in turn, noticing for the first time how
very much alike were the small, snub-nosed, freckled faces of the dirty
duet.

"Yes."

"What are your names?"

"Lewie and Loie."

"Lewie and Loie what?"

"That's all."

"Oh, but you must have another name."

"That's all," they stubbornly insisted.

"Where do you live?"

"Nowhere."

"Haven't you any mamma?"

"She's gone."

"But who takes care of you?"

"Nobody," gulped the one called Loie.

"Mittie did, but she runned away and lef' us," added Lewie.

"Where are you going now?"

"To fin' mamma."

"But you said she was dead."

"She just goned away and lef' us, too," murmured Loie, looking very much
puzzled.

Peace was delighted. Years and years ago, when her grandfather was a
boy, he had adopted a little, homeless orphan and kept him from being
taken to the poor-farm. Here were two waifs needing love and care. Who
had a better right to adopt them than she who had found them? Grandpa
Campbell surely would not turn them away, for did he not know what it
was to be homeless and friendless? But she could not take them home
while Allee was in bed with scarlet fever, and perhaps the Strongs would
not feel that they could open the parsonage doors to two more children,
seeing that the house was so very tiny. What could she do with her
charges?

There was a rush of feet on the walk behind her, someone gave her a
violent push, and she sprawled full length in the gutter. Surprised,
drenched to the skin and dazed by her fall, she staggered to her feet
only to be knocked down the second time, while a jeering, mocking voice
from the sidewalk taunted, "You're a pretty sight now, you nigger-wool
kidnapper! Get up and take another dose! I'll teach you to steal
children!"

Blind with rage and half choked with mud, Peace shook the water from her
eyes and flew at her assailant with vengeance in her heart, pounding
right and left with relentless fists wherever she could hit. But the
enemy was a larger and stronger child, and it would have gone hard with
the brown-eyed maid had not the minister himself arrived unexpectedly
upon the scene and separated the two young pugilists, demanding in
shocked tones, "Why, Peace, what does this mean? I thought you were
above fighting."

"She hit me first!" sputtered Peace, trying to wipe the blood from a
long scratch on her cheek.

"She stole my kids!"

"They are orphans, Saint John, and I was going to adopt them like my
grandfathe