is--she cannot walk; she creeps about as if
she had no legs."

"I've seen her. Isn't she horrid?"

"Did you ever see her near by?"

"No, I guess I haven't. I have heard Duke tell about her."

"What? do tell me."

"O she's a horrid old thing--that is all I know."

"How, horrid?"

"Why, she is wicked, and she don't know anything. She would hardly
listen to Marmaduke when, he wanted to talk to her."

"Has she got a Bible, I wonder?" said Daisy in an awestruck voice.

"She? She can't read. She don't know anything; and she is as ugly and
cross as she can be."

"Was she cross to Mr. Dinwiddie?"

"Yes, indeed. He said he never saw such a crabbed old thing. O she's
horrid. I don't like to ride by that way."

The children were called in to dinner, and kept in the house by Mrs.
Sandford during the intensest heat of the day. But when the afternoon
was cooling off, or at least growing less oppressive, the two children
again sought the shade under the walnut tree, where the gurgle of the
water over the stones, and the company of the squirrels in the tree,
made the place pleasant. And there they sat down in a great state of
mutual contentment. Nora's feet were swinging about for very jollity.
But Daisy sat still. Perhaps she was tired. Nevertheless it could not be
that which made her little face by and by take on it as profound an
expression as if she had been looking over all Methuselah's years.

"Nora--" said Daisy, and stopped.

"What?" said Nora, kicking her heels.

"You know that poor old crippled woman--what did you call her?"

"Molly Skelton?"

"Suppose you were in her place--what do you think you would wish for?"

"In her place!" said Nora. "I should wish for everything."

"Yes, but I mean, things that you could have."

"I should wish some doctor would come and make me straight, the first
thing; and then--"

"No, Nora, but I mean, things that might be possible, you know. I do not
mean things like a fairy tale."

"I don't know," said Nora. "I don't believe Molly Skelton wishes for
anything."

"But what would _you_ wish for, in her place?"

"I should want to be straight, and stand and go about like other
people."

"Yes, Nora, but I say! I mean, what would you wish for that would not
be impossible?"

"Why, Daisy, how funny! Let me see. I should wish that somebody would
come and be good to me, I think."

"How?"

"O--tell me stories and read to me, and take tea with me--and I don't
know what