Almost, however, in the first moment we found a friend. She was quite a small woman, with an anxious expression, and she gazed at us in a hungry way. She had an old plaid shawl drawn loosely over her head, and a little bundle of shoe-strings dangled from her hand. She had the prettiest, brightest red cheeks that I had ever seen, and her hair was a wonderful yellow color, like a doll's. But somehow there was something about her that I did not quite like.
She had been walking along the street, but when she saw us she stopped suddenly.
"How do you do, ma'am?" she said. "And how do you do, master?"
We clung together a little tighter, and answered her politely.
"Pretty well, I thank you," we said in a chorus, just as our mother had taught us to do to strangers.
"Wouldn't you like to take a little walk with me?" she asked, pleasantly. "Just a block or two? To see my house? And my little girl?"
We were not dressed to go visiting. I had on a brown gingham apron to play in, and Dick had on one, too, over his knickerbockers. I began to tell her about it, but she cut me short.
"As if that mattered!" she cried. "My God! And my baby! Come, dears. Come! My little girl is sick. It would be a Christian charity to come to see her."
She looked at us almost beseechingly.
"Oh, what can I say to get them to come!" she exclaimed, in a piteous fashion.