That Mrs. Haddon was very poor, there could be no doubt. The shabbiness of the place, her dress, and the children’s clothes all showed that. But could poverty alone account for the sadness in her voice? Mrs. Haddon had once been a very pretty woman, and she was sweet looking yet, in spite of the lines of worry about her mouth. She had lovely hair, black as night and thick, but she had arranged it carelessly, and long strands of it had pulled loose from the pins and straggled down over her forehead. At this moment, as though she felt the eyes of the girls upon her, she flung the untidy hair back with an impatient movement. “How old are the kiddies?” asked Laura, feeling that the silence was becoming awkward. “They look almost the same age.” “There isn’t more than a year’s difference between Mary and Peter here,” indicating the taller of the two little girls and the boy. “And Isabel is thirteen months younger than Peter. Mary is nine years old,” she added as a sort of afterthought. “Nine years old!” cried Vi, in surprise. “Why, that would make Peter eight and the little girl seven. I thought they were much younger than that.” “Yes,” added Laura, thoughtlessly, “they are very tiny for their age.” As though the innocent words had been a deadly insult, the woman rose from her knees and shot the girls so black a glance from her dark eyes that they were frightened. “My children are tiny—yes,” she said in a hard voice, repeating what Laura had said. “And no wonder they are small, when for years they have been half starved.” Then she turned quickly and herded the three frightened little ones out of the room. “You go to bed,” she said to them as they disappeared through the door. Left to themselves, the girls looked blankly at one another. “Billie, did you hear what I heard?” asked Laura, anxiously. “Did she really mean that the kiddies are so little because they don’t get enough to eat?” “Sounds that way,” said Billie pityingly. “Poor little things!” “We must find some way to help them,” Vi was beginning when Mrs. Haddon herself came into the room. She seemed to be sorry for what she had said, and she told them so. She drew up the only chair that was left in the bare little room and sat down, facing the chums. “You must have thought it very strange for me to speak as I did,” she began, and went on hurriedly as the girls seemed about to protest. “But I have had so much trouble for years that sometimes I don’t know just what I’m doing.” “Have you lived alone here for very long?” asked Billie, gently.