“You really didn’t go?” Miss Margery asked.  “But Mrs. Flannagan says you passed her house—­five of you—­dressed for the excursion.”

“Yessum, lady,” Peggy agreed, dimpling.  “I wisht you could ‘a’ seen us.  It cert’ny is nice livin’ when you can wear fussy-fixy velvet and silk clothes and lacey waists.  John Edward and Elmore, bein’ boys, couldn’t get no good of them, so we give John Edward the little lace-flounced umberill to carry and Elmore a painted open-and-shut fan.—­Them’s the things the lady give us where mommer sews for,” she explained, in answer to Miss Margery’s bewildered look.  “We went to see her like she asked us.  ’Twas too far for the baby and Bud and Lois to walk, so we left them with Mrs. Mooney—­she’s the nice colored lady next door.  We wisht they could ‘a’ gone.  Mrs. Peckinbaugh gave us sandwiches and lemonade and little icin’ cakes and street-car tickets to ride home on.  I never did have such a good time.  Oh,” Peggy laughed merrily, “and when we came back by Mrs. Flannagan’s, I said out loud ’twas most too cool on the boat up the river and John Edward he asked if the monkeys wa’n’t cute!”

“Peggy, Peggy, my child!” said Miss Margery.  “Don’t you know it’s sinful to tell lies?”

“Yessum—­lies that hurt folks.  Them’s little white lies.  They don’t do no harm.”

“There aren’t any white lies, Peggy.  They are all black.  It is wrong, it is sinful, to tell a falsehood.  Remember that, my child,” Miss Margery urged.  “Always speak the truth.”

“Yessum, lady.”  Peggy’s brow was unclouded and her clear blue eyes looked straight into the clear blue eyes of the Charity lady.  “Can I tell mommer you’ll come? or can’t you give me the money?  She’s awful worried.”

“I do not understand,” said Miss Margery.  “I know she had that money for the rent.”

“Did she, ma’am?” Peggy looked surprised, then suggested, “I ’spect she lost it.  She keeps the rent money in a china mug on the mantel-piece, and this might ‘a’ been paper money and blowed in the fire and got burnt up.”

Miss Margery looked unconvinced.  “Tell your mother I’ll come there this afternoon,” she said.  Peggy, with an engaging smile, tripped away.

Anne was delighted to learn that another visit was to be paid to the Callahans.  She ran home to get Honey-Sweet.

“I told them about her and they want to see her,” she said.  “I think she’s taller than the baby.  Oh!  I hope that cunning baby has another tooth.”

Miss Margery paused a moment at the door of the Callahans’ neighbor, the ‘nice colored lady.’  “Do you happen to know,” she inquired, “where Mrs. Callahan was last Thursday afternoon?”

“She was visitin’, lady,” was the ready answer.  “She took the biggest children to see a lady she sews for that’s give them a lot of things.  I had them three youngest children under my feet all afternoon.  Not but that I was glad to mind them for her to go visitin’, for she’s a splendid lady and they’re real lovely children.  She’s to home now.  The sewin’-machine’s been rattlin’ since daylight.”