tty, and hung far below her waist, tied at the end with two bows of
scarlet ribbon.

The girl glanced up as Lloyd passed, and although there was a cool stare
in her queer black eyes, Lloyd found herself greatly interested. She
wanted to make the stranger's acquaintance, and passed back and forth
several times, to steal another side glance at her. As she turned for the
third time to retrace her steps, she was nearly knocked off her feet by
two noisy boys, who bumped against her. They were playing horse, to the
annoyance of all the passengers on deck, stepping on people's toes,
knocking over chairs, and stumbling against the stewards who were hurrying
along with their heavy trays of beef tea and lemonade.

Lloyd had seen the boys several times before. They were little fellows of
six and nine, with unusually thin legs and shrill voices, and were always
eating.

Every time a deck steward passed, they grabbed a share of whatever he
carried. They seemed to have discovered some secret passage to the ship's
supplies. Their blouses were pouched out all around with the store of
gingersnaps, nuts, and apples which they had managed to stow away as a
reserve fund. Lloyd had seen the larger boy draw out six bananas, one
after another, from his blouse, and then squirm and wriggle and almost
stand on his head to reach the seventh, which had slipped around to his
back while he was eating the others. They were munching raisins now, as
they ran.

After their collision with Lloyd they stopped running, and suddenly began
calling, "Here, Fido! Here, Fido!" Lloyd looked around eagerly, expecting
to see some pet dog, and wishing that she had one of the many pet animals
left behind at Locust, to amuse her now. But no dog was in sight. The girl
in the scarlet jacket turned around with an angry scowl.

"Stop calling me that, Howl Sattawhite!" she exclaimed, crossly. "I'll
tell mamma. You know what she said she'd do to you if you called me
anything but Fidelia."

"And you know what she said she'd do to you if you kept calling me Howl,"
shouted the larger of the boys, making a saucy face and darting forward to
give one of her long plaits of hair a sudden pull.

Quick as a flash, Fidelia turned, and catching him by the wrists, twisted
them till he began to whimper with pain, and tried to set his teeth in her
hand.

"You _dare_ bite me, you little beast!" she cried. "You just dare, and
I'll tell mamma how you spit at the waiter the morning w