Three little girls sat in a row on the top step of a beautiful home in Louisville. At the right was a dark-haired, fairylike child on whose docked hair a velvet berét, or French officer's cap, sat jauntily. Her dark eyes were round and thoughtful as she gazed into space. There was a little wrinkle between her curved black brows. Beside her, busily knitting on a long red scarf, sat a sparkling little girl whose hazel eyes danced under a fringe of blond curls. Her dainty motions and her pretty way of tossing back her beautiful hair caused people to stop and look at her as they passed, but Elise was all unconscious of their admiration. Indeed, she was almost too shy, and few knew how full of fun and laughter she could be. The third girl wore a businesslike beaver hat over her blond docked hair, and her great eyes, blue and steady, were levelled across Elise, who knitted on in silence, to the dark girl in the velvet cap. Helen Culver spoke at last. "Well, Rosanna, what are you thinking? Have you any plan at all?"