Part 25 (2/2)

”M-mm. Well?”

”We ought to hunt up those Gypsies--'Beeg Jeem' and his crowd--and get their side of the story,” declared Neale.

”No! I will not!” cried Agnes. ”I have met all the Gypsies I ever want to meet.”

But within the hour she met another. She was in the kitchen, and Linda and Mrs. McCall were both in the front of the house, cleaning. There came a timid-sounding rap on the door. Agnes unthinkingly threw it open.

A slender girl stood there--a girl younger than Agnes herself. This stranger was very ragged, not at all clean looking, and very brown.

She had flas.h.i.+ng white teeth and flas.h.i.+ng black eyes.

Agnes actually started back when she saw her and suppressed a scream.

For she instantly knew the stranger was one of the Gypsy tribe. That she seemed to be alone was the only thing that kept Agnes from slamming the door again right in the girl's face.

”Will the kind lady give me something to eat?” whined the beggar. ”I am hungry. I eat nothing all the day.”

Agnes was doubtful of the truth of this. The dark girl did not look ill-fed. But she had an appearance of need just the same; and it was a rule of the Corner House household never to turn a hungry person away.

”Stay there on the mat,” Agnes finally said. ”Don't come in. I will see what I can find for you.”

”Yes, Ma'am,” said the girl.

”Haven't you had any breakfast?” asked Agnes, moving toward the pantry, and her sympathies becoming excited.

”No, Ma'am. And no supper last night. n.o.body give me nothing.”

”Well,” said Agnes, with more warmth, expanding to this tale of woe, as was natural, ”I will see what I can find.”

She found a plate heaped with bread and meat and a wedge of cake, which she brought to the screen door. The girl had stood there motionless, only her black eyes roved about the kitchen and seemed to mark everything in it.

”Sit down there on the steps and eat it,” said Agnes, pa.s.sing the plate through a narrow opening, as she might have handed food into the cage of an animal at a menagerie. She really was half afraid of the girl just because she looked so much like a Gypsy.

The stranger ate as though she was quite as ravenously hungry as she had claimed to be. There could be no doubt that the food disappeared with remarkable celerity. She sat for a moment or two after she had eaten the last crumb with the plate in her lap. Then she rose and brought it timidly to the door.

”Did you have enough?” asked Agnes, feeling less afraid now.

”Oh, yes, Lady! It was so nice,” and the girl flashed her teeth in a beaming smile. She was quite a pretty girl--if she had only been clean and decently dressed.

She handed the plate to Agnes, and then turned and ran out of the yard and down the street as fast as she could run. Agnes stared after her in increased amazement. Why had she run away?

”If she is a Gypsy--Well, they are queer people, that is sure. Oh! What is this?”

Her fingers had found something on the under side of the plate. She turned it up and saw a soiled piece of paper sticking there. Agnes, wondering, if no longer alarmed, drew the paper from the plate, turned it over, and saw that some words were scrawled in blue pencil on the paper.

”Goodness me! More mysteries!” gasped the Corner House girl.

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