“Why,” Mrs. Denton began; but she stopped at sight of her sister, who came in with the empty tumbler in her hand, and set it down in the room beyond. “Peace!” she called to her, and the girl came back reluctantly, Ray fancied. He had remained standing since her reappearance, and Mrs. Denton said, introducing them, “This is my sister, Mr. Ray;” and then she cried out joyfully, “It _was_ Mr. Ray!” while he bowed ceremoniously to the girl, who showed an embarrassment that Mrs. Denton did not share. “The conductor told him that any woman would have given her baby her pocket-book to play with; and so you see I wasn’t so very bad, after all. But when one of these things happens to me, it seems as if the world had come to an end; I can’t get over it. Then we had another experience! One of the passengers that heard me say all our money was in that pocket-book, gave the conductor a dollar for us, to pay our car-fares home. We had to take it; we _couldn’t_ have carried the children from the ferry all the way up here; but I never knew before that charity hurt so. It was dreadful!” A certain note made itself evident in her voice which Ray felt as an appeal. “Why, I don’t think you need have considered it as charity. It was what might have happened to any lady who had lost her purse.” “It wasn’t like that,” Miss Hughes broke in. “It would have been offered then so that it could be returned. We were to blame for not making the conductor say who gave it. But we were so confused!” “I think the giver was to blame for not sending his address with it. But perhaps he was confused too,” said Ray. “The conductor told us it was a lady,” said Mrs. Denton, with a sudden glance upward at Ray. They all broke into a laugh together, and the girl sprang up and went into another room. She came back with a bank-note in her hand, which she held out toward Ray. He did not offer to take it. “I haven’t pleaded guilty yet.” “No,” said Mrs. Denton; “but we know you did it. Peace always thought you did; and now we’ve got you in our power, and you _must_ take it back.” “But you didn’t use it all. You gave a quarter to the old darkey who whistled. You’re as bad as I am. You do charity, too.” “No; he earned his quarter. You paid him something yourself,” said the girl. “He did whistle divinely,” Ray admitted. “How came you to think of asking him to change your bill? I should have thought you’d have given it all to him.” They had a childlike joy in his railery, which they laughed simply out. “We did want to,” Mrs. Denton said; “but we didn’t know how we could get home.”