ngs, but I
think every one ought to be. Maybe Patty can help me out. She must
be a very bright child; Miss Dorothy says she is. There! I hear
Heppy clattering the milk-pan; it is time to see about your
supper." So saying, Marian put down the two cats and started for
the house, her pets following at her heels, knowing the sound of
a milk-pan as well as she.

_CHAPTER IV_

_Companions_

The first week of school passed very rapidly, and by the time Friday
afternoon came, Marian felt quite at home with her schoolmates. She
had finally decided that Ruth would be her best friend next to
Patty, whom she always held in reserve as filling her needs exactly,
when they should meet. Miss Dorothy had written to her little sister
and Marian was daily expecting a letter herself from Patty, a letter
which should mark the beginning of their friendship. She was rather
shy of the girls at first, for she had scarcely known childish
comrades, and her old-fashioned ideas and mature way of speaking
often brought a laugh from the others, but her shyness soon wore off
and she quickly acquired a style of speech at which her grandparents
sometimes frowned, for it included some bits of slang which had
never found their way into the brick house before.

It was Miss Dorothy's doing which made the way easier for the little
girl, for she argued nobly in behalf of Marian's needing young
companions to keep her like a normal child. She even appealed to
the family doctor who promptly sided with her, and maintained that
Marian would be better bodily, if she lived a more rough and tumble
life. So, because her grandparents really did care for her, absorbed
as they were in their grown-up affairs, Marian was allowed more
freedom than ever before and was ready to take advantage of it.

Miss Dorothy had gone up to town to do some shopping this first
Saturday of the term, and Marian bethought herself of its being
baking day at Mrs. Hunt's, so, as this was always one place she
could always go without asking permission, she simply stopped at
the sitting-room door and announced: "I am going down to Mrs.
Hunt's, grandma."

Mrs. Otway, at work upon a financial report, did not look up from
her columns of figures, but merely nodded in reply and Marian ran on
down the street between the double rows of trees, till she came to
Mrs. Hunt's. This time it was the odor of baking which greeted her
as she advanced toward the kitchen, and Mrs. Hunt was in the act