"She's as good-hearted as she can be,
and she won't mind."

"But it's midnight," chattered Neale, beginning to feel the chill.

They hurried over the culvert and along the rough street. Far ahead
there was an arc light burning on the corner of Meadow Street. But not a
soul was astir in the neighborhood as the trio came nearer to the German
woman's grocery store, and the corner where Joe Maroni, the father of
Maria, had his vegetable and fruit stand.

The Italians were all abed in their miserable quarters below the street
level; but there was a lamp alight behind the shade of Mrs. Kranz's
sitting room. Agnes struggled ahead through the drifts and the falling
snow, and tapped at the window.

There were startled voices at once behind the blind. The window had a
number of iron bars before it and was supposed to be burglar-proof.
Agnes tapped again, and then the shade moved slightly.

"Go avay! Dere iss noddings for you here yedt!" exclaimed Mrs. Kranz,
threateningly. "Go avay, or I vill de berlice call."

They saw her silhouette on the blind. But there was another shadow, too,
and when this passed directly between the lamp and the window, the girls
saw that it was Maria Maroni. Maria often helped Mrs. Kranz about the
house, and sometimes remained with her all night.

"Oh, Maria! Maria Maroni!" shrieked Agnes, knocking on the pane again.
"Let us in--_do_!"

The Italian girl flew to the window and ran up the shade, despite the
expostulations of Mrs. Kranz, who believed that the party outside were
troublesome young folk of the neighborhood.

But when she knew who they were--and Maria identified them
immediately--the good lady lumbered to the side door of the store
herself, and opened it wide to welcome Ruth and Agnes, with their boy
friend.

"Coom in! Coom in by mine fire," she cried. "Ach! der poor kinder oudt
in dis vedder yedt. Idt iss your deaths mit cold you vould catch--no?"

Ruth explained to the big-hearted German widow how they came to be
struggling in the storm at such an hour.

"Undt dot boy iss vet? Ach! Ledt him his feet dake off qvick! Maria!
make de chocolate hot. Undt de poy--ach! I haf somedings py mine closet
in, for _him_."

She bustled away to reappear in a moment with a tiny glass of something
that almost strangled Neale when he drank it, but, as he had to admit,
"it warmed 'way down to the ends of his toes!"

"Oh, this is _fine_!" Agnes declared, ten minutes later, when she was
sipping h