Gracie pulled down her red lips, and cast up her dancing eyes. "There'd be such a scandal," she said.
Piers broke into an involuntary laugh, and Sir Beverley's thin lips twitched in a reluctant smile.
"You're a saucy little baggage!" he observed. "Well, get on! Let's hear what you've come for! Cadging money, I'll be bound."
Gracie nodded in eager confirmation of this suggestion. "That's just it!" she said. "And that's where the scandal would come in if you told. You see, poor children can go round squalling carols to their hearts' content for pennies, but children like us who want pennies just as much haven't any way of getting them. We mayn't carry hand-bags, or open carriage-doors, or turn cart-wheels, or—or do anything to earn a living. It's hard luck, you know."
"Beastly shame!" said Piers.
Sir Beverley scowled at him. "You needn't stick your oar in. Go and shut the window, do you hear? Now, child, let's have the truth, so far as any female is capable of speaking it! You've come here for pennies, you say. Don't you know that's a form of begging? And begging is breaking the law."
"I often do that," said Gracie, quite undismayed. "So would you, if you were me. I expect you did too when you were young."
"I!" Sir Beverley uttered a harsh laugh, and released the child's hand.
"So you break the law, do you?" he said. "How often?"
Gracie's laugh followed his like a silvery echo. "I shan't tell you 'cos you're a magistrate. But we weren't really begging, Pat and I. At least it wasn't for ourselves."
"Oh, of course not!" said Sir Beverley.