, Mrs. MacDonald, may I show her the greenhouse?"

"To be sure you may; but you must be hungry after your long walk. Go
ask Lizzie to get you some doughnuts. You know where to find her."

Edna did not know whether or not to follow her friend, but thought it
would be more polite to sit with her hostess. Mrs. MacDonald had
nothing to say for a while, and Edna was puzzling her brain as to what
suitable remark she could make, when Mrs. MacDonald surprised her by
saying:

"How should you like to come here and be my little girl?"

This was a difficult question to answer, but Edna got through bravely
by saying, "If I didn't have any mamma and papa of my own I should
like it very much, 'cause it is very pretty here, and I'd like to be
near Dorothy, and--" she added, timidly, "you look like a very good
lady." She would like to have said, "You are a very pretty lady," but
Mrs. MacDonald was not handsome.

A hearty laugh was the little girl's reply.

"Well, dear," was then made answer, "I'll not rob your father and
mother of such a bonny little lass, if it is too big a place for one
lonely old woman to have to herself."

"Are you lonely?" asked Edna, with much sympathy in her tones. She
jumped down from her chair and came closer. A bright idea had occurred
to her. "I know a little girl that wants very much to be 'dopted," she
said, earnestly.

"You do? Tell me about her."

So Edna began a story which Dorothy's reappearance did not interrupt,
so interested were both herself and her listener.

"You see," said Edna, in conclusion, folding her little, warm hands
very closely, as was her fashion when much interested. "You see,
Maggie doesn't have a chance to be 'dopted like the littler girls,
'cause people like the baby ones best, though if I were a grown-up
lady like you I'd 'dopt Maggie," she concluded.

At this moment Lizzie made her appearance with the plate of doughnuts.
She was a middle-aged woman, with rather a sad face, though a kindly
one.

"What is Maggie's last name?" asked Mrs. MacDonald.

"Her name is Maggie Horn."

Lizzie, putting down the plate, turned with a look of surprise to
Edna. "What Maggie Horn?" she asked. "What about her?"

"Why, do you know my Maggie?" asked Edna.

"I know a Maggie Horn," and she turned to Mrs. MacDonald. "Excuse me,
ma'am, but my breath was quite taken away by hearing the young lady
speak of a Maggie Horn."

"That is all right, Lizzie. Perhaps you can tell us something o