ries.

"You'll have to wait two or three days until I can get this bill
changed," said she. "You've been real smart about picking 'em. You've
picked 'em clean, too. Here's a piece of sweet-cake for you."

Nancy went home in the hot sun. Her red, scratched face looked gloomy
and discouraged in the depths of the Shaker bonnet. She nibbled at the
sweet-cake as she went along, but she did not care for it. Here it was
Friday forenoon, and she had to wait two or three days for her forty-two
cents. Flora's money would come, and she would buy the sweet-grass
basket. Nancy felt quite desperate. That afternoon she teased her mother
to let her go over to Aunt Lucretia's again.

"No; you don't go a step," said her mother. "She's making jell', and
you've been over there once to-day. You can sit down with your
knitting-work this afternoon, and be contented."

Nancy sat down with her knitting-work, but she was not contented. It
seemed to her that she must have those forty-two cents. After tea she
begged again for permission to go to Aunt Lucretia's. "It's real nice
and cool out now, mother," she pleaded.

"I don't care how cool it is," said her mother, "you can't go. I don't
see what has got into you."

But the next morning Nancy was really sent over to Aunt Lucretia's on an
errand. She did the errand, then she stood waiting.

"Did your mother want anything else?" asked Aunt Lucretia.

"No, ma'am."

"Well, I guess you had better run home then. It's baking day, and maybe
you can help your mother some. You'd ought to help her all you can,
you're getting to be a big girl. I used to do a whole week's baking
before I was your age."

"Aunt Lucretia!"

"What say?"

"Have you--got that--bill--changed yet?"

"No, I haven't. You mustn't tease. I'm going down to the store in a day
or two, and then you can have it."

So Nancy went home again without her forty-two cents. She wept a little
on the way. Here it was Saturday, and Flora expecting her money on the
noon mail. But it did not come on the noon mail. It did not come until
six o'clock at night, and Flora did not think of buying the basket that
day.

After tea that night, about half-past seven o'clock, Nancy did something
that she had never done before in her life. She went over to her Aunt
Lucretia's without permission. Her mother had gone to one of the
neighbor's. Flora was in the sitting-room reading a story-book. Nancy
stole out of the front door, and hurried down the r