They left the car at City Square in Charlestown and walked the rest of the way.  It was Saturday, a brilliant morning in a beautiful autumn.  All the children in the neighborhood were out playing.  Maida looked at each one of them as she passed.  They seemed as wonderful as fairy beings to her—­for would they not all be her customers soon?  And yet, such was her excitement, she could not remember one face after she had passed it.  A single picture remained in her mind—­a picture of a little girl standing alone in the middle of the court.  Black-haired, black-eyed, a vivid spot of color in a scarlet cape and a scarlet hat, the child was scattering bread-crumbs to a flock of pigeons.  The pigeons did not seem afraid of her.  They flew close to her feet.  One even alighted on her shoulder.

“It makes me think of St. Mark’s in Venice,” Maida said to Billy.

But, little girl—­scarlet cape—­flocks of doves—­St. Mark’s, all went out of her head entirely when she unlocked the door of the little shop.

“Oh, oh, oh!” she cried, “how nice and clean it looks!”

The shop seemed even larger than she remembered it.  The confused, dusty, cluttery look had gone.  But with its dull paint and its blackened ceiling, it still seemed dark and dingy.

Maida ran behind the counter, peeped into the show cases, poked her head into the window, drew out the drawers that lined the wall, pulled covers from the boxes on the shelves.  There is no knowing where her investigations would have ended if Billy had not said: 

“See here, Miss Curiosity, we can’t put in the whole morning on the shop.  This is a preliminary tour of investigation.  Come and see the rest of it.  This way to the living-room!”

The living-room led from the shop—­a big square room, empty now, of course.  Maida limped over to the window.  “Oh, oh, oh!” she cried; “did you ever see such a darling little yard?”

“It surely is little,” Billy agreed, “not much bigger than a pocket handkerchief, is it?”

And yet, scrap of a place as the yard was, it had an air of completeness, a pretty quaintness.  Two tiny brick walks curved from the door to the gate.  On either side of these spread out microscopic flower-beds, crowded tight with plants.  Late-blooming dahlias and asters made spots of starry color in the green.  A vine, running over the door to the second story, waved like a crimson banner dropped from the window.

“The old lady must have been fond of flowers,” Billy Potter said.  He squinted his near-sighted blue eyes and studied the bunches of green.  “Syringa bush in one corner.  Lilac bush in the other.  Nasturtiums at the edges.  Morning-glories running up the fence.  Sunflowers in between.  My, won’t it be fun to see them all racing up in the spring!”

Maida jumped up and down at the thought.  She could not jump like other children.  Indeed, this was the first time that she had ever tried.  It was as if her feet were like flat-irons.  Granny Flynn turned quickly away and Billy bit his lips.