“As I went up Pippin Hill Pippin Hill was dirty.”
 N
O, I will not," said Beatrice decidedly.
 
"But the children will be so disappointed. They will have their reports all ready, and there will be almost no one here to hear them. Neither mother nor father can be present. And the little ones are so fond of you."
 
Even this mixture of pathos and diplomacy failed to touch Bea's flinty heart. "I don't wish to be here," she replied.
 
"But you said last night you would."
 
"That was before I knew you were going to invite every Tom, Dick and Harry in the neighbourhood."
 
-214-
 
Miss Billy was roused immediately. "I suppose by that you mean Mr. Francis Lindsay," she said with spirit; "I invited him here on purpose. I want to be especially nice to him just because you were so mean and sniffy to him the night of our call. That was my blunder, and you needn't empty the vials of your wrath on him. He was as gentlemanly and pleasant as he could be, and did his very best to make us forget that we were two girls calling upon a boy. Besides, he is interested in this kind of work—he told me so himself. And the children all adore him,—and mother said I might."
 
The speaker paused, breathless.
 
"It is none of my affair whom you choose to invite to the house," said Beatrice coldly. "But I prefer not to see him."
 
"All right, don't, then," retorted Miss Billy wrathfully. "I'll ask Marie Jean, instead. She'll be glad to come, I guess. But I don't understand you at all, Bea. It isn't like you to be so petty and small."
 
-215-
 
Beatrice walked away without another word, and Miss Billy marched defiantly to the Hennesy fence, and vaulted lightly over. It was wicked of Miss Billy, for she knew that this tomboyish expression of independence would be most irritating to Beatrice.
 
Marie Jean Hennesy, sitting with her embroidery on the back porch, looked amazed at the breathless apparition which appeared over the fence.
 
"You're the very one I wanted to see," said Miss Billy. "The Street Improvement Club is going to meet in our yard this morning, and the children are going to read reports of what they have accomplished. I'm sure you'd be interested, and I do wish you'd come and hear them."
 
Marie Jean was not so enthusiastic. "I don't know," she said doubtfully. "I was intending to finish this work to-day."
 
"I do wish you'd come," urged Miss Billy. "There will be no one there besides the children, except Mr. Lindsay,—the young man-216- staying at Mr. Schultzsky's. I think you'd enjoy it."
 
Marie Jean folded her linen slowly. "Maybe I'll come," she decided, "if I can get my dress changed in time."
 
"Don't stop to fix up," cautioned Miss Billy. "Come as soon as you can."
 
"You'd betther be makin' haste, Mary Jane," called Mrs. Hennesy from the foot of the stairs ten minutes later. "I seen the children go trapesing into Miss Billy's a minute ago, an' I guess maybe they're waitin' on you."
 
Marie Jean deigned no reply. She tipped her mirror at a more satisfactory angle, as she applied Mde. Juneau's Bloom of Youth to her freckled nose, and gave a sigh of satisfaction at the result. Then she surveyed the vision before her with a pleased smile. A dream in blue smiled back at her from the glass,—a dream in a striking costume of brilliant blue foulard, with pointed neck and elbow sleeves. A faded blue hat was perched sideways upon-217- the heavy reddish hair, and a pair of long silk mitts in another shade of blue completed the attire.
 
Marie Jean pursed up her lips to produce an elongated dimple in one cheek. "If I could only remember to do that every once in a while!" she said to herself. From the hush that pervaded the hall below Marie Jean suspected that her mother, with her nose pressed tightly against the window pane, was assuring herself as to the condition of affairs in the next yard. Her suspicions were confirmed by the call that followed:
 
"Young Mr. Lindsay has came now, Mary Jane. He's all in white, close, hat, shoes an' all. Sure ol' man Schultzsky'll be worryin' about his laundry bills. They're all a sittin' round on the grass with him an' Miss Billy. You'd best make haste."
 
