kiss for mother," Peggy cried, and shot straight as an arrow into the arms of the lady who stood waiting on the steps. There was a long clasp and more kisses than one, and none of Peggy's friends thought the less of her for that loyal rush for the one who loved her best.

It was no wonder that Peggy Raymond's return was an event on Friendly Terrace. She was the sort of girl you could not see without wishing you knew her, and could not know without beginning to love her. From her reddish-brown top-knot down to the tips of her toes she was bubbling over with life and joyous energy. It was a nice world, Peggy thought, full of nice people. Every to-morrow was stored for her with wonderful possibilities, as the yesterdays were full of sweet recollections. Complaining, discontented people wakened in her the same sorrowful wonder she felt when she saw a blind man feeling his uncertain way along the street. Indeed, to Peggy discontent seemed another and more dreadful form of blindness.

"Come into the house, all of you." Peggy was making up for the brief delay by kissing everybody twice around. "Hasn't Dorothy grown, girls? Wouldn't you think she was more than four years old? What are you doing, Dorothy darling?"

"I'm wipin' off kisses," Dorothy replied with great distinctness, scrubbing violently at her rosebud of a mouth. "'Cause I don't like kisses to stick on, 'cept my mamma's."

"She says that because she's forgotten you since last year," Peggy explained excusingly.

"She'll be real friendly after a day or two. O Amy, dear, you mustn't try to lift that heavy suit-case. It weighs as much as you do."

"I'm afraid not. I've gained three pounds since you went away," Amy replied dolefully. "Next week I'm going to stop eating candy, and begin to walk ten miles a day."

Everybody laughed, for, when hearts are light, old jokes serve as well as new ones. They streamed into the house, a laden procession, and piled Peggy's belongings in the middle of the living-room. Then they pulled her down on the window-seat, chafing under the undeniable difficulty of evenly dividing one girl among three.

"I'm so glad to see you, I could just eat you up," Amy declared, seating herself on Peggy's knee, as each of the others had preempted a side. "And to think of your staying six weeks, when you said you'd only be gone a month."

"I hated to leave Alice," Peggy's face clouded for a moment, as she spoke her sister's name. "She isn't a bit well. You know we are going to keep Dorothy with us for a while. She's so full of life that she's a tax on her mother."

"I stood on a tacks once," observed Dorothy, suddenly becoming interested. "It sticked into me, and I hollered." She frowned meditatively as she added, "I don't like you to call me a tacks, either."

"It's another kind, darling. O girls, you don't know how good it seems to get back to the Terrace, where people know each other and are real neighbors. I don't see how Alice stands it."

"Is it so bad living in a very big city?" Priscilla asked, rather doubtfully. "I believe I'd love it. I like crowds and noise and something happening every moment."

Peggy shook her head with decision. "Just wait till I tell you. Alice lives in a flat, and there's only one woman in the building whom she'd know if she met her on the street. One morning while I was there we heard the greatest commotion in the flat just over ours. Somebody screamed, and then we could hear somebody else hurrying around right over our heads, and then there was the sound of dreadful crying. The windows were open, you know, and we heard everything as plainly as you hear me."

"Well, what had happened?" Amy demanded, as Peggy paused dramatically.

"That's what we couldn't imagine. I wanted to rush right up first thing, but Alice said people didn't do that way in big cities, and that she didn't know the woman at all, though she thought the name on the letter box was Flemming. Well, the crying kept up till I couldn't stand it any longer. I just walked upstairs and knocked, and when the girl came to the door, I said I lived on the next floor and I was afraid that somebody was in trouble and could I do anything to help.

"O girls!" Peggy's voice grew pensive at the remembrance of that sorrowful scene. "I never imagined anything so dreadful. The poor woman--her name was Fletcher instead of Flemming--had just had word that her little boy had been hurt by an automobile, and taken to a hospital. And she was so upset that she didn't know how to get ready to go to him, and the girl was so stupid that she didn't know how to help her. And I rushed around and found her hat and coat and put on her shoes for her--she was wearing slippers--and did everything, just as if I'd known her all my life. And then she wouldn't let me go, and I went along with her to the hospital. She told me afterward that she had only lived in the city a few years and hadn't made many friends. A few years!" repeated Peggy with fine scorn.

"Why, if anybody on this Terrace was in trouble, even if she hadn't lived here more than six weeks, we'd all be flocking in to see what we could do for her."

"Did the boy die?" asked Amy, missing the moral Peggy was trying to point, in her interest in the story.

"No, indeed. He wasn't hurt as badly as they thought at first. He was home again before I left, such a nice boy, not far from Dick's age. O here's Dick now."

Peggy's younger brother, Dick Raymond, coming in at that moment, said, "Hello, Peggy," in the most matter-of-fact manner imaginable and submitted with apparent resignation to his sister's kiss. But no one was deceived. Dick's admiration of Peggy was an open secret in Friendly Terrace. The boy was hot and perspiring. He had run all the way home from his music teacher's, so impatient was he for a glimpse of the dearest as well as the most remarkable girl in the world, as he firmly believed, and yet at the sight of her, he had only a "hello Peggy," and a shame-faced kiss. Luckily Peggy was not the sort of girl who needed to be told certain things. She understood without any explanation.

"Guess we're going to have some new neighbors," Dick observed, looking out of the window, apparently glad of an opportunity to change the topic of the conversation.

"Who? Where? The next house?" Peggy stood looking over her brother's shoulder, as two people came from the vacant cottage and moved toward the waiting hack. Her eyes dwelt approvingly on the slender figure of a black-gowned girl, carefully assisting the older lady into the carriage.

"Girls!" Peggy's voice fairly tinkled, as she made the pleasant announcement. "It looks as if we might be going to have another girl on the Terrace. Won't that be fine?"

The others exchanged dubious glances. "Always room for one more, I suppose," Priscilla said at last.

"And she looks like such a sweet girl, too," Peggy continued, as the shabby hack rumbled off. "She had such a nice way of helping her mother--that is, I suppose it's her mother."

Amy coughed in an embarrassed fashion, and Ruth said hastily, "We took her for you at first, Peggy. We were watching for your hack, you know, and hers came first."

"I imagine she must have thought us very cordial to strangers," Priscilla added,