you."

Sara started, and all at once realized that she looked exactly like
poor children she had seen, in her better days, waiting on the pavement
to watch her as she got out of her brougham. And she had given them
pennies many a time. Her face went red and then it went pale, and for
a second she felt as if she could not take the dear little sixpence.

"Oh, no!" she said. "Oh, no, thank you; I mustn't take it, indeed!"

Her voice was so unlike an ordinary street child's voice and her manner
was so like the manner of a well-bred little person that Veronica
Eustacia (whose real name was Janet) and Rosalind Gladys (who was
really called Nora) leaned forward to listen.

But Guy Clarence was not to be thwarted in his benevolence. He thrust
the sixpence into her hand.

"Yes, you must take it, poor little girl!" he insisted stoutly. "You
can buy things to eat with it. It is a whole sixpence!"

There was something so honest and kind in his face, and he looked so
likely to be heartbrokenly disappointed if she did not take it, that
Sara knew she must not refuse him. To be as proud as that would be a
cruel thing. So she actually put her pride in her pocket, though it
must be admitted her cheeks burned.

"Thank you," she said. "You are a kind, kind little darling thing."
And as he scrambled joyfully into the carriage she went away, trying to
smile, though she caught her breath quickly and her eyes were shining
through a mist. She had known that she looked odd and shabby, but
until now she had not known that she might be taken for a beggar.

As the Large Family's carriage drove away, the children inside it were
talking with interested excitement.

"Oh, Donald," (this was Guy Clarence's name), Janet exclaimed
alarmedly, "why did you offer that little girl your sixpence? I'm sure
she is not a beggar!"

"She didn't speak like a beggar!" cried Nora. "And her face didn't
really look like a beggar's face!"

"Besides, she didn't beg," said Janet. "I was so afraid she might be
angry with you. You know, it makes people angry to be taken for
beggars when they are not beggars."

"She wasn't angry," said Donald, a trifle dismayed, but still firm.
"She laughed a little, and she said I was a kind, kind little darling
thing. And I was!"--stoutly. "It was my whole sixpence."

Janet and Nora exchanged glances.

"A beggar girl would never have said that," decided Janet. "She would
have said, 'Thank yer kindly, little ge