Tess ignored this flagrant lapse from school English, and said, rather haughtily:
"I wouldn't ask a boy."
"Oh, my! I would," Dot replied, her eyes big and round. "I'd ask anybody if I wanted to know anything very bad. And Neale O'Neil's quite the nicest boy that ever was. Aggie says so."
"Ruth and I don't approve of boys," Tess said loftily. "And I don't believe Neale knows the sovereigns of England. Oh! look at those men, Dot!"
Dot squirmed about on the bench to look out on Parade Street. An erecting gang of the telegraph company was putting up a pole. The deep hole had been dug for it beside the old pole, and the men, with spikes in their hands, were beginning to raise the new pole from the ground.
Two men at either side had hold of ropes to steady the big pine stick. Up it went, higher and higher, while the overseer stood at the butt to guide it into the hole dug in the sidewalk.
Just as the pole was about half raised into its place, and a lineman had gone quickly up a neighboring pole to fasten a guy-wire to hold it, the interested children on the park bench saw a woman crossing the street near the scene of the telegraph company men's activities.
"Oh, Tess!" Dot exclaimed. "What a funny dress she wears!"
"Yes," said the older Kenway girl, eying the woman quite as curiously as her sister.
The strange woman wore a long, gray cloak, and a little gray, close bonnet, with a stiff, white frill framing her face. That face was very sweet, but rather sad of expression. The children could not see her hair and had no means of guessing her age, for her cheeks were healthily pink and her gray eyes bright.