A young girl bearing a white flag made of a piece of muslin neatly tacked to an old broom-handle came slowly toward them. She wore a skirt of blue and red flannel, a black jacket, half silk and half cloth, and a cap of three or four kinds of fur, bordered with soft swan's-down. Her cheeks were glowing with the cold, her great brown eyes beamed with frankness and innocence, and her hair, in two long golden braids, caught the last ray of the setting sun.
"Boys," she said, in a clear, ringing voice, as she reached them, "I want to speak to you."
"Great time to want to speak to fellers," growled Sandy Grip, "when they're finishin' up the old year, and only got a few minutes to do it in."
"You keep still, Grip," said Ashburner. "Guess you forget who prayed for you when you had the diphtheria."
"And the Woods have got to be quiet, or get another captain," said Jack Lubs, remembering the dear little sister who with her dying breath begged him to always be good to "darling Lady."
"I couldn't wait till to-night to say what I have to say," said Lady, "for my mothers need me at home, and so, as I knew I'd find you all here fighting, I thought I'd bring a flag of truce, and you'd stop long enough—oh, how I wish you'd stop forever!—to hear what I have to ask of you."
"Go ahead, Lady," said the boys, with one accord.
And planting the flag-staff in the snow heap behind her, Lady Rags folded her little red hands, and began.
But before I tell you what she said I must tell you something about herself.