GIVES THE LILAC LADY AN IDEA

The Home Missionary Society of the South Avenue Church was holding its
monthly meeting in the Campbell parlors, and Peace, feeling very forlorn
and left out, because grandma had suggested that she better join the
sisters in the barn playhouse, wandered down to the gate and stood
looking up the street in search of something to occupy her attention.
She was tired of playing games in the barn, she had read the latest St.
Nicholas from cover to cover, and the postman had not yet brought the
Youth's Companion, although this was the regular day for it. Anyway, she
didn't care to read. She would rather stay and listen to what the women
in the house were talking about, but if grandma did not want her, she
certainly should not bother them with her presence. Likely the meeting
would be very dry; it usually was when Mrs. Roberts stayed away, and she
had not put in appearance yet.

Grandma had half promised that she might visit the Lilac Lady that
afternoon, but for some reason had changed her mind and put off the
visit until the morrow. Ho, hum! What was a small girl to do to amuse
herself this warm day, when she had already done everything she could
think of, and had been forbidden to go where she most wanted to go?

Slowly she unlatched the gate and strolled down the avenue, swinging her
white sunbonnet by one string, and whistling plaintively under her
breath. The wide street, shaded by immense oaks and maples, felt
deliciously cool and restful, but it was also very quiet, and Peace had
wandered several blocks without meeting a soul, when without warning she
stumbled over two mites of tots, almost hidden in the rank grass and
weeds in front of a ragged-looking unkempt little cabin of a house,
which in its better days had evidently been used for a barn. The
children were as much surprised as Peace, and after one frightened
glance at the intruder, they both buried their heads in their patched
aprons and cowered still lower among the weeds. But from the fleeting
glimpse Peace had caught of the little faces, she knew they had been
crying, and her first thought was, "They are lost."

Impulsively she kneeled on the walk beside them and coaxingly asked,
"What is the trouble, little girls? Have you run away?"

"No, we ain't!" retorted the older child, lifting a streaked,
tear-stained face to eye her questioner indignantly. "We ain't girls,
either! I am, but he ain't!"

"Oh," murmured Peace, much ab