alk to the old gentleman about something else," said
Bobbie, "but it was so public--like being in church."

"What did you want to say?" asked Phyllis.

"I'll tell you when I've thought about it more," said Bobbie.

So when she had thought a little more she wrote a letter.

"My dearest old gentleman," it said; "I want most awfully to ask you
something. If you could get out of the train and go by the next, it
would do. I do not want you to give me anything. Mother says we ought
not to. And besides, we do not want any THINGS. Only to talk to you
about a Prisoner and Captive. Your loving little friend,

"Bobbie."

She got the Station Master to give the letter to the old gentleman, and
next day she asked Peter and Phyllis to come down to the station with
her at the time when the train that brought the old gentleman from town
would be passing through.

She explained her idea to them--and they approved thoroughly.

They had all washed their hands and faces, and brushed their hair, and
were looking as tidy as they knew how. But Phyllis, always unlucky, had
upset a jug of lemonade down the front of her dress. There was no time
to change--and the wind happening to blow from the coal yard, her frock
was soon powdered with grey, which stuck to the sticky lemonade stains
and made her look, as Peter said, "like any little gutter child."

It was decided that she should keep behind the others as much as
possible.

"Perhaps the old gentleman won't notice," said Bobbie. "The aged are
often weak in the eyes."

There was no sign of weakness, however, in the eyes, or in any other
part of the old gentleman, as he stepped from the train and looked up
and down the platform.

The three children, now that it came to the point, suddenly felt that
rush of deep shyness which makes your ears red and hot, your hands warm
and wet, and the tip of your nose pink and shiny.

"Oh," said Phyllis, "my heart's thumping like a steam-engine--right
under my sash, too."

"Nonsense," said Peter, "people's hearts aren't under their sashes."

"I don't care--mine is," said Phyllis.

"If you're going to talk like a poetry-book," said Peter, "my heart's in
my mouth."

"My heart's in my boots--if you come to that," said Roberta; "but do
come on--he'll think we're idiots."

"He won't be far wrong," said Peter, gloomily. And they went forward to
meet the old gentleman.

"Hullo," he said, shaking hands with them all in turn. "This is a ve