Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/62

 young lady of much forethought. So she decided to forgive the new baker's son.

Lonely himself grew tired of the silence and the quietness. He glanced furtively up the street after the little girl with the yellow braids. She was returning now, with slow and measured tread, her hands crossed before her, her head bowed with grief She paid no attention to Lonely, as she passed solemnly by.

"What are y' playin'?" asked the New Boy, tentatively.

"Widow," answered the girl with the yellow braids.

"Widow—what 's that?"

"My husband just died; I 'm in mournin' for him!" she explained sadly, with a bit of a lisp as she spoke.

"H'h!" scoffed Lonely; "how can you be in mournin', in a red dress?"

Here was a stickler, indeed. But the young widow was resourceful.

"Oh, well, my husband died o' scarlet fever!" she said, triumphantly. Then she climbed up on the footboard and leaned in over the fence. There she stood and gazed at Plato with well-meant but unfortunate solicitude.