ling--sure enough he did kick them, and they didn't
like it either--took my hand and led me straight into the house, and
the Princess was there, and a woman who was her mother no doubt, and he
said: "Pamela, here is our little neighbour, and she says she's in
trouble, and she thinks you may be of some assistance to her. Of
course you will be glad if you can."

"Surely!" said the Princess, and she introduced me to her mother, so I
bowed the best I knew, and took off my wet mitten, dirty with climbing
fences, to shake hands with her. She was so gracious and lovely I
forgot what I went after. The Princess brought a cloth and wiped the
wet from my shoes and stockings, and asked me if I wouldn't like a cup
of hot tea to keep me from taking a chill.

"I've been much wetter than this," I told her, "and I never have taken
a chill, and anyway my throat's too full of trouble to drink."

"Why, you poor child!" said the Princess. "Tell me quickly! Is your
mother ill again?"

"Not now, but she's going to be as soon as she finds out," I said, and
then I told them.

They all listened without a sound until I got where Leon helped the
goose eat, and from that on Mr. Pryor laughed until you could easily
see that he had very little feeling for suffering humanity. It was
funny enough when we fed her, but now that she was bursted wide open
there was nothing amusing about it; and to roar when a visitor plainly
told you she was in awful trouble, didn't seem very good manners to me.
The Princess and her mother never even smiled; and before I had told
nearly all of it, Thomas was called to hitch the Princess' driving
cart, and she took me to their barnyard to choose the goose that looked
most like mother's, and all of them seemed like hers, so we took the
first one Thomas could catch, put it into a bag in the back of the
cart, and then we got in and started for our barn. As we reached the
road, I said to her: "You'd better go past Dovers', for if we come
down our Little Hill they will see us sure; it's baking day."

"All right!" said the Princess, so we went the long way round the
section, but goodness me! when she drove no way was far.

When we were opposite our barn she stopped, hitched her horse to the
fence, and we climbed over, and slipping behind the barn, carried the
goose around to the pen and put it in with ours. She said she wanted
the broken one, because her father would enjoy seeing it. I didn't see
how he could!