“Poor kiddie,” said the lady.

“Maybe she wouldn’t have died if she’d married you,” Marcia said solemnly to Mr. Putney, who stared at her.

“Daisy Reed, of course,” he said. “Daisy was a dear. I took sick in a little town here once some fifteen years ago or so, and Daisy’s family harbored me. Poor Daisy. Dead, you say.”

“You’re a nice child,” the lady said, patting Marcia on the head as if she was Florrie instead of practically grown-up. “You know what you want to do with your life and that’s a lot. If my little girl had lived she’d be just about your age and your coloring. How old are you?”

“Thirteen,” said Marcia. “Tomorrow’s my birthday but I never get any presents except underwear and shoes and stuff like that.”

Mr. Putney was oiling up his laugh with pleasanter results now, and the lady’s laugh shook all of her trinkets.

“That’s too good to pass up, Burnie,” she said, and with a giddy sensation that she feared might be fatal Marcia saw her reach in her chain handbag and extend a tiny coin, too little even for a dime.

“Here’s a birthday present,” she said.

Marcia looked at the coin with a sinking feeling. It was just a medal or something.

“What is it?” she asked, trying not to show her disappointment.

“A five-dollar goldpiece,” said Mr. Putney. “Haven’t you ever seen any before?”

“Oh, sure, but I get them mixed up with ten-dollar gold-pieces,” Marcia stammered, joy leaping once more through her body. “Oh, thank you, thank you.”

“Write to me what you do with it,” the lady said, and handed her a card. “Here’s our regular address.”

They walked with Marcia to the railroad tracks before the hotel, Mr. Putney half-amused, half-sarcastic at the lady’s sentimental insistence that her own Dorothea would have been exactly like Marcia had she lived.

“I never expected Dorothea to turn out a beauty,” she said seriously. “She was too much like her father for that. But she was bright as a button from the time she could talk, just like this one.”

Marcia was getting good and tired of being bright as a button, to tell the truth, but if that was the only compliment she was ever going to get from people she might as well resign herself to it.

“There are buttons and buttons,” Mr. Putney said, pronouncing his words in a carefully clipped way, like an actor would. You could tell when he was meaning to be funny, because he put his finger to the side of his nose. “For instance, there is the wool-covered button. Not that Daisy’s daughter is that type of button; I merely suggest that you watch your figures of speech. Watch them like a hawk, my dear Beverly.”