ose to him, confidingly
close, looking straight into the formidable grey eyes. "You see, it was
my idea. Pat didn't want to come, but I made him."

"Forward young minx!" commented Sir Beverley.

Gracie laughed at the compliment.

Piers, smoking his cigarette behind her, stood ready to take her part,
but quite obviously she was fully equal to the occasion.

"Yes, I know," she agreed, with disarming amiability. "But it wouldn't
have mattered a bit if you hadn't found out who it was. You won't tell
anyone, will you?"

"Why not?" demanded Sir Beverley.

Gracie pulled down her red lips, and cast up her dancing eyes. "There'd
be such a scandal," she said.

Piers broke into an involuntary laugh, and Sir Beverley's thin lips
twitched in a reluctant smile.

"You're a saucy little baggage!" he observed. "Well, get on! Let's hear
what you've come for! Cadging money, I'll be bound."

Gracie nodded in eager confirmation of this suggestion. "That's just it!"
she said. "And that's where the scandal would come in if you told. You
see, poor children can go round squalling carols to their hearts' content
for pennies, but children like us who want pennies just as much haven't
any way of getting them. We mayn't carry hand-bags, or open
carriage-doors, or turn cart-wheels, or--or do anything to earn a living.
It's hard luck, you know."

"Beastly shame!" said Piers.

Sir Beverley scowled at him. "You needn't stick your oar in. Go and
shut the window, do you hear? Now, child, let's have the truth, so far
as any female is capable of speaking it! You've come here for pennies,
you say. Don't you know that's a form of begging? And begging is
breaking the law."

"I often do that," said Grade, quite undismayed. "So would you, if you
were me. I expect you did too when you were young."

"I!" Sir Beverley uttered a harsh laugh, and released the child's hand.
"So you break the law, do you?" he said. "How often?"

Gracie's laugh followed his like a silvery echo. "I shan't tell you 'cos
you're a magistrate. But we weren't really begging, Pat and I. At least
it wasn't for ourselves."

"Oh, of course not!" said Sir Beverley.

She looked at him with her clear eyes, unconscious of irony. "No. We
wanted to buy a pair of gloves for someone for Christmas. And nice
gloves cost such a lot, don't they? And we hadn't got more than
tenpence-halfpenny among us. So I said I'd think of a plan to get more.
And--that was the plan," ended Grade, with