an to walk rapidly away from the
picnic party. Whether she would have succeeded in finding her way back
to Glendower remains a mystery, for she had not gone a dozen yards
before she encountered a stout old lady, who spread out her arms as
she approached, and made herself look like a great fan.

"Whither away, now, little maid of the woods?" she said. "Oh, I
suppose you are the little girl called Wilton, whom Florrie brought
over from Glendower with her. Maisie told me of you."

"I'm going home; please let me pass," said Ermengarde.

"Oh, highty-tighty! not a bit of you, dearie. You'll stay here till
Florrie wants to go back. You'd get her into no end of a scrape if you
were to leave her now. You must stick to her, my love. It would be
unkind to desert poor Florrie in that fashion. I thought Maisie had
left you with Fanny and Tootsie."

"Yes, but they are horrid rude children. I could not possibly play
with them."

"Well, they are handfuls," said the stout lady. "I'm their mother, so
I ought to know. You don't mind staying with me, then, love, do you?"

"I'd much rather go home," repeated Ermengarde.

"But you can't do that, my dear child, so there's no use thinking
about it. Come, let us walk about and be cozy, and you tell me all
about Glendower."

The old lady now drew Ermengarde's slim hand through her arm, and she
found herself forced to walk up and down the greensward in her
company.

Mrs. Burroughs was a downright sort of person. After her fashion she
was kind to Ermie, but it never entered into her head to flatter her.
She was a gossiping sort of body, and she wanted the child to recount
to her all the tittle-tattle she knew about Glendower. Ermengarde had
neither the power nor the inclination to describe the goings on at
Glendower graphically. The stout lady soon got tired of her short
answers, and began to survey her from head to foot in a critical and
not too kindly spirit.

"Dear, dear!" she said, "what an overgrown poor young thing you are!
But we must all go through the gawky age; we must each of us take our
turn. Maisie is just through her bad time, but when she was fourteen,
wasn't she a show just! You're fourteen, ain't you, my love?"

"Yes," said Ermengarde.

"Ah, I thought as much! I said so the moment I set eyes on you. I knew
it by your walk. Neither fish, flesh nor good red herring is a maid
of fourteen; she's all right once she passes seventeen, so you take
heart, my love. I dare sa