about that, lovey!" said she. The Mayor had presumably
returned to his paper, but his absent eyes were fixed far beyond the
printed sheet he still held tilted carefully to the light.

"Marg'ret Hammond--whose girl is that, then?" he asked presently.

"She's a girl whose mother died," supplied Alanna, cheerfully. "She's
awfully smart. Sister Helen teaches her piano for nothing,--she's a
great friend of mine. She likes me, doesn't she, Tess?"

"She's three years older'n you are, Alanna," said Teresa, briskly, "and
she's in our room! I don't see how you can say she's a friend of YOURS!
Do you, mother?"

"Well," said Alanna, getting red, "she is. She gave me a rag when I cut
me knee, and one day she lifted the cup down for me when Mary Deane
stuck it up on a high nail, so that none of us could get drinks, and
when Sister Rose said, 'Who is talking?' she said Alanna Costello
wasn't 'cause she's sitting here as quiet as a mouse!'"

"All that sounds very kind and friendly to me," said Mrs. Costello,
soothingly.

"I expect that's Doctor Hammond's girl?" said the Mayor.

"No, sir," said Dan. "These are the Hammonds who live over by the
bridge. There's just two kids, Marg'ret and Joe, and their father. Joe
served the eight o'clock Mass with me one week,--you know, Jim, the
week you were sick."

"Sure," said Jim. "Hammond's a nice feller."

Their father scraped his chin with a fat hand.

"I know them," he said ruminatively. Mrs. Costello looked up.

"That's not the Hammond you had trouble with at the shop, Frank?" she
said.

"Well, I'm thinking maybe it is," her husband admitted. "He's had a
good deal of bad luck one way or another, since he lost his wife." He
turned to Teresa. "You be as nice as you can to little Marg'ret
Hammond, Tess," said he.

"I wonder who the wife was?" said Mrs. Costello. "If this little girl
is a 'grandchild,' I ought to know the mother. Ask her, Tess."

Teresa hesitated.

"I don't play with her much, mother. And she's sort of shy," she began.

"I'll ask her," said Alanna, boldly. "I don't care if she IS going on
twelve. She goes up to the chapel every day, and I'll stop her
to-morrow, and ask her! She's always friendly to me."

Mayor Costello had returned to his paper. But a few hours later, when
all the children except Gertrude were settled for the night, and
Gertrude, in a state of milky beatitude, was looking straight into her
mother's face above her with blue eyes heavy with slee