got down
to conversation again.

"What is hers?" asked the Marchioness, pointing to Freckles.

"Margaret O'Dowd, but we call her Freckles."

How the Marchioness laughed! So hard, indeed, that she apparently
tumbled off the seat, for she disappeared entirely for several minutes,
much to the girls' amazement as well as chagrin.

"It's like she broke somethin'," whimpered Freckles; "a bone yer
know--her nose fallin' that way when she went over forrard."

"She ain't chany, I tell yer; she's jest Injy rubber," said
Flibbertigibbet scornfully but with a note of anxiety in her voice. At
this critical moment the Marchioness reappeared and jumped upon the
seat. She had a curious affair in her hand; after placing it to her
eyes, she signalled her answer:

"I can see them."

"See what?"

"The freckles."

"Wot's she givin' us?" Freckles asked in a perplexed voice.

"She's all right," said Flibbertigibbet with the confidence of superior
knowledge; "it's a tel'scope; yer can see the moon through, an' yer
freckles look to her as big as pie-plates."

Freckles crossed herself; it sounded like witches and it had a queer
look.

"Ask her wot's her name," she suggested.

"What's your name?" Flibbertigibbet repeated on her fingers.

"Alice Maud Mary Van Ostend."

"Gee whiz, ain't that a corker!" Flibbertigibbet exclaimed delightedly.
"How old are you?" She proceeded thus with her personal investigation
prompted thereto by Freckles.

"Most ten;--you?"

"Most twelve."

"And Freckles?" The Marchioness laughed as she spelled the name.

"Eleven."

"Ask her if she's an orphant," said Freckles.

"Are you an orphan, Freckles says."

"Half," came the answer. "What are you?"

"Whole," was the reply. "Which is your half?"

"I have only papa--I'll introduce him to you sometime when--"

This explanation took fully five minutes to decipher, and while they
were at work upon it the maid came up behind the Marchioness and,
without so much as saying "By your leave", took her down struggling from
the window seat and drew the shades. Whereupon Flibbertigibbet rose in
her wrath, shook her fist at the insulting personage, and vowed
vengeance upon her in her own forceful language:

"You're an old cat, and I'll rub your fur the wrong way till the sparks
fly."

At this awful threat Freckles looked alarmed, and suddenly realized that
she was shivering, the result of sitting so long against the cold
window. "Come on down," she pl