“That’s whom I am going to be.  That’s whom I am now—­or just as soon as I change clothes with some unfortunate.  It’s in a book.  ’Ben Blunt, the Newsboy; or, From Rags to Riches.’  He run off because his cruel stepmother beat him black and blue, and he become a mere street urchin, though his father, Mr. Blunt, was a gentleman in good circumstances; and while he was a mere street urchin he sold papers and blacked boots, and he was an honest, manly lad and become adopted by a kind, rich old gentleman named Mr. Pettigrew, that he saved from a gang of rowdies that boded him no good, and was taken to his palatial mansion and given a kind home and a new suit of clothes and a good Christian education, and that’s how he got from rags to riches.  And I’m going to be it; I’m going to be a mere street urchin and do everything he did.”

“Ho!” The Wilbur twin was brutal.  “You’re nothing but a girl!”

The runaway flashed him a hostile glance.

“Don’t be silly!  What difference does it make?  Haven’t I a cruel stepmother that is constantly making scenes if I do the least little thing, especially since Miss Murtree went home because her mother has typhoid in Buffalo.  You wait till I get the right clothes.”

“Does she beat you something awful?” demanded the Merle twin unctuously.

The victim hesitated.

“Well, you might call it that.”

“What kind of right clothes?” asked his brother.

“Boy’s clothes; filthy rags of boy’s clothes—­like yours,” she concluded.  Her appraising glance rested on the garments of the questioning twin.  Both became conscious of their mean attire, and squirmed uneasily.

“These are just everyday clothes,” muttered the Wilbur twin.

“We have fine new Sunday suits at home,” boasted Merle.  “Too fine to wear every day.  If you saw those clothes once I guess you’d talk different.  Shoes and stockings, too.”

The girl effaced his grandeur with a shrug.

“That’s nothing—­everyone has mere Sunday clothes.”

“Is Miss Murtree that old lady that brings you to the Sunday-school?” demanded Wilbur.

“Yes; she’s my governess, and had to go to her dying mother, and I hope she gets a cruel stepmother that will be harsh to her childish sports, like that Mrs. Blunt was.  But she isn’t old.  It’s her beard makes her look so mature.”

“Aw!” cried both twins, denoting incredulity.

“She has, too, a beard!  A little moustache and some growing on her chin.  When I first got ‘Ben Blunt, or from Rags to Riches,’ out of the Sunday-school library I asked her how she made it grow, because I wanted one to grow on me, but she made a scene and never did tell me.  I wish it would come out on me that way.”  She ran questing fingers along her brief upper lip and round her pointed chin.  “But prob’ly I ain’t old enough.”

“You’re only a girl,” declared the Wilbur twin, “and you won’t ever have a beard, and you couldn’t be Ben Blunt.”