y name. You see Pompton sounds so much like pumpkin."

"Do you think so, Miss?"

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter about a name, anyway. Tell me about your
people. Have you any little boys and girls?"

"No, Miss; I never was married, Miss. And I ain't overly fond of
children."

"Really, aren't you, Pompton? Well, you'll have to begin being fond of
them, because you see, us Maynard children just can't stand anybody
around who isn't fond of us. Though of course we've never tried, for
everybody who has lived with us has always been terribly fond of us."

"Maybe it'll be a pleasant change then, Miss, to try another sort."
Pompton's eyes twinkled good-naturedly as he said this, and Marjorie
instinctively recognized that he was trying to joke.

"Ah, you're fond of us already, Pompton, and you needn't say you're not!
It's a funny thing," she went on, confidentially, "but everybody loves
us Maynards,--and yet we're such a bad lot."

"A bad lot, Miss?"

"Well, full of the old scratch, you know; always cutting up jinks. Do you
know what jinks are, Pompton?"

"No, Miss; what are they?"

"Why they're just jinks; something to cut up, you know."

"Cut up, Miss?"

"Oh, Pompton, you're just like a parrot! You just repeat what I say!
Don't you know _anything_?"

"Very little, Miss."

But as they rode along, and Marjorie asked her interminable string of
questions about the car, or about the trees or flowers they were passing,
or about sundry roadside matters, she found that Pompton was a very
well-informed man, indeed, as well as being kind and obliging in
answering questions.

As they spun along a bit of straight road, Marjorie saw, some distance
ahead, a girl sitting on a large stone by the roadside. The girl's face
was so weary and pained-looking that Marjorie felt a sudden thrill of
pity for her, and as a second glance showed that the girl was lame, she
impulsively begged Pompton to stop a moment that they might speak to her.

The chauffeur turned around to see if the order were corroborated by the
older people, and Mrs. Maynard said, "Yes, Pompton, let us stop and
see what the poor girl wants."

So the car stopped, and Marjorie impetuously jumped out, and ran to speak
to the girl, who seemed ill and suffering. Mr. Maynard joined them at
once, and they listened to the girl's story.

She said her name was Minnie Meyer, and that she had to walk to the
neighboring town to buy some provisions for her mother. But being l