m sure you can if you try hard."

Maida's face was touched with a kind of sad wistfulness. Granny
looked down at her, considerably puzzled. Then a light seemed to
break in her mind. It shone through her blue eyes and twinkled in
her smile.

"Sure and Oi moind wance when Oi was joost afther giving you some
medicine and you was that mad for having to take the stuff that you
sat oop in bed and knocked iv'ry bottle off the table. Iv'ry wan!
Sure, we picked oop glass for a wake afther."

Maida's wistful look vanished in a peal of silvery laughter. "Did I
really, Granny?" she asked in delight. "Did I break every bottle?
Are you sure? Every one?"

"Iv'ry wan as sure as OI'm a living sinner," said Granny. "Faith and
'twas the bad little gyurl that you was often--now that I sthop to
t'ink av ut."

Maida bounded back to the shop in high spirits. Granny heard her say
"Every bottle!" again and again in a whispering little voice.

"Just think, Granny," she called after a while. "I've made one, two,
three, four, five friends--Dicky, Molly, Tim, Betsy and Laura--though
I don't call her quite a friend yet. Pretty good for so soon!"

Maida was to make a sixth friend, although not quite so quickly.

It began that noontime with a strange little scene that acted itself
out in front of Maida's window. The children had begun to gather for
school, although it was still very quiet. Suddenly around the corner
came a wild hullaballoo--the shouts of small boys, the yelp of a dog,
the rattle and clang of tin dragged on the brick sidewalk. In
another instant appeared a dog, a small, yellow cur, collarless and
forlorn-looking, with a string of tin cans tied to his tail, a horde
of small boys yelling after him and pelting him with stones.

Maida started up, but before she could get to the door, something
flashed like a scarlet comet from across the street. It was the
little girl whom Maida had seen twice before--the one who always wore
the scarlet cape.

Even in the excitement, Maida noticed how handsome she was. She
seemed proud. She carried her slender, erect little body as if she
were a princess and her big eyes cast flashing glances about her.
Jet-black were her eyes and hair, milk-white were her teeth but in
the olive of her cheeks flamed a red such as could be matched only
in the deepest roses. Maida christened her Rose-Red at once.

Rose-Red lifted the little dog into her arms with a single swoop of
her strong arm. She yanked the