"Why, if anybody on this Terrace was in trouble, even if she hadn’t lived here more than six weeks, we’d all be flocking in to see what we could do for her." "Did the boy die?" asked Amy, missing the moral Peggy was trying to point, in her interest in the story. "No, indeed. He wasn’t hurt as badly as they thought at first. He was home again before I left, such a nice boy, not far from Dick’s age. O here’s Dick now." Peggy’s younger brother, Dick Raymond, coming in at that moment, said, "Hello, Peggy," in the most matter-of-fact manner imaginable and submitted with apparent resignation to his sister’s kiss. But no one was deceived. Dick’s admiration of Peggy was an open secret in Friendly Terrace. The boy was hot and perspiring. He had run all the way home from his music teacher’s, so impatient was he for a glimpse of the dearest as well as the most remarkable girl in the world, as he firmly believed, and yet at the sight of her, he had only a "hello Peggy," and a shame-faced kiss. Luckily Peggy was not the sort of girl who needed to be told certain things. She understood without any explanation. "Guess we’re going to have some new neighbors," Dick observed, looking out of the window, apparently glad of an opportunity to change the topic of the conversation. "Who? Where? The next house?" Peggy stood looking over her brother’s shoulder, as two people came from the vacant cottage and moved toward the waiting hack. Her eyes dwelt approvingly on the slender figure of a black-gowned girl, carefully assisting the older lady into the carriage. "Girls!" Peggy’s voice fairly tinkled, as she made the pleasant announcement. "It looks as if we might be going to have another girl on the Terrace. Won’t that be fine?" The others exchanged dubious glances. "Always room for one more, I suppose," Priscilla said at last. "And she looks like such a sweet girl, too," Peggy continued, as the shabby hack rumbled off. "She had such a nice way of helping her mother--that is, I suppose it’s her mother." Amy coughed in an embarrassed fashion, and Ruth said hastily, "We took her for you at first, Peggy. We were watching for your hack, you know, and hers came first." "I imagine she must have thought us very cordial to strangers," Priscilla added, choking down a laugh, as she remembered the contemptuous indifference of the girl who had received a welcome intended for somebody else. "I’m glad of that," said the innocent Peggy. "Because that may help them in making up their minds to come here. And I don’t like to have a vacant house on the Terrace. It reminds me of a child shedding its first teeth. The more smiling and pleasant it looks, the more you notice that something is missing." From across the street somebody whistled, a rather peculiar whistle, long and piercing. Ruth jumped to her feet. "It’s Graham," she said. "What is he doing home at this time in the morning? O, I wonder if luncheon really can be ready?"