When, at last, they had reached Randy's home, both Prue and Randy had become quite well acquainted with their new friend.

Mr. Weston had just come in from the field, in answer to a blast from the dinner horn, and was as anxious as his wife when told that the children had been gone two hours and a half. "I guess I'll have to harness up and go down to the store and see if they're-sakes alive! Here they be now, with that 'stonishing pretty boarder of Obadiah Gray's,"

and Mr. Weston hastened down the walk to thank the young lady for her kindness.

"I'm much 'bleeged to ye for bringing the children home; mother and I was getting anxious. Randy, here, is going on fifteen, and pretty tall of her age, but we still call them the children, and Randy, she's reliable; so, when she don't appear at the right time, we know that something's up. Why, Prue, where's your shoe and stocking?"

"Oh, father," said Randy, "you won't say I was reliable this time."

"Now, Mr. Weston," said Helen Dayton, "Randy blames herself for Prue's injured foot, but she has bravely carried her little sister up the long hill from the store, and I think accuses herself too harshly."

"Like enough," said Randy's father. "Randy's conscience is all out of proportion to her size." Then, once more thanking Helen heartily for her kindness, he took little Prue into his arms saying, kindly: "There, there, little daughter, I wouldn't cry any more. You're home now, and mother'll know just how to fix your foot all right; and, Randy, ye may have let yer thoughts wander, so to speak, but you didn't make Prue hurt her foot, and ye've more than made up fer it all by bein' so truly sorry, and tryin' to bring her home. She's a little girl, but she's solid for a girl of your size to carry. 'Stead of blamin' and accusin'

yourself, you just help mother to make Prue comfortable, and then you amuse her with the fairy book, and, may be, she'll forget how bad her foot aches."

"I'll do it," said Randy, delighted to think that she could in any way be useful to her little sister, and so well did she amuse her that in the middle of the sixth fairy tale Prue was sound asleep.

As soon as Mrs. Weston had seen the little foot, she had given it a bath in hot water, bound securely about it a hot bandage, and told little Prue that she must be quite still.

"I will, if Randy will read to me," said Prue. So Randy read story after story, until the little sister was asleep.

Randy sat beside her, intending to read to her again if she awoke, but Prue had cried with the aching foot until she was very tired, so she slept soundly. Once she stirred, and thrust her chubby hand under her head, murmuring as she did so. Randy bent over her, to hear what she said.

"The big stones squeezed my foot, so course it wasn't my Randy did it,"

murmured Prue. "My Randy wouldn't do such a thing to me. My Randy's just about right always and she-" but here her voice faltered and that which commenced in a sentence ended in a sigh. A bright tear glistened in Randy's gray eyes. How lovingly little Prue held her above the possibility of anything wrong.

"I must try hard to be as good as Prue thinks I am," thought Randy, and, bending, she kissed the little one ever so gently so as not to awaken her; "for," thought Randy, "while she sleeps she doesn't know her foot aches, and when she wakes I'll read or do anything she wishes me to, to amuse her."

And Randy kept her promise. The injury, although not serious, was quite painful, and Prue declared that Randy was "'most an angel," so patient and entertaining was she, reading the same story over and over again if it chanced to please her.

In a few days Prue was able to be about, and Randy was every bit as happy as her little sister, to see that the swelling had disappeared and the wee foot back to its usual size. There was one story with which Prue seemed the most pleased and which she wished oftenest to hear.

That was the story of the "Sleeping Beauty," but it mattered not how many times she heard it, she never could tell it straight.

One day Prue's mother said that the little girl would be wise if she rested her foot all the afternoon. "I'll sit still on the 'lunge,'" said Prue, "if you'll listen to a bea-utiful story called the 'Sleeping Beauty.' I guess I can tell it 'most right; do you want to hear it, mother?"

Now this was a trial to Mrs. Weston's patience. She had glanced hastily at a few pages of the fairy book and had declared it to be "clear foolishness," adding, "if it amuses Randy and Prue, I do'no as I care; but it puzzles me how they can enjoy it."

But, thinking to please her little daughter and make her willing to sit still, she promised to listen attentively to Prue's narrative, adding under her breath, "I guess I can stand it for once, if it is foolish."

So she handed the book to Prue, who declared that, although she couldn't read, she could tell the story better by looking at the pictures.

Mrs. Weston brought her sewing to the window nearest the lounge where Prue sat as if enthroned, and the youthful entertainer commenced at once to tell the story as she remembered it. As Randy afterward said with stifled laughter, "If that is the best Prue could tell the story with the pictures to help her, how much more could she have twisted it without the book?"

"Once upon a time (they all commence that way)," said Prue, "there was a little girl so be-autiful that folks 'most went crazy who saw her, an'

her father was tickled to see how handsome she was when she was a baby; an' one time when she was fifteen (that's what Randy is)-no, I forgot, when the baby, that's the princess, you know, was a bein'

chris-chris-chris-tened, there was a lot of fairies that bringed her presents, and one was mad because she didn't be invited, and she did something awful, but I've forgot what.

