s. And she scolds, too,
but we don't mind, 'cause she's scolding all the time. I wish she
would whip us--or lock us up--or--or send us to bed! It'd be like
other kids, then."

The strangeness of a child longing for punishments that would make her
life seem like other childrens' shocked Nancy! She looked at the thin
body--was poverty starving the physical being while neglect starved the
spirit?

"I'll talk to Liz myself. We'll see what I can coax her to do," Nancy
declared resolutely. "We'll be chums, Nonie."

"Oh, then I won't have to play 'bout Rosemary! So, you _are_ as nice
as Miss Denny. You don't know her, do you? But she'll come back in
the fall and sometime, I guess, she'll be Mr. Peter's dearest."

"What _do_ you mean, Nonie," demanded Nancy.

"Well, Mr. Peter's the _nicest_ man I know 'cause he's awful--nice to
Davy and me, and Miss Denny's the nicest _lady_ and so she'll be his
dearest! He don't--he doesn't--know her yet but he will in the fall
and so will you."

"I may not," Nancy answered, rather coldly, "so your Miss Denny may
have your Mr. Peter all to herself. And now something tells me it's
time for fairies to be in bed! If you'll hand me my slippers I'll
dance with you to the gate--only we must be very, very still or we'll
waken B'lindy!"

From the gate of Happy House Nancy watched the child's figure disappear
in the shadows of the road. In a very little while she would be
crawling into her deserted bed, pulling the clothes up over her head
and pretending that a mother's hand was caressing her to sleep and a
voice that never "hollered" was whispering "goodnight."

"Blessed child," thought Nancy, "her fairy godmother has given her one
gift that even Liz can't take away from her--imagination!"

CHAPTER XII

LIZ

Old Jonathan, returning from his daily trip to the postoffice, brought
home the news that "there'd be doin's on Fourth of July 'count of the
soldier boys--that Webb'd said it'd got to be a Fourth that not a child
in Freedom'd forget!" And B'lindy had retorted that "it wa'nt likely,
I guess, if Webb got up the doin's anyone _would_--they'd be doin's no
one _could_ forget!"

But Nancy's interest in the coming event gave way with a quickly
smothered exclamation of delight when Jonathan drew from an inside
pocket a square, bluish envelope with a foreign postmark, redirected in
Mrs. Finnegan's most careful handwriting.

"And here's another," he added, bringing fort