d out the basket. Flora drew back,
and looked at her.

"Take it," said Nancy. "It's for you."

Flora looked at her aunt.

"Take it, if she wants you to," said Mrs. Mann.

Flora took it. "Thank you," said she. She went soberly out of the room
with the basket. Nancy returned to her dish-washing at the sink, her
father stared out of the window, her mother came and shoved her aside,
and took the dish-cloth out of her hands.

"There, I'll wash this heavy spider," said she. "You can go and put on
your other dress. I want you to go down to the store for me, and I'm
going to let you buy a couple of yards of that pretty pink calico for a
new apron."

Nancy had admired that pink calico. As she went out of the kitchen her
father caught her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake; then he
patted her head.

"Don't run too fast, and get all tired out," said he.

Nancy put on her buff calico, and went to the store. It was an errand to
take about an hour. She had been gone about a half-hour when the Indian
Princess again came through the bean poles and tomato vines. This time
she was all strung about with baskets. She stood at the kitchen door,
and parleyed with Mrs. Mann and Flora. When she went away she had a
fifty-cent piece in one brown fist, and she was eating a molasses cooky.

Nancy came home with the pink calico, and half a pound of cream of
tartar; her mother and Flora were in the sitting-room, and they laughed
when she entered.

Nancy looked soberly at them. "Here's the calico, and the cream tartar,"
said she.

"See what Flora has got for you," said her mother.

Nancy stared around. There on the table stood two sweet-grass baskets
exactly alike.

"The Princess came again, and she had another basket. I got it for you,"
said Flora.

"Thank you," said Nancy, in a sober voice, but the dark depths of the
Shaker bonnet seemed fairly illumined with smiles.

MEHITABLE LAMB

Hannah Maria Green sat on the north door-step, and sewed over and over a
seam in a sheet. She had just gotten into her teens, and she was tall
for her age, although very slim. She wore a low-necked, and
short-sleeved, brown delaine dress. That style of dress was not
becoming, but it was the fashion that summer. Her neck was very thin,
and her collar-bones showed. Her arms were very long and small and
knobby. Hannah Maria's brown hair was parted from her forehead to the
back of her neck, braided in two tight braids, crossed in a f