lt with parts of
speech.

So thoroughly were they absorbed in their task that they did not hear
sundry noises outside the window. The window was open, for the night was
warm as well as bright; indeed, the upper half of it was pushed entirely
down, so that it was like a double half-door of glass. Outside this
window was the black skeleton of the fire-escape; and if the two girls
had been on the alert, they might have heard various unobtrusive sounds
from this direction. As it was, they both started violently when a clear
voice addressed them in quiet and thoughtful tones.

"Peace to this dwelling!" said the voice.

Peggy looked up hastily. There, leaning on the window-sash, as calm and
composed as she had been at the top of the rope, was the stranger with
the melancholy eyes and the Madonna braids.

"Peace!" she repeated. "Piece of pie! have some!" She held out a large
segment of pie, and added, "Any admittance for the Goat?"

Peggy was still too startled to find breath to answer, but Bertha sprang
up, crying, "Grace! how could you frighten us so?"

"Not Grace!" said the stranger, with an unmoved countenance. "Goat! let
us not deceive the Innocent! A scapegrace is one thing, a scapegoat is
another, and from some points a preferable one. But the Innocent is
abroad, I perceive. Innocent, I am the Scapegoat. Is there admittance?"

"Oh!" gasped Peggy, blushing and faltering. "Oh, please come in! I--I
didn't know you were waiting for me to-- Sha'n't I open it from the
bottom?"

"If you will take the pie," said the stranger, gravely; "thank you; that
is your piece, this is mine,--already bitten, or I would offer it to the
Fluffy."

Relieved of two large pieces of pie, she laid one hand on the sash, and
vaulted lightly over; then she shook hands solemnly with Peggy, took her
own piece of pie, and, seating herself on the floor, proceeded to eat it
daintily.

"It is a good pie!" she said. "If not afraid of pollution, Fluffy, a
bite?"

Bertha was looking half amused, half angry. "Grace, how can you act so?"
she said.

"How?" said Grace. "My sweet child, it is as easy as breathing. I will
give instruction at any time, without charge."

"I thought you were doing double lessons," Bertha went on, "and being as
good as gold. Grace, you can be so good!"

"Can't I!" said Grace; her tone was one of admiring gravity; her blue
eyes kept their look of pensive sadness.

"And it's a thing I admire, goodness!" she went on, s