The side gate clicked. Feet scurried across the lawn, and under her as she glanced downward, Agnes saw a slim, white-faced youth appear. He had white hair, too; he was a regular tow-head. He was dressed in a shiny black suit that was at least two full sizes too small for him. The trousers hitched above his shoe-tops and the sleeves of his jacket were so short that they displayed at least four inches of wrist.

Agnes took in these points on the instant—before she could say another word. The boy was a stranger to her; she had never seen him before.

But he went to work just as though he had been introduced! He flung off his cap and stripped off the jacket, too, in a twinkling. It seemed to Agnes as though he climbed up the tree and reached the limb she clung to as quickly as any cat.

He flung up his legs, wound them about the butt of the limb like two black snakes, and seized Agnes' wrists. "Swing free—I've got you!" he commanded.

Agnes actually obeyed. There was something impelling in his voice; but likewise she felt that there was sufficient strength in those hands that grasped her wrists, to hold her.

Her feet slipped from the ledge and she shot down. The white-haired boy swung out, too, but they did not fall as Agnes agonizingly expected, after she had trusted herself to the unknown.

There was some little shock, but not much; their bodies swung clear of the tree—he with his head down, and she with her slippered feet almost touching the wet grass.

"All right?" demanded the white-head. "Let go!"

He dropped her. She stood upright, and unhurt, but swayed a little, weakly. The next instant he was down and stood, breathing quickly, before her.

"Why—why—why!" gasped Agnes. Just like that! "Why, you did that just like a circus."

Oddly enough the white-haired boy scowled and a dusky color came slowly into his naturally pale cheek.

"What do you say that for?" he asked, dropping his gaze, and picking up his cap and jacket. "What do you mean—circus?"

"Why," said Agnes, breathlessly, "just like one of those acrobats that fly over the heads of the people, and do all those curious things in the air——Why! you know."

"How do I know?" demanded the boy, quite fiercely.

It became impressed upon Agnes' mind that the stranger was angry. She did not know why, and she only felt gratitude—and curiosity—toward him.

"Didn't you ever go to a circus?" she asked, slowly.

The boy hesitated. Then he said, bluntly: "No!" and Agnes knew it was the truth, for he looked now unwaveringly into her eyes.

"My! you've missed a lot," she breathed. "So did we till this summer. Then Mr. Howbridge took us to one of those that came to Milton."

"What circus was it you went to?" the boy asked, quickly.

"Aaron Wall's Magnificent Double Show," repeated Agnes, carefully. "There was another came—Twomley & Sorter's Herculean Circus and Menagerie; but we didn't see that one."

The boy listened as though he considered the answer of some importance. At the end he sighed. "No; I never went to a circus," he repeated.

"But you're just wonderful," Agnes declared. "I never saw a boy like you."

"And I never saw a girl like you," returned the white-haired boy, and his quick grin made him look suddenly friendly. "What did you crawl out of that window for?"

"To get a peach."

"Did you get it?"

"No. It was just out of reach, after all. And then I leaned too far."

The boy was looking up quizzically at the high-hung fruit. "If you want it awfully bad?" he suggested.

"There's more than one," said Agnes, giggling. "And you're welcome to all you can pick."

"Do you mean it?" he shot in, at once casting cap and jacket on the ground again.

"Yes. Help yourself. Only toss me down one."

"This isn't a joke, now?" the boy asked. "You've got a right to tell me to take 'em?"

"Oh, mercy! Yes!" ejaculated Agnes. "Do you think I'd tell a story?"

"I don't know," he said, bluntly.

"Well! I like that!" cried Agnes, with some vexation.

"I don't know you and you don't know me," said the boy. "Everybody that I meet doesn't tell me the truth. So now!"

"Do you always tell the truth?" demanded Agnes, shrewdly.

Again the boy flushed, but there was roguishness in his brown eyes. "I don't dare tell it—sometimes," he said.

"Well, there's nobody to scare me into story-telling," said Agnes, loftily, deciding that she did not like this boy so well, after all.

"Oh, I'll risk it—for the peaches," said the white-haired boy, coming back to the—to him—principal subject of discussion, and immediately he climbed up the tree.

Agnes gasped again. "My goodness!" she thought. "I know Sandyface couldn't go up that tree any quicker—not even with Sam Pinkney's bulldog after her."

He was a slim boy and the limbs scarcely bent under his weight—not even when he was in the top of the tree. He seemed to know just how to balance himself, while standing there, and fearlessly used both hands to pick the remaining fruit.

Two of the biggest, handsomest peaches he dropped, one after the other, into the lap of Agnes' thick bath-gown as she held it up before her. The remainder of the fruit he bestowed about his own person, dropping it through the neck of his shirt until the peaches quite swelled out its fullness all about his waist. His trousers were held in place by a stout strap, instead of by suspenders.

He came down from the tree as easily as he had climbed it—and with the peaches intact.

"They must have a fine gymnasium at the school where you go," said Agnes, admiringly.

"I never went to school," said the boy, and blushed again.

Agnes was very curious. She had already established herself on the porch step, wrapped the robe closely around her, shook her two plaits back over her shoulders, and now sunk her teeth into the first peach. With her other hand she beckoned the white-haired boy to sit down beside her.

"Come and eat them," she said. "Breakfast won't be ready for ever and ever so long yet."

The boy removed the peaches he had picked, and made a little pyramid of them on the step. Then he put on his jacket and cap before he accepted her invitation. Meanwhile Agnes was eating the peach and contemplating him gravely.

She had to admit, now that she more closely inspected them, that the white-haired boy's garments were extremely shabby. Jacket and trousers were too small for him, as she had previously observed. His shirt was faded, very clean, and the elbows were patched. His shoes were broken, but polished brightly.

When he bit into the first peach his eye brightened and he ate the fruit greedily. Agnes believed he must be very hungry, and for once the next-to-the-oldest Kenway girl showed some tact.

"Will you stay to breakfast with us?" she asked. "Mrs. MacCall always gets up at six o'clock. And Ruth will want to see you, too. Ruth's the oldest of us Kenways."

"Is this a boarding-house?" asked the boy, seriously.

"Oh, no!"

"It's big enough."

"I 'spect it is," said Agnes. "There are lots of rooms we never use."

"Could—could a feller get to stay here?" queried the white-haired boy.

"Oh! I don't know," gasped Agnes. "You—you'd have to ask Ruth. And Mr. Howbridge, perhaps."

"Who's he?" asked the boy, suspiciously.

"Our lawyer."

"Does he live here?"

"Oh, no. There isn't any man here but Uncle Rufus. He's a colored man who lived with Uncle Peter who used to own this house. Uncle Peter gave it to us Kenway girls when he died."

"Oh! then you own it?" asked the boy.

"Mr. Howbridge is the executor of the estate; but we four Kenway girls—and Aunt Sarah—have the income from it. And we came to live in this old Corner House almost as soon as Uncle Peter Stower died."

"Then you could take boarders if you wanted to?" demanded the white-haired boy,