This had the desired effect. There was a hurried moving about in the room upstairs, and two minutes later the daughter of the family appeared, fluffing her frizzes to their widest-218- extent, and giving a final hitch to her openwork stockings.
 
"Whose sun shade is that yer afther carryin'?" asked the mother.
 
"It's one I borrowed from Lily Corcoran to match my suit," answered Marie Jean cautiously. "Don't be lettin' the neighbours know about it, either."
 
Mrs. Hennesy withered beneath the reproof. "Of course I'll not spake of it," she said. "It was a slipsy of the tongue, Mary Jane."
 
Her daughter accepted the apology in the spirit in which it was given, for her time was too limited for haughtiness. "All right," she said condescendingly, as she hurried down the walk.
 
There was a commotion in the Lee yard as the vision in blue appeared around the corner of the house. Marie Jean in her usual clothes was not to be lightly regarded, but in this new and startling costume the effect was electrifying to the spectators. Little Aaron Levi, who-219- was holding the floor, became suddenly affected with stage fright, and the small Canarys stared open mouthed. Fridoline alone arose to the emergency and inquired in a loud and interested tone, "Hallo, Mary Jane. Where'd you get that hat?"
 
Miss Billy hurried forward to greet her guest.
 
"We were afraid you were not coming," she said cordially, "so we went on with our reports. Won't you sit down." She cast a rueful look at the gay costume. "I'm afraid you won't dare to sit on the grass with the rest of us. Let's begin over again, Aaron."
 
Marie Jean took the garden chair that Francis offered and smiled sweetly at him, not forgetting to exhibit the elongated dimple; Miss Billy settled back on the grass; and Aaron Levi took up his half-finished sentence.
 
It was the first meeting of the Civic Improvement Department of the Child Garden. The Street Improvement Club, as they had chosen to call themselves, had been successfully organised and valiantly living up to their motto-220- of "Be clean and keep clean." The life of a missionary is never easy, and Cherry Street had made it particularly hard for the little band of workers who fought so bravely against the dirt, disorder and disease in their surroundings. It would have been hopeless to try to interest the older people, but the children were all enthusiastic little citizens, and their interest in the work had won over many of the fathers and mothers who had opposed the idea of cleanliness as "putting on airs." Already the street had begun to show improvement, and the reports of the children plainly told under what difficulties some of the sturdy members had worked.
 
Aaron Levi, with a long sheet of soiled foolscap, which effectually concealed a large portion of his anatomy, read the first report in loud and distinct tones:
 
"As I belong to the Street Cleaning Club I would like to tell a thing or more what happened last week. I told Joe to pick up some paper which was lying in the street. If he-221- wouldn't pick it up I would. I was just going to see what he says, so finally, he wasn't going to pick it up, and he said he wasn't going to pick dirty papers up from the streets, and that wasn't even all, he also littered the streets. He also stated that there was not a law passed forbidding people to throw papers on the street.
 
"The place where I live, which is not large, there is very seldom a piece of paper or anything else. Hoping that other places may be in the same condition. This can be easily done if people and children help together.
 
"Yours truly,
 
"Aaron Levi."
 
"Very good," said Miss Billy heartily, as Aaron, flushed with emotion and heat, took his place on the grass. "Aaron, I'm proud of you. If we all do work of that kind there won't be need for our club always. Ginevra, have you something to read to us?"
 
Ginevra twisted her apron about in her small brown hands.
 
-222-
 
"I didn't write mine," she murmured faintly. "It's only about an orange peel, anyway."
 
"Can't you tell us, then?" encouraged Miss Billy.
 
"There was a man goin' up Cherry Street last night, an' he was eatin' a orange, an' droppin' the peelin' right on the sidewalk. An' I said to him 'Mister, please don't drop those on the walk.' And he didn't pay no attention to me, an' so I walked along behind him an' just picked them up myself."
 
Ginevra's patient little story was most touching, and Miss Billy and Francis exchanged quick glances of sympathy. Marie Jean settled the folds of her gown, and smiled. "How perfectly lovely," she r............