It was a mild day in March when the spring seemed quite near, although snow and frost might still be expected. At the station a carriage met them, and they were driven about half a mile to where a low, old-fashioned house stood. Two great cedar trees stood, one on each side the walk which led up to the house, and which was bordered by a box hedge so high that Edna could not see over it. A little girl, a trifle younger than Edna, came dancing down to meet them. She had yellow curly hair and big blue eyes. Edna thought her very pretty and was ready at once to make friends with her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOROTHY.]

"Take Edna up to your room, Dorothy," said Miss Agnes. "You are to be roommates, you know. Show her your dolls, and make her at home," and Edna followed her new acquaintance up the broad staircase, feeling that this was much more like being at home.

"She is a dear little child," Agnes said to her mother, "and I am sure is often homesick, and longs for her own little playmates."

"You must bring her out often," replied motherly Mrs. Evans. "I can imagine how glad I should be to have some one take a little notice of Dorothy if she were away from home."

"How long are you going to stay?" asked Dorothy, not meaning to be rude, but like most children, wanting to crowd all she could into the time.

"Till Monday evening," answered Edna. But it was not on the next Monday nor the one following that which found Edna back again in the city.

Chapter X

MORE SURPRISES.

"To-morrow," said Dorothy, "we will have a good time. We can play the whole day long."

"That will be so nice," returned Edna, with a little sigh of content; "I just love to play with dolls--don't you? I believe if I had a hundred dolls I should love every one."

"I don't know about a hundred dolls," replied Dorothy; "but I know I could love twenty-five. I am going to hunt up all I have--broken ones and all. We'll get Agnes to help us mend them; then to-morrow we can divide them, and you can have half while you are here," said the little girl, generously.

So a delightful morning it was--choosing dolls, dressing them, playing party, and all done in such a merry humor that Mrs. Evans and Agnes, sitting in the room opposite the nursery, often smiled to hear peals of laughter.

"Those children are having a good time," remarked Mrs. Evans; "there has been nothing but peace between them."

"I thought they would suit one another," returned Agnes.

"I think I shall send them over to Mrs. MacDonald's this afternoon,"

Mrs. Evans went on. "Edna will like the walk, and I promised to let Mrs. MacDonald know about some flower bulbs."

Therefore, after an early dinner, the two little girls set out to take a walk over the country road to this neighbor's.

Mrs. MacDonald was a widow, who lived all alone in a big house, substantially built of gray stone. She had once been a dressmaker, had married when no longer young a man of wealth, who died a few years after their marriage, leaving her very well off. She had no children, was a little peculiar, but a thoroughly good woman, and a neighbor whom Mrs. Evans much esteemed. She was very fond of Dorothy, and met the little girls very cordially.

"Bless my little Goldilocks," she said, in greeting; "and who is this?"

"This is Edna Conway," Dorothy informed her. "She is making me a visit. O, Mrs. MacDonald, may I show her the greenhouse?"

"To be sure you may; but you must be hungry after your long walk. Go ask Lizzie to get you some doughnuts. You know where to find her."

Edna did not know whether or not to follow her friend, but thought it would be more polite to sit with her hostess. Mrs. MacDonald had nothing to say for a while, and Edna was puzzling her brain as to what suitable remark she could make, when Mrs. MacDonald surprised her by saying:

"How should you like to come here and be my little girl?"

This was a difficult question to answer, but Edna got through bravely by saying, "If I didn't have any mamma and papa of my own I should like it very much, 'cause it is very pretty here, and I'd like to be near Dorothy, and--" she added, timidly, "you look like a very good lady." She would like to have said, "You are a very pretty lady," but Mrs. MacDonald was not handsome.

A hearty laugh was the little girl's reply.

"Well, dear," was then made answer, "I'll not rob your father and mother of such a bonny little la.s.s, if it is too big a place for one lonely old woman to have to herself."

"Are you lonely?" asked Edna, with much sympathy in her tones. She jumped down from her chair and came closer. A bright idea had occurred to her. "I know a little girl that wants very much to be 'dopted," she said, earnestly.

"You do? Tell me about her."

So Edna began a story which Dorothy's reappearance did not interrupt, so interested were both herself and her listener.

"You see," said Edna, in conclusion, folding her little, warm hands very closely, as was her fashion when much interested. "You see, Maggie doesn't have a chance to be 'dopted like the littler girls, 'cause people like the baby ones best, though if I were a grown-up lady like you I'd 'dopt Maggie," she concluded.

At this moment Lizzie made her appearance with the plate of doughnuts.

She was a middle-aged woman, with rather a sad face, though a kindly one.

"What is Maggie's last name?" asked Mrs. MacDonald.

"Her name is Maggie Horn."

Lizzie, putting down the plate, turned with a look of surprise to Edna. "What Maggie Horn?" she asked. "What about her?"

"Why, do you know my Maggie?" asked Edna.

"I know a Maggie Horn," and she turned to Mrs. MacDonald. "Excuse me, ma'am, but my breath was quite taken away by hearing the young lady speak of a Maggie Horn."

"That is all right, Lizzie. Perhaps you can tell us something of the little girl who has been treated unkindly," said Mrs. MacDonald. "I am interested in Edna's story of her."

"Well, ma'am, the little child that I used to know was left quite alone by a poor lady who died in the house where I lodged. She had been quite well to-do in her day--a milliner, ma'am, and a good one, I take it--but she married a bad man, who went through with her bit of a fortune and then went on, leaving her with this one child. The trouble, and all, ma'am, wore on her, and with weak lungs, she grew worse and worse, poorer and poorer, though always proud, ma'am, and most a respectable lady, with a good education. She died when the little one was three years old, and left the child with me. But, as you know, ma'am, I had my own troubles; and when a family by the name of Hawkins moved into the street, as wanted a bit of a girl to give an eye to the baby, I thought it was a chance for Maggie to begin to make her living. Indeed, ma'am, I didn't mean to turn her off to be ill-treated, but I thought it was none too soon for her to begin to look out for herself. She was eight years old."

"Why, you must be Mrs. Ryan," exclaimed Edna, putting this and that together, "and you were good to Maggie. She was, Maggie told me so,"

she continued, turning to Mrs. MacDonald.

"It was a sorry day I parted from her," said Lizzie: "but, ma'am, I had my own flesh and blood to look after, and my husband's funeral and doctor's bills to stand, and so--I did my best."

"You meant to do right, I have no doubt," said Mrs. MacDonald. "It was an error of judgment. Now, when the children have finished their doughnuts, I want you to tell John to show them the greenhouses."

Lizzie led the way, asking many questions about Maggie, and expressing her thankfulness that she was freed from an unhappy life.

The greenhouses were a delight to Edna. She was specially pleased to see ripe strawberries this early in the year, and gave the gardener a beaming smile when he told her to pick one for herself.

"I am going to carry it home to Miss Agnes," she declared.

"And I'll take mine to mamma," determined Dorothy, who had been allowed the same privilege.

Mrs. MacDonald had ordered the gardener to give them each a little bunch of violets, so they said their good-byes, much pleased with the visit.