lad when summer comes
and there won't be any bad boys next door. What do you suppose God did
with them? They couldn't like heaven, you know, for there they have to
be good all the time. And there are so many beautiful things in summer.
The birds and the flowers and the trees waving about and the sky so full
of mysterious things. Great islands go sailing about and I wish I was on
one of them. I get so tired, sometimes. I don't suppose I'll ever have
any strong back and legs until I do get to heaven. But I'd like to go
about in this world. I want a fairy godmother; that is it."

She gave a little laugh but there were tears in her eyes.

"And you've found a fairy godmother, haven't you? She is real, too, and
lives in a beautiful big house and has a fairy child with golden curls.
Oh, I wonder if she would have been glad to have you if you had been all
bruised and broken and could never walk----"

"Oh, don't," cried Lilian. Would they have been glad to have her?

"Now, tell me about when you were a little girl and went to the stores
to buy things for your mother and played 'Ring around a rosy,' and 'Open
the gate as high as the sky.'"

The child's voice and manner had changed like a flash. She liked
Lilian's make-believe stories in some moods; then she wanted real
children and their doings, children who wiped dishes and swept floors
while their mothers sewed or cared for a little baby in the cradle. And
the petty disputes, the spending of a penny in candy and dividing it
round.

"They couldn't all have pennies I suppose," the child commented.

"Their mothers were too poor," laughed Lilian, thinking how seldom she
had the pleasure of being a spendthrift. And if she were ever so rich
what could she do for Claire?

So they talked on and on until Edith came and said a young gentleman had
called for Lilian--her brother.

She went through to the parlor. Yes, it was Willard, bright and smiling
as if glad to see her.

"But how did you know I was here?" she asked.

"Oh, I was at Mrs. Barrington's, and we had a long talk about you. Then
she directed me. It is getting towards night and our beautiful day shows
symptoms of coming rain."

Yes, it did. She had been so interested in Claire she had not noted the
change.

"So I think you had better allow me to escort you home, at least--oh, I
wish it were to your real home. Think, what an evening we would have
together, and I've only three days more. I have to start Wednesday