one session" meant. But she puzzled over it the whole
morning. If Rosie and Arthur had come in she would have asked them.
But neither of them appeared. Indeed, they were not anywhere in the
lines--Maida looked very carefully.

At twelve o'clock the school bell did not ring. In surprise, Maida
craned out of the window to consult the big church clock. It agreed
exactly with the tall grandfather's clock in the living-room. Both
pointed to twelve, then to five minutes after and ten and
fifteen--still no bell.

A little later Dicky came swinging along, the sides of his old rusty
raincoat flapping like the wings of some great bird.

"It's one-session, Maida," he said jubilantly, "did you hear the
bell?"

"What's one session, Dicky?" Maida asked.

"Why, when it's too stormy for the children to go to school in the
afternoon the fire-bells ring twenty-two at quarter to twelve. They
keep all the classes in until one o'clock though."

"Oh, that's why they don't come out," Maida said.

At one o'clock the umbrellas began to file out of the school door.
The street looked as if it had grown a monster crop of shiny black
toad-stools. But it was the only sign of life that the neighborhood
showed for the rest of the day. The storm was too violent for even
the big boys and girls to brave. A very long afternoon went by. Not
a customer came into the shop. Maida felt very lonely. She wandered
from shop to living-room and from living-room to chamber. She tried
to read. She sewed a little. She even popped corn for a lonesome
fifteen minutes. But it seemed as if the long dark day would never
go.

As they were sitting down to dinner that night, Billy bounced in--his
face pink and wet, his eyes sparkling like diamonds from his
conflict with the winds.

"Oh, Billy, how glad I am to see you," Maida said. "It's been the
lonesomest day."

"Sure, the sight av ye's grand for sore eyes," said Granny.

Maida had noticed that Billy's appearance always made the greatest
difference in everything. Before he came, the noise of the wind
howling about the store made Maida sad. Now it seemed the jolliest
of sounds. And when at seven, Rosie appeared, Maida's cup of
happiness brimmed over.

While Billy talked with Granny, the two little girls rearranged the
stock.

"My mother was awful mad with me just before supper," Rosie began at
once. "It seems as if she was so cross lately that there's no living
with her. She picks on me all the time. That'