"Then the beautiful princess went to sleep a hun-dred years" (here Prue's eyes grew round with excitement), "and she grew older and older every minute-no, no, she didn't. I mean she didn't grow older a' tall."

Here Randy turned hastily to gaze out of the window, and Prue, fortunately, failed to notice her sister's very evident effort to conceal her amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Then everybody in the house-no, palace-went sound asleep and snored, and they never waked up 'til the prince kissed them-oh, no, he only kissed the princess. Mother, why do you s'pose he didn't kiss anybody but the princess? Shouldn't you a thought he would?"

Without waiting for an answer, however, Prue babbled on.

"They was married and lived happy ever after, and all the folks waked up, and the horses, and cows, and cats, and dogs, all wagged their tails 'cause they was awake too. Isn't that a wonderful story?"

"I should say it was," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed practical Mrs. Weston. "Nothing less than wonderful."

Mrs. Weston folded the garment which she had been mending, and saying, kindly, "That was a long story for a little girl to try to tell," she went out to the kitchen to make preparation for tea, leaving Prue still looking at the pictures in the fairy book. Randy stole out to the kitchen.

"Oh, mother," she said, looking up wistfully, "I know you think it funny that I can like fairy stories almost as well as Prue does; but, truly, Prue does not tell them straight. They're not true, of course, but they do sound pretty when you read them straight through instead of 'mixed up' as she gets them."

"I know, of course," said her mother, "that Prue has a funny way of telling anything. If you enjoy the stories, I'm sure I don't care, only don't ask me to read them. I want to read something that's somewhat probable," and Randy was obliged to be satisfied with that.

Mrs. Weston's mind was utterly void of imagination, and to read to her of magic locks, of sleep which, lasting a hundred years, left the sleeper youthful and beautiful, of wild wishes granted, of people turned to stone, and back to life again, simply tried her patience and amused her not at all.

CHAPTER V-HELEN DAYTON'S CALL

The sun shone in at the kitchen window and made a golden panel on the floor.

"Looks like another hot day," said Mrs. Weston, and she paused a moment and looked out at the meadow, where the little brook sparkled in the sun.

"Mother, are we very poor?" said Randy, irrelevantly.

Mrs. Weston wheeled around abruptly in her surprise, and promptly dropped the dishcloth which she held in her hand. "There," said she, "look at that dishcloth; somebody's comin' sure as preachin'. I never knew it to fail."

"Oh, I do hope somebody will, if it's Miss Dayton, if that's her name,"

added Randy. "But you didn't answer what I asked you," said the girl.

"_Are_ we, mother?"

"Why, Randy, what's in your mind? Lately you've been dreamin' most of the time, and askin' queer questions between times. Are we what? Poor?

Why no, I do'no's we be. Your father ain't a rich man, but he's well-to-do. What put it in your head to ask me?"

"Nothing," said Randy, "only I was wondering what the reason was that all the folks in church yesterday looked so different from Mrs. Gray's boarders. Was it because they were poorer or was it some other reason?"

"Well," said Mrs. Weston, as she took the towel from Randy's listless hands, and commenced energetically to finish wiping the dishes, "I guess we're as well fixed as any one around here; your father owes n.o.body nothin', and our farm's one of the biggest and best in the town. I've heard say that some city folks was rich, an' I heard tell of other city folks as wasn't so well off as their clothes seemed to make them out; and as to our lookin' different, there ain't any call to dress up any more than what we do now. I tell you what, Randy, to be clean and neat ought to satisfy any one."

To this Randy could not agree, so she wisely said nothing. In her inmost heart she knew that, were she the possessor of an immense hat loaded with flowers, she would not have the courage to walk into church, the cynosure of all eyes. On the other hand, a sunbonnet never had looked so uncouth and unbecoming as now.

The dishes put away, the chickens fed, and a dozen other little ch.o.r.es attended to, Randy was free to do as she liked; so off to the "best"

room she flew, eager to brighten it in any way which might suggest itself. The best room was a front room, and the front door, although seldom used, opened from it, showing a little garden in which grew boys'

love, larkspur, balsams, and, later in the season, marigolds.

But the front room and the front door were never used; and the little path from the door-stone to the flower beds was overgrown with weeds, years ago. The side door which led to the barn, the well, and the woodpile was the proper one to use. So Randy did not open the door; it never occurred to her to do so; but she drew up the green paper curtains, and let in the sunlight, and, although the room was scrupulously clean, she decided that the correct thing to do first was to dust.

Between the front windows stood a little table with an oil-cloth cover, dotted with red and green figures. Over the table, and quite too high for any one to take a peep, hung a small, square looking-gla.s.s with a broad, wooden frame.