e shut up
again just because I chose to play with a boy they didn't know. I'll
run away next time, see if I don't."

"Was that it?" returned Edna; "but you know they said we mustn't make
friends with strange children."

"Didn't you make friends with Maggie Horn? Answer me that, miss,"
exclaimed Louis, triumphantly.

Edna was silent. She didn't exactly see the way clear to defend
herself, although she knew there was a difference somewhere.

"Maggie Horn is nothing but a dirty little street child," continued
Louis; "and I haven't the least doubt but that she tells stories and
steals and all that, while Phil Blaney lives in a nice house,
and--and--"

"As if that made him good," answered Edna, scornfully. "I just know
that he is a great deal worse than Maggie, for she never had anyone to
teach her, and Phil has had, so he is much worse."

"He is not," replied Louis, fiercely.

"He is, he is," contradicted Edna, "and you are a horrid, disagreeable
boy to talk so about Maggie; I am not going to play with you, so
there," and picking up her doll, she stalked away.

"Yah! yah! 'I don't want to play in your yard,'" sang Louis after her.

Edna was very angry, the more so that she did not know how to defend
Maggie. It was quite likely, she thought, that Maggie might do all
sorts of wrong things, and it was also quite true that she had,
herself, made friends with a strange girl. She could not puzzle it
out, and she went down stairs to the sitting-room where Uncle Justus
was. She sat down on a hassock by the fire, looking very thoughtful.
Once or twice she glanced up at her uncle.

After a while he noticed the questioning look on her face. "What is
it, little girl?" he asked.

"Uncle Justus," she said, "was I very bad when I talked to Maggie
Horn, and got 'quainted with her? Louis says it was just as bad as for
him to talk to Phil Blaney."

"Why did you talk to Maggie and make her acquaintance?"

"'Cause I was so sorry for her," replied Edna, simply.

"And why did Louis become intimate with Phil; was it to do him good?"

"No," replied Edna, "I don't believe he thought of that. I think it
was because he thought Phil was fun."

"And did you think about disobeying when you met Maggie?"

"O, no, of course not; Uncle Justus, you don't think I meant to, do
you? We bumped into each other, and when I saw how poor and thin she
was I felt so sorry. You don't think I talked to her because I wanted
not to mind Aunt Elizabet