, absently. "And quite
new I am sure."

Agnes demanded again where the smallest Corner House girl had seen the
name, 'Nosmo' painted. "Why!" she exclaimed, "it says 'king'--that's
what is painted on that door, children."

"Oh, but, Sister!" exclaimed Tess. "_That_ is the other half of the big
door. They've shut the half that was open when we rode along before and
opened the other one." But Agnes was not listening to this explanation.
She had turned back to Ruth and Cecile.

Dot was eagerly repeating something over and over to herself. Tess
turned to demand what it was.

"Oh, Tessie!" the smallest Corner House girl cried, "that sounds
b-e-a-u-ti-ful!"

"What does?" demanded her sister.

"I've just the nicest middle name for this sailor-baby," and she hugged
her new possession again.

"What is it?" asked the interested Tess.

"Nosmo King Kenway. Isn't that nice?" eagerly cried the little girl.
"It's--it's so 'ristocratic. Don't you think so, Tess?"

Tess repeated the full name, too. It did sound rather nice. The oftener
you said it the better it sounded. And--yet--there was something a wee
bit peculiar about it. But Tess was too kind-hearted to suggest anything
wrong with the name, as long as Dot liked it so much. And she had found
it all her very own self!

"I wonder what Sammy will say to _that_," murmured Dot placidly. "I
guess he'll think it is a nice name, won't he?"

"Well, if he doesn't it won't make any difference," Tess said loftily.

Just at that time, however, (though quite unsuspected by the Corner
House girls) Sammy Pinkney had his mind quite filled with other and more
important matters.

Since his long illness in the spring Sammy had remained something of a
stranger to his oldtime boy friends. Of course, as soon as he got into
school again and associated with the boys of his own class once more, he
would get back into the "gang" as he called it. He was not a boy to be
gibed because he played with girls so much.

However, habit brought him to the side gate of the Corner House on this
afternoon, whether the little girls were at home or not. He was so often
in and out of the house that neither Mrs. MacCall nor Linda paid much
attention to him; for although Sammy Pinkney was as "full of mischief as
a chestnut is of meat" (to quote Mrs. MacCall) he never touched anything
about the house that was not his, nor wandered into the rooms upstairs,
save the one from the window of which the aerial tramw