fraid that it was not polite to say things like
this, "that you are the beautifulest girl I ever saw."

"Why, that's just what I think of you," Rosie said in surprise.

"I just love black hair," Maida said.

"And I just adore golden hair," Rosie said. "Now, isn't that
strange?"

"I guess," Maida announced after a moment of thought, "people like
what they haven't got."

After a while, Rosie taught Maida to jump in the big rope with a
half a dozen children at once. Maida never tired of this. When she
heard the rope swishing through the air, a kind of excitement came
over her. She was proud to think that she had caught the trick--that
something inside would warn her when to jump--that she could be sure
that this warning would not come an instant too soon or too late.
The consciousness of a new strength and a new power made a different
child of her. It made her eyes sparkle like gray diamonds. It made
her cheeks glow like pink peonies.

By this time she could spin tops with the best of them--sometimes she
had five tops going at once. This was a sport of which the
W.M.N.T.'s never tired. They kept it up long into the twilight.
Sometimes Granny would have to ring the dinner-bell a half a dozen
times before Maida appeared. Maida did not mean to be disobedient.
She simply did not hear the bell. Granny's scoldings for this
carelessness were very gentle--Maida's face was too radiant with her
triumph in this new skill.

There was something about Primrose Court--the rows of trees welded
into a yellow arch high over their heads, the sky showing through in
diamond-shaped glints of blue, the tiny trim houses and their
tinier, trimmer yards, the doves pink-toeing everywhere, their
throats bubbling color as wonderful as the old Venetian glass in the
Beacon Street house, the children running and shouting, the very
smell of the dust which their pattering feet threw up--something in
the look of all this made Maida's spirits leap.

"I'm happy, _happy_, HAPPY," Maida said one day. The next--Rosie came
rushing into the shop with a frightened face.

"Oh, Maida," she panted, "a terrible thing has happened. Laura
Lathrop's got diphtheria--they say she's going to die."

"Oh, Rosie, how dreadful! Who told you so?"

"Annie the cook told Aunt Theresa. Dr. Ames went there three times
yesterday. Annie says Mrs. Lathrop looks something awful."

"The poor, poor woman," Granny murmured compassionately.

"Oh, I'm so sorry I was cross to L