At twelve o’clock the school bell did not ring. In surprise, Maida craned out of the window to consult the big church clock. It agreed exactly with the tall grandfather’s clock in the living-room. Both pointed to twelve, then to five minutes after and ten and fifteen—still no bell. A little later Dicky came swinging along, the sides of his old rusty raincoat flapping like the wings of some great bird. “It’s one-session, Maida,” he said jubilantly, “did you hear the bell?” “What’s one session, Dicky?” Maida asked. “Why, when it’s too stormy for the children to go to school in the afternoon the fire-bells ring twenty-two at quarter to twelve. They keep all the classes in until one o’clock though.” “Oh, that’s why they don’t come out,” Maida said. At one o’clock the umbrellas began to file out of the school door. The street looked as if it had grown a monster crop of shiny black toad-stools. But it was the only sign of life that the neighborhood showed for the rest of the day. The storm was too violent for even the big boys and girls to brave. A very long afternoon went by. Not a customer came into the shop. Maida felt very lonely. She wandered from shop to living-room and from living-room to chamber. She tried to read. She sewed a little. She even popped corn for a lonesome fifteen minutes. But it seemed as if the long dark day would never go. As they were sitting down to dinner that night, Billy bounced in—his face pink and wet, his eyes sparkling like diamonds from his conflict with the winds. “Oh, Billy, how glad I am to see you,” Maida said. “It’s been the lonesomest day.” “Sure, the sight av ye’s grand for sore eyes,” said Granny. Maida had noticed that Billy’s appearance always made the greatest difference in everything. Before he came, the noise of the wind howling about the store made Maida sad. Now it seemed the jolliest of sounds. And when at seven, Rosie appeared, Maida’s cup of happiness brimmed over. While Billy talked with Granny, the two little girls rearranged the stock. “My mother was awful mad with me just before supper,” Rosie began at once. “It seems as if she was so cross lately that there’s no living with her. She picks on me all the time. That’s why I’m here. She sent me to bed. But I made up my mind I wouldn’t go to bed. I climbed out my bedroom window and came over here.” “Oh, Rosie, I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Maida said. “Oh, do run right home! Think how worried your mother would be if she went up into your room and found you gone. She wouldn’t know what had become of you.” “Well, then, what makes her so strict with me?” Rosie cried. Her eyes had grown as black as thunder clouds. The scowl that made her face so sullen had come deep between her eyebrows. “Oh, how I wish I had a mother,” Maida said longingly. “I guess I wouldn’t say a word to her, no matter how strict she was.” “I guess you don’t know what you’d do until you tried it,” Rosie said.