ll this?" for it is
not every day one sees a little girl of just that color; but he looked
sober the next minute.

"Poor little thing, you've had a hard time."

"Oh no, sir, not very," said Flaxie, thinking he meant the journey. "I
like to travel alone."

Captain Jones, who was putting the little umbrella into the carriage,
laughed, and said he wished he had known that before.

"Good-bye," said he, kissing his hand to her. "I shall miss you very
much, for _I don't_ like to travel alone!"

Then Flaxie drove off with her uncle in the nice easy carriage, and
found Aunt Charlotte and all her cousins delighted to see her, as she
had known they would be. She had told the captain they were "elegant
cousins;" but when Johnny exclaimed, "Hullo! Miss Frizzle, you look like
a pickled lime," she blushed a sort of pinkish-green blush, and thought
he had grown very disagreeable.

"Well, I didn't mean anything. I've seen folks look worse'n you do--a
good deal," added the little fellow, and thought it a handsome apology.

"I'll tell you who looks worse," he broke in again, as they were all
seated at supper; "it's our teacher, Miss Pike. She isn't the same color
by a long shot, but she's awful homely."

"Is she? Well, I guess I shan't go to school."

"Johnny ought not to speak in that way of his dear teacher," said Aunt
Charlotte gravely; "it is not her fault that she is not pretty; and
everybody loves her, for she has a beautiful soul."

"Oh, yes, everybody loves her," said Master Freddy; "but didn't Jemmy
Glover send her a mean valentine last winter?

'Old Miss Pike, she's ninety-nine,
Her hair's the color of a ball of twine.'"

"If she looks so bad, why don't she let the doctor take care of her?"
asked Flaxie, thoughtfully. "Dr. Papa gives me medicine three times a
day, and I'm going to be real white."

"Oh, Miss Pike isn't sick; she was born so, and medicine wouldn't help
her any," said Johnny, trying hard not to laugh at his simple little
cousin. "I'll take you to see her to-morrow."

Flaxie set her teeth firmly into a cookie, resolving that she would not
see such a monster of ugliness, much less go to school to her, not if
Johnny should drag her to the schoolhouse by a rope.

After tea she sat on the front doorsteps awhile in Milly's lap. The
little friends had a way of sitting in each other's lap, and it was a
droll sight, as they were just of a size.

"Where's Lucy, that I made the mittens for?" asked