had rescued from the burning building was delivered into Dorothy Brent's hands, that most gracious of gentlewomen received her quite as if her coming had been expected, and as if there had been nothing unusual in the circumstances that had led to her visit. Dorothy was too wise and too considerate to question the frightened girl about herself upon her first arrival. She saw that she was half scared and wholly bewildered by what had happened to her, added to which her awe of Dorothy herself, stately dame that the very young wife of Doctor Brent seemed in her unaccustomed eyes, was a circumstance to be reckoned with. " I must teach her to love me first," thought Dorothy, with the old straightforwardness of mind. " Then she will trust me." So, after she had hastily read Pollard's note and characterised it as " just like a man not to find out the girl's name," she took the poor, frightened, fawnlike creature in her arms, saying, with caresses that were genuine inspirations of her nature: — " Poor, dear girl! You have had a very hard day of it. Now the first thing for you to do is to rest. So come on up to my room. You shall have a refreshing little bath — I '11 give it to you myself with Mammy's aid — and then you shall go regularly to bed." " But," queried the doubting girl, " is it permitted to—" " Oh, yes, I know you are faint with hunger, and you shall have your breakfast as soon as Dick can get it ready. Queer, is n't it, to take breakfast at three o'clock in the afternoon ? But you shall have it in bed, with nobody to bother you. Fortunately we have some coffee, and Dick is an expert in making coffee. I taught him myself. I don't know, of course, how much or how little experience you have had with servants, but I...