r to avoid the dirty suds which somebody was
emptying into the gutter.

"Ma'am?" asked the woman with the tub, dropping it and with arms akimbo
staring amazedly at the stranger. How had such a fine madam come there?
"Was you a-lookin' for somebody, ma'am?"

Miss Laura turned her sweet old face toward the other, Meg-Laundress,
and answered, "Yes, for one, Captain Simon Beck. A boy told me this tiny
place was where he lives--though it doesn't seem possible any one could
really live in so small a room--and it's empty now, anyway. Do you know
where he is?"

"Off a-singin' likely. He mostly is, this time o' day."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I have come----" Miss Bonnicastle checked herself,
unwilling to disclose to this rough stranger affairs in which she had no
concern. "I was told he had a grandchild living with him. Is she
anywhere about?"

"Glory? She's off peddlin' her goobers, I s'pose. I can give 'em any
word that's left," said Meg, with friendly interest.

"Glory? Is her name Glory? Is it she I saw with a basket of peanuts, a
yellow haired, bright-faced little girl, in a blue frock?" cried the
lady, eagerly, and recalling the child's inquiry about "Snug Harbor"
felt that she should have guessed as much even then.

"Sure. The purtiest little creatur' goin'; or, if not so purty, so
good-natured an' lovin'. Why, she's all the sunlight we gets in the
Lane, Glory is, an', havin' her, some on us don't 'pear to need no more.
Makes all on us do her say-so but always fer our own betterment. In an'
out, up an' down, lendin' a hand or settin' a stitch or tendin' a baby,
all in the day's work, an' queenin' it over the hull lot, that's our
'Goober Glory,' bless her! And evil to anybody would harm the child, say
I! Though who'd do ill to her? Is't a bit of word you'd be after
leavin', ma'am?" said Meg, with both kindness and curiosity.

"Thank you. If you see either of them, will you say that Miss
Bonnicastle, Colonel Bonnicastle's sister, will be here again in the
morning, unless it storms, upon important business? Ask them to wait
here for me, please. I should not like to make a second useless trip.
Good-afternoon."

As the gentlewoman turned and made her way back along the alley toward
her distant carriage, which could come no nearer to her because the Lane
was so narrow, Meg watched and admired her, reflecting with some pride:

"She's the real stuff, that old lady is. Treated me polite 's if I was
the same sort she is. I w