you took the gull for your symbol, because it flew over the ocean and you wanted to follow it home?"

A memory of that day came back to the girls, of Veronica's bitter homesickness, and how desperately sorry they had been for her, and yet how helpless they had felt before her aristocratic mien. There was a great difference in her now, all the more noticeable because they had not seen her for a year. She was thinner and her eyes were larger and more pansylike than ever, but she was much more talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, not for ladies.

At Migwan's remark Veronica stirred restlessly and made an emphatic gesture with her hand as she replied firmly, "That was all nonsense. I gave up the gull as a symbol long ago. It had such a screaming, ugly cry instead of a song. If I am to be one of the Song Friends I must have a song bird for a symbol. I have changed to the red winged blackbird, because that was the first American bird I learned to know by his song, outside of the robin. His voice always sounded so gay and free, singing over the open fields, that he seemed to be a symbol of the freedom and happiness which one finds in America. When he sings 'O-ka-lee! O-ka-lee! O-ka-lee!' I always think he is singing 'Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!'"

The four Winnebagos exchanged glances as Veronica uttered this sentiment, recalling their discussion of her in the train.

"Would you like to go back to Hungary?" asked Hinpoha.

Veronica shook her head vehemently. "I would not go back to my old home now if I could. I know now that I could never be happy there after having tasted the freedom of America."

"But you were not one of the oppressed poor," said Hinpoha. "You belonged to the upper class, didn't you?"

"It is true, we were not poor," answered Veronica, "we were not oppressed like the peasants. We did the oppressing ourselves, and because people in our station had done the same thing for hundreds of years we never stopped to think that it was wrong. The people in the village used to bow and scrape when they met us on the street, but how much they really cared for us I'd hate to say. It wasn't the way people greet each other in the streets here. Just imagine Sahwah, for instance, going down the street and meeting Hinpoha and having to bow humbly and wait until Hinpoha spoke to her first before she could say anything!"

The Winnebagos shrieked with laughter at the picture thus conjured up.

"Over here it seems too funny for anything," went on Veronica, "but that's the sort of thing I've been used to all my life. Now I see how ridiculous it all was and how wicked, and it seems almost like a judgment that our estate was destroyed in the very first month of the war and we had to suffer such great hardships. There was no bowing and scraping to us in that flight into the mountains, I can tell you. It was everyone for himself then, and we were all in the same boat." Veronica closed her eyes for a moment and shuddered involuntarily as the horror of that remembered flight overcame her; she threw it off with an effort and presently proceeded in an entirely composed tone. The Winnebagos, looking on with sympathetic understanding, marveled at her perfect poise and great power of self-control.

"It may seem strange to you girls," went on Veronica, "you who are so patriotic about this American land of yours, that I should talk this way about the land of my birth, and maybe you will despise me. But since I have been in America and have learned that people can live together in a much sweeter, fairer, truer way than I ever dreamed of, I could never go back to the old way. I want to become an American and never wish to leave this country. I don't want to be called a Hungarian. I want to be an American girl like the rest of you. Oh, I think you are the most wonderful girls in the world!"

She paused to squeeze Sahwah's hand, which rested on the arm of her chair.

"My uncle feels the same way about it as I do," continued Sahwah. "He became an American citizen ten years ago and is much more proud of his American citizenship than he ever was of his title."

"Did your uncle have a title?" asked Hinpoha breathlessly.

"It was a sort of courtesy title," answered Veronica, "because he was the youngest son of the baron, my grandfather, but, of course, he belonged in the family, which put him in the same class with the nobility."

"Was your grandfather a baron?" asked Hinpoha incredulously.

Veronica nodded casually and went on talking about her uncle.

"My uncle ran away at the time he became of military age rather than go into the army. All he cared for was music. Of course there was quite a stir about it and he changed his name and took his grandmother's maiden name, which was Lehar. He has now adopted that name legally in this country, and is plain 'Mr. Lehar.'"

"Then isn't your name Lehar either?" asked Hinpoha, while a rustle of surprise went through the group.

"No," replied Veronica in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice, "I simply assumed that name at his suggestion. You see, as long as I intended to be an American, I wouldn't have any further use for my title either----"

"Oh-h-h-h!" exclaimed the Winnebagos in a long breath of astonishment. "Your title! Have you got one, too?"

Veronica looked around with a little look of wonder at the sensation she had created. "I did have," she corrected gently. "I haven't it any more. I left it behind me in Hungary. I'm just plain Veronica Lehar now."

She looked into the girls' faces with a half-questioning, half-pleading expression as if fearful that this confession of her possession of a title would raise a barrier between them.

"What was your title?" asked Hinpoha, leaning forward in her chair and immensely impressed.

"My father was the Baron Szathmar-Vasarhély," replied Veronica. "I was what would be called in English Lady Veronica Szathmar-Vasarhély."

"Lady—what?" asked Hinpoha in comical bewilderment.

Veronica laughed.

"Do you wonder why I changed my name when I came to America and took the simple, sensible name of Lehar? Imagine going to school here under the name of Veronica Szathmar-Vasarhély! You can just hear the teachers pronouncing it, can't you? Why, I'd never have any friends at all, because people would rather avoid me than attempt to introduce me to anybody! Besides, it's extravagant to have such a name, it takes so much ink to sign it! Lehar is ever so much more convenient. You can't tell how light and airy I feel since I threw away that long name!"

"But Veronica, why didn't you tell us before about this?" asked Hinpoha. "We never dreamed your name had ever been anything else but Lehar!"

"Because I was afraid you wouldn't take me into your group and treat me as one of yourselves," said Veronica simply. "I did so want to be an American like the rest of you. I was afraid you might object to having a title in your midst. But now you really love me and won't let it make any difference?" she pleaded wistfully.

"Of course not, you goose," said Sahwah emphatically. "We love you for yourself and it wouldn't make any difference to us if you had a title as long as a kite tail! Now do you believe it?" and she bestowed a convincing hug on Veronica that nearly took her breath away.

"But Veronica," said Nyoda, both amused and perplexed, "is it possible to throw away a title like that? If you were born Lady Veronica Szathmar-Vasarhély can you deliberately say you 'won't be it'? I thought titles either had to be kept or formally transferred to someone else. Until this