The setting of the sun brought relief to Cherry Street. Every tiny porch held its household group, and the clear moonlight and cool breeze brought recompense for the glare and toil of the day. By degrees the noisy laughter and outcries of children waned and ceased, the murmured talk of their elders died away, and the street was wrapped in slumber. It was then Miss Billy came softly from her room, clad in a flowing wrapper. She listened longest at Theodore's door, till, satisfied by his heavy breathing that he slept, she descended the stairs and stepped out into the moonlight. Mingled with the perfume of her roses came the rank breath of the weeds, bringing malarial poisons to the sleepers of Cherry Street. Mrs. Hennesy's words came uppermost in her mind. "Wherever there's good, there's bad,--and if the good stopped trying, what would become of the world?" "Well, I'm going to help all I can, and I'm going to commence on Mr. Schultzsky's premises." She caught up a sickle, crossed the sidewalk jubilantly, and bumped into another pale wraith, sickle in hand, who straightened himself suddenly from the O'Brien weeds. "John Thomas Hennesy!" she exclaimed. "How you frightened me! What are you doing out here at this time of night?" John Thomas wiped the honest drops of toil from his brow and regarded her sickle suspiciously. "I'm cutting weeds. I've cut our own and now I'm cutting Canary's. What are you going to do, I'd like to know?" "I'm going to cut Mr. Schultzsky's," said Miss Billy, in a gay stage whisper. "No,--not a word, John Thomas,--I want the satisfaction of laying those weeds low myself." "Well if she ain't a reg'lar brick!" said John Thomas admiringly, as the swish of her sickle came across the street to his ears. "Catch Mary Jane taking a sickle in her lily white hand to----" The rest of his sentence was lost in the sound of his own sickle as it played dexterously among the O'Brien weeds. There were other ears than John Thomas's on which fell the swish of Miss Billy's keen blade that night. Two eyes peered down from an open window of the Schultzsky house on a girl kneeling in the very dooryard. A girl who might have been mistaken for a saving angel with the moonlight on her wavy hair and flowing gown. A girl who attacked the weeds in a very fury of resentment, and scattered their rank growth in every direction. The eyes peered and peered, and then withdrew,--but gave no sign. It was ten o'clock the next morning when Miss Billy came sleepily down to her breakfast. Theodore met her with suspicion lurking in his eye, but sang carelessly: "The lark is up to meet the sun,-- The bee is on the wing: The ant its labours has begun---- "Say Sis, who cut all those weeds last night?" "Theodore," said Miss Billy pathetically, with a nervous sense of aching muscles, and a weariness on which his raillery grated, "is there any breakfast?"