"If you haven't found her in twenty minutes call up the Stark Street station. They're getting 'em there just now at the rate of twenty a day."
Twenty minutes! It was long before Peggy could hear that measure of eternity named, without thinking immediately of a seemingly interminable and altogether miserable stretch of time, in which she seemed to experience enough contrition and agonized foreboding for a half-dozen lives. "Isn't it time to telephone, Graham?" she asked again and again, and each time Graham answered with amazing patience. "Not yet, Peggy. Don't be scared. Everything will be all right."
In twenty minutes they had had time to search both sides of the street through the crowded shopping district, scanning the kalaidoscopic crowd in search of a little girl in a red coat and hood, their faces lighting up at every glimpse of that cheery color, and falling again as a closer look failed to reveal the object of their search.
At length the endless twenty minutes were up, and Graham went to telephone. Peggy waited for him at the corner, and on Graham's return she clapped her hands over her ears. Later Graham wondered why, but at the time he was only thankful that it was not necessary for him to tell the bad news. Peggy lifted her eyes to his face, and on the instant read the truth.
"She isn't there," she gasped. "O, Graham!"
Ruth's brother took her by the arm. "Brace up, Peggy," he urged kindly. "I guess we didn't give them quite time enough. I'll call 'em up again in another ten minutes. Suppose we--"
He never got any further, for at the moment someone pulled Peggy's sleeve, and Peggy, turning, looked down into a beautiful face. Strictly speaking, it perhaps lacked the elements of which beauty is supposed to consist. Under the carroty hair, innumerable freckles stood out in bold relief against the layers of grime, while the absence of a front tooth sacrificed in a fight, gave a peculiar impressiveness to the smile. But to Peggy the countenance was beyond criticism, for it was the face of Jimmy Dunn and he had Dorothy by the hand.
"She's a great kid, she is," exclaimed Jimmy Dunn with his hoarse chuckle. "There was a Santy Claws with a banner, a-avertisin' a sale o' Christmas trees, down on Block street, and she up and trots after him. I seed her, and I knowed she b'longed to you, so I fetched her along back. Ef I hadn't found you 'round here, I was going to take her home."
"Jimmy, old man," Graham exclaimed, "you're all right." He slapped the boy's shoulder with a good fellowship which meant more to Jimmy Dunn than a dollar bill. Meanwhile Peggy was crying over Dorothy, who in her eagerness to impart a great discovery of her own, was quite indifferent to the emotions of her relative.
"Aunt Peggy," she cried breathlessly, "What do you think? There's two of Santa Claus. Two of him, Aunt Peggy."