n all right if you hadn't gotten up and gone out with him,
Aggie."

"Oh, yes! let that horrid old Deacon Abel put him out of church just as
though he were a stray dog, and belonged to nobody!" cried Agnes.

"Well, he doesn't belong to us, does he?" asked Dot, wonderingly.

"We're the only folks he has, I guess, Dot," said Tess, as Agnes went
off with her head in the air.

"He has Mr. Murphy--and the pig," said Dot, slowly. "But I like Neale.
Only I wish he hadn't painted his hair so funny."

"I'd like to have boxed his ears--that I would!" said Mrs. MacCall, in
vexation. "I thought gals was crazy enough nowadays; but to think of a
_boy_ dyeing his hair!"

Aunt Sarah shook her head and pursed her lips, as one who would say, "I
knew that fellow would come to some bad end." But Uncle Rufus, having
heard the story, chuckled unctuously to himself.

"Tell yo' what, chillen," he said to the girls, "it 'mind me ob de time
w'en my Pechunia was a young, flighty gal. Dese young t'ings, dey ain't
nebber satisfied wid de way de good Lawd make 'em.

"I nebber did diskiver w'y Pechunia was so brack, as I say afore. But
'tain't an affliction. She done t'ink it was. She done talk erbout
face-bleach, an' powder, an' somet'ing she call 'rooch' wot white
sassiety wimmens fixes up deir faces wid, an' says she ter me, 'Pap, I
is gwine fin' some ob dese yere fixin's fur my complexion.'

"'Yo' go 'long,' I says ter her. 'Yo's a _fast_ brack, an' dat's all
dere is to hit. Ef all de watah an' soap yo' done use ain't take no
particle of dat soot off'n yo' yit, dere ain't nottin' eber _will_
remove it.'

"But yo' kyan't change a gal's natur. Pechunia done break her back ober
de washtub ter earn de money to buy some o' dem make-up stuff, an' she
goes down ter de drug sto' ter mak' her purchases. She 'low ter spen'
much as six bits fer de trash.

"An' firs' t'ing she axed for was face powder--aw, my glo-_ree_! De
clerk ask her: 'Wot shade does yo' want, Ma'am? An' Pechunia giggles an'
replies right back:

"'Flesh color, Mister.'

"An' wot you t'ink dat young scalawag ob a clerk gib her?" chuckled
Uncle Rufus, rolling his eyes and shaking his head in delight. "W'y, he
done gib her _powdered charcoal_! Dat finish Pechunia. She nebber tried
to buy nottin' mo' for her complexion--naw, indeedy!"

The girls of the old Corner House learned that Neale was up early on
Monday morning, having remained in hiding the remainder of Sunday. He
sou