"Well, I've got to go. Say, don't you call no one, nor tell no one, till
I've had time to shake my feet down street." She thrust out one flapping
shoe, then the other, gave a scornful laugh, and brushed her hand across
the sharp eyes. "Promise now, black and blue, 'I promise true, hope to die
if I do'. Hurry up! Do you promise?" she cried sharply.

"Yes," said Phronsie, hugging Clorinda tightly.

"All right. Now for Gran!" She shut her teeth tightly and was off and
through the big gateway.

"I've got my child," said Phronsie, putting up a sleepy hand to pat
Clorinda's head, but it fell to her side, while her yellow hair slipped
closer over her flushed cheek. She tried to say, "Clorinda, we've got home,
and my foots are tired," swayed, held her child tighter to her bosom, and
over she went in a heap, fast asleep before her head touched the soft
grass.

Polly Pepper, hurrying home from Alexia's, ran in by the gateway, and down
by a short cut over the grass, her feet keeping time to a merry air that
had possessed her all the afternoon. "How fine," she cried to herself, "our
garden party will be!--and we've gotten on splendidly with our fancy things
this afternoon. It will be too perfectly elegant for--" the flying feet
came to a standstill that nearly threw her over the sleeping figure, the
doll tightly pressed to the dirty little pinafore and the flushed cheeks.

"Oh, my goodness me!" cried Polly, down on her knees. "Why, Phronsie, just
look at your pinafore!" But Phronsie had no idea of looking at anything,
and still slept on.