"Yes, I know," murmured Mrs. Durgin, resolutely turning her back on the window and going over to the bed. Sixty seconds later, however, she was again in her old position at the window, craning her neck to look far up the road. "How's Maggie doin' now?" asked Mrs. Magoon. "She's asleep." "Well, she better be awake," retorted Mrs. Magoon, "so's ter keep her ma out o' mischief. Come, come, Mis' Durgin, why don't ye settle down an' do somethin'? Jest call it she ain't a-comin', then 'twill be all the more happyfyin' surprise if she does." "But she is a-comin'." "How do ye know she is?" "'Cause she's Maggie Kendall, an' she was Mag of the Alley: an' Mag of the Alley don't go back on her friends." "But she's rich now." "I know she is, an' you don't think rich folks is any good; but I do, an' thar's the diff'rence. Mr. McGinnis has seen her, an' he says she's jest as nice as ever." "Mebbe she is nice ter folks o' her sort, but even Mr. McGinnis don't know that you've sent fur her ter come 'way off down here." "I know it, but--Mis' Magoon, she's come!" broke off Mrs. Durgin; and something in her face and voice made the woman by the stove drop her work and run to the window. Drawn up before the broken-hinged, half-open gate, were the Spencers' famous span of thoroughbreds, prancing, arching their handsome necks, and apparently giving the mighty personage on the driver's seat all that he wanted to do to hold them. Behind, in the luxurious carriage, sat a ragged little girl, and what to Patty Durgin was a wonderful vision in golden brown. Mrs. Durgin was thoroughly frightened. She, _she_ had summoned this glorious creature to come to her, because, indeed, her little girl, Maggie, was sick! And where, in the vision before her, was there a trace of Mag of the Alley? Just what she had expected to see, Mrs. Durgin did not know--but certainly not this; and she fairly shook in her shoes as the visible evidence of her audacity, in the shape of the vision in golden brown, walked up the little path from the gate. It was Mrs. Magoon who had to go to the door. The young woman on the door-step started eagerly forward, but fell back with a murmured, "Oh, but you can't be--Patty!" Over by the window the tall, black-eyed woman stirred then, as if by sheer force of will. "No, no, it's me that's Patty," she began hurriedly. "An' I hadn't oughter sent fur ye; but"--her words were silenced by a pair of brown-clad arms that were flung around her neck. "Patty--it is Patty!" cried an eager voice, and Mrs. Durgin found herself looking into the well-remembered blue eyes of the old-time Mag of the Alley. Later, when Mrs. Magoon had taken herself and her amazed ejaculations, together with her round-eyed daughter, home--which was, after all, merely the other side of the shabby little house--Patty and Margaret sat down to talk. In the bed in the corner little Maggie still slept, and they lowered their voices that they might not wake her.