Miss Tripp gazed at Mr. Hickey with some astonishment. Then she blushed, wondering if he had found out that she had prevaricated in the matter of a previous engagement. "I--remember; yes," she murmured. "It was a great disappointment to me at the time," he went on. "I wanted to talk to you further. I wanted to--er--tell you----" He paused and stole a glance at the pretty worn profile she turned toward him, as she looked apprehensively out of the window. "The children are--playing very prettily together," she said. "And, see, the sun has come out." "You--er--have known me a long time," he said huskily. "Once you laughed at me because I was homely and--er--awkward, and since then----" She interrupted him with a little murmur of protest. "I was hoping you had forgotten that," she said softly. "I have never forgotten anything that you said or did," he declared, with the delightful though sudden conviction that this was strictly true. "It really is singular, when you come to think of it; but it's a fact. I don't know as I should have realised it though if I--if you----" She started to her feet with a little cry of alarm. "Something has happened to Carroll!" she said. "I must go out and see." He followed her distracted flight with the grim resolve not to be balked of his purpose. "Oh! what is it?" she was asking wildly of the other children, who huddled crying about the small figure of Carroll which was flattened against the iron fence, emitting strange and dolorous sounds of woe. "Aw--I tol' Carroll he didn't das' to put his tongue out on th' iron fence; an' he did it; an' now he's stuck to it, 'n' can't get away," explained Master Stanford with scientific accuracy. "I don't see why; do you?" "Oh, you poor darling! What shall I do; can't you----" "Ah-a-a-a!" howled the victim, writhing in misery. "Hold on there, youngster!" shouted Mr. Hickey, whose experienced eye had taken in the situation at a glance. "Wait till I get some hot water; don't move, boys! Don't touch him, Evelyn!" It was the work of several moments to successfully detach the rash experimenter from his uncomfortable proximity to the iron fence. But Mr. Hickey accomplished the feat, with a patience and firmness which won for him the loud encomiums of Mrs. Stanford's Irish Annie, who came out bare-armed to assist in the operation. "Oh, you're the bad boy entirely!" she said to Robbie, who stared open-mouthed at the scene from the safe vantage ground of the back stoop. "Many's the time I've towld what would happen to yez if you put yer tongue t' th' fence in cowld weather." "I wanted to see if it was true," said Master Stanford coolly. "You said th' was a p'liceman comin' after me, an' th' wasn't, when I ate the frostin' off your ol' cake." "If your mother was here she'd be afther takin' th' paddle to yez," said Annie wrathfully. "I've a mind to do it meself."