e farmer's wagon stood before the store. However, as Mr.
Lennox drove up, a woman's head appeared at a window; then a side door
opened, and she stood there. She had on a big apron, and her face was
flushed as if she had been over the stove; she held a great wooden
spoon, too. She began talking to the Lennoxes, but they paid no
attention to her--their eyes were riveted upon the store door. There was
a speck of white against its dark front, and suddenly it moved. It was
Fidelia's white tier.

"Why, there's Fidelia!" gasped Cynthia. She jumped out, not waiting for
her father to turn the wheel, and ran to the store door. The bandbox
rolled out and the lid came off, and there was her wedding-bonnet in the
dust, but she did not mind that. She caught Fidelia. "Oh, you naughty
little girl, where have you been all this time?" cried she.

Fidelia's eyes took on a bewildered stare, her mouth puckered more and
more. She clung to her sister, and sobbed something that was quite
inaudible. It was quite a time before her father and mother and Cynthia
and Mrs. Rose, surrounding her with attention, could gather that the
import of it all was that she had knocked and knocked and nobody had
come to the door.

"_Knocked!_" gasped Mrs. Rose; "why, the poor little lamb! Here Mr. Rose
and Sam have been away all day, an' I've been makin' currant-jell' out
in the kitchen. An' there's the bell on the counter, that customers
always ring when there ain't anybody round. I've been listenin' for
_that_ all day. It's been so hot, an' everybody hayin', that I don't
suppose a soul but her has been near the store since nine o'clock this
mornin', and there she's stood an' knocked. I never heard anything like
it in my life. See here, Pussy, haven't you been asleep?"

Fidelia shook her head in a sulky and down-cast manner, but there was a
suspiciously flushed and creasy look about her, and they agreed that it
was more than probable that a nap on the store steps had softened and
shortened her vigil.

Mrs. Lennox had her up in the wagon on her lap. She took her Shaker
bonnet off, and smoothed her hair and kissed her. "She thought she'd got
to knock, I s'pose," said she. "I ought to have told her she didn't have
to when she went to a store. Poor little soul! mother won't send her to
the store again till she's bigger."

"I knocked an' knocked," wailed Fidelia, piteously.

She looked cross and worn out. Mrs. Rose ran into the house, and brought
out a plate