In a moment she heard steps and greetings and her father leading his friend into the house.  Then she slipped down the stairs and into the night.  A dozen times she ran up and down the yard, the balloon like a fettered bird tugging at her wrist.

“I love it as much as little Patience does,” she murmured.  “Oh, I wish it was mine.”

Finally, she ran out of the gate and up the street to the one fine house of which the street boasted.  She stole up to the door and fastened the string of the balloon to the door bell, gave the bell a jerk and fled.

As she ran down the street, a boy, leaning against the gate-post next her own, cried, “What’s the rush, Lydia?”

“Oh, hello, Kent!  Did you like the circus?”

“The best ever!  You should have taken that ticket I wanted you to.  Didn’t cost me anything but carrying water to the elephants.”

“I can’t take anything I don’t pay for.  I promised mother.  You know how it is, Kent.”

“I guess your mother fixed it so you’d miss lots of good times, all right——­ Now, don’t fly off the handle—­look, I got a trick.  I’ve rubbed my baseball with match heads, so’s I can play catch at night.  Try it?”

“Gosh, isn’t that wonderful!” exclaimed Lydia.  The boy, who was a little taller than Lydia, led the way to the open space between his home and Lydia’s.  Then he spun Lydia a brisk ball.

“It’s like a shooting star,” she cried, spinning back a quick overhand shot, “but it makes your hands smell like anything.”

“Lydia,” called her father from the bow window, “it’s time to come in.”

“All right!” Then aside to Kent, “I’ll wait till he calls me twice more, Kent.  Keep them coming.”

“Lydia!”

“Yes, Dad.  Not so hard, Kent.  Don’t throw curves, just because I can’t.”

“Lydia!  I shan’t call again.”

“Coming, Dad!  Good night, Kent.  Face tag!”

“Face tag yourself, smarty.  Maybe I’ll be over, to-morrow, if I ain’t got anything better to do.”

Lydia sauntered slowly up to the kitchen steps.  “Well, I haven’t anything pleasant at all to look forward to now,” she thought.  “The circus parade is over and I’ve returned the balloon.  Gee, yes, there is too!  I didn’t eat my cake yet!”

She turned up the lamp in the kitchen and foraged in the cake box, bringing out the cake Lizzie had saved for her.  With this in her hand she entered the dining-room.  An extraordinarily long, thin man was stretched out in one arm chair, Amos in the other.

“You ought to sit in the parlor, Dad,” said Lydia, reproachfully.

“It’s too stuffy,” said Amos.

“Oh, hello, young Lydia!” said the tall man.  “Come here and let me look at you.”

Levine drew the child to his knee.  She looked with a clear affectionate gaze on his thin smooth-shaven face, and into his tired black eyes.

“Why do you always say ‘young’ Lydia?” asked the child.