"Sho!" and Jim straightened himself up. "I have twenty-eight cents, and I wouldn't want to go sponging on a girl anyhow! Oh, mother, do let us go? Hanny, come quick! Oh, do you want to go to the Museum?"
"To the Museum?" Hanny drew a breath of remembered delight and thrilling anticipation.
Dele and Jim talked together. They were so earnest, so full of entreaty. Jim might have gone in welcome, but Hanny——
"Why, we shall just take the stage and ride to the door, and we'll be so careful getting out. They drive clear up to the sidewalk, you know. Walter is fourteen and he takes his little sisters out, and knows how to care for girls. And there's such a pretty play; just the thing for children, The. said."
"Oh, mother, please do," and the little girl's voice was so persuasive, so pleading.
"Oh, please, mother! I'll see that nothing happens to Hanny."
"Oh, Mrs. Underhill, Nora would be so disappointed. And we all want Hanny."
Mrs. Underhill had told her husband if he would come up about three she would take the drive to Harlem with him. Of course she meant to take the little girl. Which would Hanny rather do?
The fascinations of the Museum outweighed the drive. Margaret was up to the Beekmans' spending the day, their last week on the farm. Of course Jim could go—and when she looked at all the eager faces she gave in, and Hanny danced with delight.
It was almost three before they could get off, and the play began at that hour. However they caught a stage out on the Bowery and were soon whirled down to the corner of Broadway and Ann Street.