"Well, what had happened?" Amy demanded, as Peggy paused dramatically.
"That's what we couldn't imagine. I wanted to rush right up first thing, but Alice said people didn't do that way in big cities, and that she didn't know the woman at all, though she thought the name on the letter box was Flemming. Well, the crying kept up till I couldn't stand it any longer. I just walked upstairs and knocked, and when the girl came to the door, I said I lived on the next floor and I was afraid that somebody was in trouble and could I do anything to help.
"O girls!" Peggy's voice grew pensive at the remembrance of that sorrowful scene. "I never imagined anything so dreadful. The poor woman--her name was Fletcher instead of Flemming--had just had word that her little boy had been hurt by an automobile, and taken to a hospital. And she was so upset that she didn't know how to get ready to go to him, and the girl was so stupid that she didn't know how to help her. And I rushed around and found her hat and coat and put on her shoes for her--she was wearing slippers--and did everything, just as if I'd known her all my life. And then she wouldn't let me go, and I went along with her to the hospital. She told me afterward that she had only lived in the city a few years and hadn't made many friends. A few years!" repeated Peggy with fine scorn.
"Why, if anybody on this Terrace was in trouble, even if she hadn't lived here more than six weeks, we'd all be flocking in to see what we could do for her."
"Did the boy die?" asked Amy, missing the moral Peggy was trying to point, in her interest in the story.
"No, indeed. He wasn't hurt as badly as they thought at first. He was home again before I left, such a nice boy, not far from Dick's age. O here's Dick now."
Peggy's younger brother, Dick Raymond, coming in at that moment, said, "Hello, Peggy," in the most matter-of-fact manner imaginable and submitted with apparent resignation to his sister's kiss. But no one was deceived. Dick's admiration of Peggy was an open secret in Friendly Terrace. The boy was hot and perspiring. He had run all the way home from his music teacher's, so impatient was he for a glimpse of the dearest as well as the most remarkable girl in the world, as he firmly believed, and yet at the sight of her, he had only a "hello Peggy," and a shame-faced kiss. Luckily Peggy was not the sort of girl who needed to be told certain things. She understood without any explanation.
"Guess we're going to have some new neighbors," Dick observed, looking out of the window, apparently glad of an opportunity to change the topic of the conversation.
"Who? Where? The next house?" Peggy stood looking over her brother's shoulder, as two people came from the vacant cottage and moved toward the waiting hack. Her eyes dwelt approvingly on the slender figure of a black-gowned girl, carefully assisting the older lady into the carriage.
"Girls!" Peggy's voice fairly tinkled, as she made the pleasant announcement. "It looks as if we might be going to have another girl on the Terrace. Won't that be fine?"