face.

"That old aunt," she grumbled, "she makes me awful tired. She's always
pokin' round an' callin' me."

Such, indeed, seemed the present habit and intent of the prim lady who
was approaching, alternately clanging a dinner-bell and calling in a
tone of resolute sweetness:

"Mary, O Mary, dear."

Mary parted the branches of her tree and watched, but made no sound.

"Mary," repeated the oncoming relative, "Mary, I want to tell you
something," and added as she spied her niece's abandoned sunbonnet on
the grass, "I know you're here and I shall wait until you come to me."

"I _ain't_ coming," announced the Dryad, and thereby disclosed her
position, both actual and mental. "I suppose it's something I've done
and I don't want to hear it, so there!" Then, her temper having been
worn thin by much admonishing, she anticipated: "I _ain't_ sorry I've
been bad. I _ain't_ ashamed to behave so when my mamma is sick in bed.
And I don't care if you _do_ tell my papa when he comes home to-night."

The intruding relative, discerning her, stopped and smiled. And the
smile was as a banderilla to her niece's goaded spirit.

"Jiminy!" gasped that young person, "she's got a smile just like a
teacher."

"Mary, dear," the intruder gushed, "God has sent you something."

The hickory flashed forth black and white and red. Mary stood upon the
ground.

"Where are they?" she demanded.

"They?" repeated the lady. "There is only one."

"Why, I prayed for two. Which did he send?"

"Which do you think?" parried the lady. "Which do you hope it is?"

Even Mary's scorn was unprepared for this weak-mindedness. "The goat, of
course," she responded curtly. "Is it the goat?"

"Goat!" gasped the scandalized aunt. "Goat! Why, God has sent you a baby
sister, dear."

"A sister! a baby!" gasped Mary in her turn. "I don't _need_ no sister.
I prayed for a goat just as plain as plain. 'Dear God,' I says, 'please
bless everybody, and make me a good girl, an' send me a goat an' wagon.'
And they went an' changed it to a baby sister! Why, I never s'posed they
made mistakes like that."

Crestfallen and puzzled she allowed herself to be led back to the
darkened house where her grandmother met her with the heavenly
substitute wrapped in flannel. And as she held it against the square and
unresponsive bosom of her apron she realized how the "Bible gentleman"
must have felt when he asked for bread and was given a stone.

During the weeks that followed