t Flossie got a very twisted idea
of the affair.

Uncle Harry, not dreaming that the matter was at all serious, turned,
after greeting the children, to enter the house.

"Oh, Uncle Harry!" cried Flossie, "you ought to hear about it. There
were ever so many big boys, and only one little girl, and they tied her
so she couldn't get away, and Jack wrote a note, and when they found
her,--"

"Now, Flossie, dear, I'm perfectly willing to be scared half out of my
wits, but I _must_ know what I'm being scared about. You're getting me
so mixed up that I've not the least idea what this is all about. Have
you?" he asked.

"Oh, no," said Flossie, "I don't _half_ understand it, but it does sound
so frightful, that I'm so scared, I need to have you be scared, too."

"Well, then," Uncle Harry replied, "if it will help you to know it, I'll
admit that my teeth are chattering, and shivers are running up and down
my spine!

"I thought at first that it was the draft across this piazza, but
perhaps, after all, it was caused by what you were telling me."

When, at last, he had heard the story, he was full of disgust that any
boy, and his friends, should have been guilty of such a contemptible
act, and his sympathy for the little girl was deep and sincere.

"She will need rest and quiet to-morrow," he said, "and you three
little friends will be kind, I think, if you stay rather closely here,
and help, in some quiet way, to amuse her."

"We will," said Dorothy, "I'll let her read my new fairy book if she'd
like to. She could lie in the hammock, and do that."

"I'll keep the hammock swinging," said Nancy.

"And I'll give her my new box of candy I just brought home," said
Flossie.

"That's right," said Uncle Harry, "and for your sweet promises of
kindness toward the child who has suffered so much to-day I'll remind
you that on day after to-morrow I shall give myself the pleasure of
taking you all to the fair. I promise you a _fine_ time."

He turned to look over his shoulder, and laugh at their wild little
cries of delight.

He was anticipating the pleasure quite as much as they.

* * * * *

Dorothy, Nancy, and Flossie kept the promise that they had made, and
Floretta fully enjoyed their kindness. She seemed unusually gentle, and
Mrs. Paxton thanked them for so sweetly helping to amuse her, and thus
make her willing to spend the day quietly.

The day set for the visit to the village fair dawned