“This scheme of Roger’s is pretty tremendous,” she began by way of introducing a theme in which Ethel Brown would be sure to be interested.

“We—­the Club, I mean—­never has ‘fallen down’ yet on anything, even some of our ‘shows’ that we didn’t have much time to get up, so we ought to have confidence in ourselves as a Club.”

“With this next undertaking, though, we don’t really know how the thing is done.”

“How to make over the house, you mean?”

“How to make over the house and how to run the Fresh Air settlement when the house is made over.”

“There’s no doubt we’ll know more at the end of the summer than we know now!  We’ve got to get information from every source we can.”

“The way Roger has up to now.”

“We must think of every one we know who has made over a house, and Dr. Watkins ought to be able to tell us of some people who have had Fresh Air children staying with them, so we can get some idea about what they need and how a house is managed.”

“Come, come.”  A chirp rose from near the ground.  Ayleesabet was tired of being disregarded for so long.

“You blessed Lamb!” cried Ethel Blue.  “Did you say, ‘Come, come,’ just because you heard it?  Did you think we were talking very learnedly about things we didn’t know much about!  Never mind, ducky daddles, we’ll know a lot about them six months from now!”

“Just the way we’ve learned a lot about babies in the last six months from this little teacher!” added Ethel Brown.

“Come, come.  Home, home,” remarked Elisabeth insistently.

“What’s the matter?  Are your leggies tired?  Want the Ethels to carry you?”

Elisabeth made it known that she would like some such method of transportation, and sat joyfully on a “chair” which the two girls made by interclasping their wrists.

Not for long did this please her ladyship.

“Down, down,” she demanded in a few minutes.

“We might as well go home if she’s too tired to walk and too restless to ride,” decided Ethel Brown, and they turned about, to the evident pleasure of the baby.

As they were returning along Church Street but were still at a distance from Dorothy’s house Elisabeth suddenly gave a chirrup of delight.  The Ethels looked about to see the cause of this unexpected expression of joy.  Crawling out through a hedge on to the sidewalk was a child of about Elizabeth’s age, but a thin and dirty little mite, with a face that betrayed her race as Irish.

“What’s this morsel doing here all by herself!” exclaimed Ethel Blue.

“She must have run away; or perhaps she isn’t alone.  Let’s look about for her mother.”

Up and down the street they looked while Elisabeth scraped acquaintance with the sudden arrival upon her path.

“It doesn’t seem as if she could be far off.”

In truth she was not far off, for as the girls wondered and exclaimed a weak voice made itself heard from the other side of the hedge.