purse this--this morning?"

I showed it to him, and he turned it over in his crippled old hands.

"It was full then--or fuller, anyway," I suggested.

"You wouldn't want to get her into trouble--that little girl?" he asked
cautiously.

I laughed. "Not I. I--myself--"

I was going to say--well, you can imagine what I was going to say, and
that I didn't say it or anything like it.

"Well--there she is, Kitty Wilson, over yonder," he said.

I gasped, it was so unexpected. And I turned to look. There on one of
the benches sat Kitty Wilson. If I hadn't been blind as a bat and full
of trouble--oh, it thickens your wits, does trouble, and blinds your
eyes and muffles your ears!--I'd have suspected something at the mere
sight of her. For there sat Kitty Wilson enthroned, a hatless, lank
little creature about twelve, and near her, clustered thick as ants
around a lump of sugar, was a crowd of children, black and white, boys
and girls. For Kitty--that deplorable Kitty--had money to burn; or
what was even more effective at her age, she had goodies to give away.
Her lap was full of spoils. She had a sample of every good thing the
fruit-stand offered. Her cheeks and lips were smeary with candy. Her
dress was stained with fruit. The crumbs of cake lingered still on her
chin and apron. And Kitty--I love a generous thief--was treating the
gang.

It helped itself from her abundant lap; it munched and gobbled and
asked for more. It was a riot of a high old time. Even the birds were
hopping about as near as they dared, picking up the crumbs, and the
squirrels had peanuts to throw to the birds.

And all on Nancy Olden's money!

I laughed till I shook. It was good to laugh. Nancy Olden isn't
accustomed to a long dose of the doleful, and it doesn't agree with
her. I strolled over to where my guests were banqueting.

You see, Mag, that's where I shouldn't rank with the A.D. I'm too
inquisitive. I want to know how the other fellow in the case feels and
thinks. It isn't enough for me to see him act.

"Kitty," I said--somehow a twelve-year-old makes you feel more of a
grown-up than a twelve-months-old does--"I hope you're having a
good--time, Kitty Wilson, but--haven't you lost something?"

She was chewing at the end of a long string of black
candy-shoe-strings, all right, the stuff looks like--and she was eating
just because she didn't want to stop. Goodness knows, she was full
enough. Her jaws stopped, thou