and night, Granny,"
Rosie advised, "and I'm sure it will be all right. That won't hurt
her any and, after awhile, she'll find she can jump two, then three
and so on. That's the way I learned."

Granny agreed to this. Maida practiced constantly, one jump in her
nightgown, just before going to bed, and another, all dressed, just
after she got up.

"I jumped three jumps this morning without failing, Granny," she
said one morning at breakfast. Within a few days the record climbed
to five, then to seven, then, at a leap, to ten.

Dr. Pierce called early one morning. His eyes opened wide when they
fell upon her. "Well, well, Pinkwink," he said. "What do you mean by
bringing me way over here! I thought you were supposed to be a sick
young person. Where'd you get that color?"

A flush like that of a pink sweet-pea blossom had begun to show in
Maida's cheek. It was faint but it was permanent.

"Why, you're the worst fraud on my list. If you keep on like this,
young woman, I shan't have any excuse for calling. You've done fine,
Granny."

Granny looked, as Dr. Pierce afterwards said, "as tickled as Punch."

"How do you like shop-keeping?" Dr. Pierce went on.

"Like it!" Maida plunged into praise so swift and enthusiastic that
Dr. Pierce told her to go more slowly or he would put a bit in her
mouth. But he listened attentively. "Well, I see you're not tired of
it," he commented.

"Tired!" Maida's indignation was so intense that Dr. Pierce shook
until every curl bobbed.

"And I get so hungry," she went on. "You see I have to wait until
two o'clock sometimes before I can get my lunch, because from twelve
to two are my busy hours. Those days it seems as if the school bell
would never ring."

"Sure, tis a foine little pig OI'm growing now," Granny said.

"And as for sleeping--" Maida stopped as if there were no words
anywhere to describe her condition.

Granny finished it for her. "The choild sleeps like a top."

Billy Potter came at least every day and sometimes oftener. Every
child in Primrose Court knew him by the end of the first week and
every child loved him by the end of the second. And they all called
him Billy. He would not let them call him Mr. Potter or even Uncle
Billy because, he said, he was a child when he was with them and he
wanted to be treated like a child. He played all their games with a
skill that they thought no mere grown-up could possess. Like Rosie,
he seemed to be bubbling over with life a