s why I'm here. She
sent me to bed. But I made up my mind I wouldn't go to bed. I
climbed out my bedroom window and came over here."

"Oh, Rosie, I wish you wouldn't do that," Maida said. "Oh, do run
right home! Think how worried your mother would be if she went up
into your room and found you gone. She wouldn't know what had become
of you."

"Well, then, what makes her so strict with me?" Rosie cried. Her
eyes had grown as black as thunder clouds. The scowl that made her
face so sullen had come deep between her eyebrows.

"Oh, how I wish I had a mother," Maida said longingly. "I guess I
wouldn't say a word to her, no matter how strict she was."

"I guess you don't know what you'd do until you tried it," Rosie
said.

Granny and Billy had been curiously quiet in the other room.
Suddenly Billy Potter stepped to the door.

"I've just thought of a great game, children," he said. "But we've
got to play it in the kitchen. Bring some crayons, Maida."

The children raced after him. "What is it?" they asked in chorus.

Billy did not answer. He lifted Granny's easy-chair with Granny,
knitting and all, and placed it in front of the kitchen stove. Then
he began to draw a huge rectangle on the clean, stone floor.

"Guess," he said.

"Sure and Oi know what ut's going to be," smiled Granny.

Maida and Rosie watched him closely. Suddenly they both shouted
together:

"Hopscotch! Hopscotch!"

"Right you are!" Billy approved. He searched among the coals in the
hod until he found a hard piece of slate.

"All ready now!" he said briskly. "Your turn, first, Rosie, because
you're company."

Rosie failed on "fivesy." Maida's turn came next and she failed on
"threesy." Billy followed Maida but he hopped on the line on
"twosy."

"Oi belave Oi cud play that game, ould as Oi am," Granny said
suddenly.

"I bet you could," Billy said.

"Sure, 'twas a foine player Oi was when Oi was a little colleen."

"Come on, Granny," Billy said.

The two little girls jumped up and down, clapping their hands and
shrieking, "Granny's going to play!" "Granny's going to play!" They
made so much noise finally, that Billy had to threaten to stand them
on their heads in a corner.

Granny took her turn after Billy. She hopped about like a very
active and a very benevolent old fairy.

"Oh, doesn't she look like the Dame in fairy tales?" Maida said.

They played for a half an hour. And who do you suppose won? Not
Maida with all her new-foun