teps, shelling peas,
when Janet passed the gate.

"Aren't you coming in?" Rosie called out.

At first Janet was not, but on Rosie's second invitation she changed her
mind. As she reached the steps, Rosie discovered the reason of her
hesitation. She had a black eye. She carried it consciously, but with
such dignity, as it were, that Rosie could not at once decide whether
Janet expected her to speak of it, or to accept it without comment.

Janet herself, after an introductory remark about the weather, broached
the subject.

"What do you think about the eye I've got on me? Ain't it a beaut?"

It certainly was, and Rosie expressed emphatic appreciation.

"And how do you suppose I got it?" Janet pursued.

"I couldn't guess if I had to!"

Rosie's answer was tactful, rather than truthful. In her own mind she
had very little doubt whence the black eye had come. But it would never
do to say that she supposed it had been given Janet by her father during
one of the drunken rages to which he was subject. With one's dearest
friend one may be frank almost to brutality, but not on the subject of
that friend's family. There are reserves that even friendship may not
penetrate. So, with an exaggeration of guilelessness, Rosie declared:

"I couldn't guess if I had to! Honest I couldn't!"

Janet had her story ready:

"You know how dark the halls in our building are. Well, I was just going
downstairs, when a boy sneaked up behind me, and pushed me, and I
slipped, and hit my face against the banister. And I think I know who it
was, too!"

Rosie was by nature too simple and direct to simulate with any great
success the kind of surprise that Janet was forever demanding of her.
Fortunately this time it did not matter, for, while Janet was speaking,
Rosie's mother had appeared with an armful of darning. Unlike Rosie,
Mrs. O'Brien was always in a state of what might be termed chronic
surprise. She paused now before seating herself, to remark in shocked
tones:

"Why, Janet McFadden, what's this ye're tellin'? Mercy on us, ain't b'ys
just awful sometimes! But I'm thinkin' your da'll soon settle that lad!"

Janet shook her head violently.

"Mrs. O'Brien, I wouldn't dare tell my father that boy's name for
anything! My father'd just murder him--honest he would! It just makes my
father crazy when anybody touches me! He ain't responsible, he gets so
mad--really he ain't! So you can see yourself I got to be mighty careful
what I tell h