the nicest boy that ever was. Aggie says so."

"Ruth and I don't approve of boys," Tess said loftily. "And I don't
believe Neale knows the sovereigns of England. Oh! look at those men,
Dot!"

Dot squirmed about on the bench to look out on Parade Street. An
erecting gang of the telegraph company was putting up a pole. The deep
hole had been dug for it beside the old pole, and the men, with spikes
in their hands, were beginning to raise the new pole from the ground.

Two men at either side had hold of ropes to steady the big pine stick.
Up it went, higher and higher, while the overseer stood at the butt to
guide it into the hole dug in the sidewalk.

Just as the pole was about half raised into its place, and a lineman had
gone quickly up a neighboring pole to fasten a guy-wire to hold it, the
interested children on the park bench saw a woman crossing the street
near the scene of the telegraph company men's activities.

"Oh, Tess!" Dot exclaimed. "What a funny dress she wears!"

"Yes," said the older Kenway girl, eying the woman quite as curiously as
her sister.

The strange woman wore a long, gray cloak, and a little gray, close
bonnet, with a stiff, white frill framing her face. That face was very
sweet, but rather sad of expression. The children could not see her hair
and had no means of guessing her age, for her cheeks were healthily pink
and her gray eyes bright.

These facts Tess and Dot observed and digested in their small minds
before the woman reached the curb.

"Isn't she pretty?" whispered Tess.

Before Dot could reply there sounded a wild cry from the man on the
pole. The guy-wire had slipped.

"'Ware below!" he shouted.

The woman did not notice. Perhaps the close cap she wore kept her from
hearing distinctly. The writhing wire flew through the air like a great
snake.

Tess dropped her history and sprang up; but Dot did not loose her hold
upon the rather battered "Alice-doll" which was her dearest possession.
She clung, indeed, to the doll all the closer, but she screamed to the
woman quite as loudly as Tess did, and her little blue-stockinged legs
twinkled across the grass to the point of danger, quite as rapidly as
did Tess' brown ones.

"Oh, lady! lady!" shrieked Tess. "You'll be killed!"

"Please come away from there--_please_!" cried Dot.

Their voices pierced to the strange lady's ears. Just as the pole began
to waver and sink sidewise, despite the efforts of the men with the
spike