said Mrs. Winter, as the two ladies passed on to Mrs.
Winter's great-grandmother's blue and white embroidered bedspread.

"Oh, Peggy, _do_ be careful!" whispered Johnny-Ivan; Peggy was sending a
velocipede in dizzy circles round the counter.

Now fate had ordered that at this critical instant the children should
be unguarded. Miss Hopkins had stepped aside at the call of an agitated
lady who had lost one of her art treasures in carriage; for the moment,
there was no one near save a freckled boy in shabby overalls, who eyed
the toys wistfully from afar. He was the same little boy whom
Johnny-Ivan had bribed with a jack-knife to close the gate a few weeks
before; and he was in the Museum to help his mother, the scrub-woman of
the store.

Peggy grew more pleased with her play. The velocipede described wider
and wider gyrations with accelerating speed; its keen buzz swelled on
the air.

"It'll hit somepin!" warned Johnny-Ivan in an access of fear.

But Peggy's soul was dauntless to recklessness. "No, it won't," she
flung back. Her shining head was between Johnny and the whirling wheels.
He thought a most particularly beautiful little swinging gate in peril
and tried to swerve the flying thing; how it happened, neither of the
children knew; there was a smash, a crash, and gate and velocipede lay
in splinters under a bronze bust. The glass of the show-case was etched
with a sinister gray line.

"_Now_ look what you've done!" exclaimed Peggy, with the natural
irritation of disaster. "Oh, my!" squeaked the shabby little boy, "won't
you catch it!" Peggy's anger was swallowed up in fright and sympathy;
she pushed Johnny-Ivan ahead of her. "That Miss Hopkins is looking,"
cried she, "get behind these folks down the aisle!"

She propelled the little boy out of the immediate neighborhood of the
calamity; she forced a wicked, deceitful smile (alas! guile comes easy
to her sex) and pointed out things to him, whispering, "Look pleasant!
Don't be so scared! They'll never know we did it." Already she was
shouldering her share in crime, with a woman's willingness; she said
"we" quite unconsciously; but she added (and this was of direct
volition): "I did it more'n you; you were just trying to keep the nasty
thing straight; I was a heap more to blame. Anyhow, I guess it ain't so
awful bad. Just those wooden things."

Johnny-Ivan shook a tragic head; even his lips had gone bluish-white.
"She said thousands wouldn't repair the damage