ot been
serious. Bubble did not tell me--"

Pink Chirk looked up with her bright, sweet smile. "Oh, no! I have not
been ill," she said. "I am always like this. I cannot walk, you know,
but I am very well indeed."

"You cannot walk?" stammered Hilda.

The girl saw her look of horror, and a faint color stole into her wan
cheek. "Did not Bubble tell you?" she asked, gently; and then, as Hilda
shook her head, "It is such a matter of course to him," she said; "he
never thinks about it, I suppose, dear little fellow. I was run over
when I was three years old, and I have never been able to walk since."

Hildegarde could not speak. The thought of anything so dreadful, so
overwhelming as this, coming so suddenly, too, upon her, seemed to take
away her usually ready speech, and she was dumb, gazing at the cheerful
face before her with wide eyes of pity and wonderment. But Pink Chirk
did not like to be pitied, as a rule; and she almost laughed at her
visitor's horror-stricken face.

"You mustn't look so!" she cried. "It's very kind of you to be sorry,
but it isn't as if I were really _ill_, you know. I can _almost_ stand
on one foot,--that is, I can bear enough weight on it to get from my bed
to my chair without help. That is a _great_ thing! And then when I am
once in my chair, why I can go almost anywhere. Farmer Hartley gave me
this chair," she added, looking down at it, and patting the arm
tenderly, as if it were a living friend; "isn't it a beauty?"

It was a pretty chair, made of cherry wood, with cushions of
gay-flowered chintz; and Hilda, finding her voice again, praised it
warmly. "This is its summer dress," said Pink, her eyes sparkling with
pleasure. "Underneath, the cushions are covered with soft crimson cloth,
oh, so pretty, and so warm-looking! I am always glad when it's time to
take the chintz covers off. And yet I am always glad to put them on
again," she added, "for the chintz is pretty too, I think: and besides,
I know then that summer is really come."

"You like summer best?" asked Hilda.

"Oh, yes!" she replied. "In winter, of course, I can't go out; and
sometimes it seems a little long, when Bubble is away all day,--not
very, you know, but just a little. But in summer, oh, then I am so
happy! I can go all round the place by myself, and sit out in the
garden, and feed the chickens, and take care of the flowers. And then on
Sunday Bubble always gives me a good ride along the road. My chair moves
very e