don't know?" There was an upward
inflection to the voice of the Little Blue Overalls. An answer seemed
expected.

"No--no, I never was one," Miss Salome said, hastily. She could hear
Anne's plodding steps in the hall. It would be embarrassing to have
Anne come in now. But the footsteps plodded by. After more
conversation on a surprising number of topics, the Little Blue
Overalls climbed out of the chair.

"I've had a 'joyable time, an' I'll be pleased to come again, thank
you," he said, with cheerful politeness. "I'm glad you've come,--I
like you, but I hope you'll sweep your floor." He retreated a few
steps, then faced about again and advanced into the enemy's near
neighborhood. He was holding out a very small, brown, unwashed hand.
"I forgot 'bout shakin' hands," he smiled. "Le's. I hope you like me,
too, an' I guess you do, don't you? Everybody does. Nobody ever
_didn't_ like me in my life, an' I'm seven. Good-bye."

Miss Salome heard him patter down the hall, and she half thought--she
was not sure--that at the kitchen door he stopped. Half an hour
afterwards she saw a very small person crossing the rose-garden. If
there was something in his hands that he was eating, Miss Salome
never asked Anne about it. It was not her way to ask Anne questions.
It was not Anne's way to ask her. The letter to John was finished,
oddly enough, without further mention of--it. Miss Salome got the
broom and swept the bare big room carefully. She hummed a little as
she worked. Out in the kitchen Anne was humming too.

"It is a pleasant little place, especially the stone-wall and the
woodbine," Miss Salome was thinking; "I'm glad I specified woodbine
and stone-walls. John would never have thought. So many other things
are pleasant, too; but, dear, dear, it is very unfortunate about that
one thing!" Still Miss Salome hummed, and after tea she got Anne to
help her move out the empty packing-boxes.

The next day the Little Blue Overalls came again. This time he was a
peddler, with horse-chestnut "apples" to sell, and rose-petal pies.
He said they were bargains.

"You can truly eat the pies," he remarked. "There's a _little_ sugar
in 'em. I saved it off the top o' _her_ bun," indicating Anne's
locality with a jerk of his little cropped head. So it was a fact,
was it? He had been eating something when he crossed the rose-garden?
Miss Salome wondered at Anne.

The next day, and the next,--every day the Little Blue Overalls came,
always