s shoulders but did not seem to mind her.

She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a russet-coloured
pelisse and had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed
except her dear little face and her curls. The rest of her real self
was hidden far away inside so many warm garments that in shape she
seemed rather like a ball. She was about forty round the waist.

There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk, where Maimie arrived
in time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over the railing and
set off for a smart walk. They moved in a jerky sort of way certainly,
but that was because they used crutches. An elderberry hobbled across
the walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces, and they all had
crutches. The crutches were the sticks that are tied to young trees
and shrubs. They were quite familiar objects to Maimie, but she had
never known what they were for until to-night.

She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. He was a street boy
fairy who was running up the walk closing the weeping trees. The way
he did it was this: he pressed a spring in the trunks and they shut
like umbrellas, deluging the little plants beneath with snow. 'O you
naughty, naughty child!' Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew what it
was to have a dripping umbrella about your ears.

Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of earshot, but a
chrysanthemum heard her, and said so pointedly, 'Hoity-toity, what is
this?' that she had to come out and show herself. Then the whole
vegetable kingdom was rather puzzled what to do.

[Illustration: _A chrysanthemum heard her, and said pointedly,
"Hoity-toity, what is this?"_]

'Of course it is no affair of ours,' a spindle-tree said after they had
whispered together, 'but you know quite well you ought not to be here,
and perhaps our duty is to report you to the fairies; what do you think
yourself?'

'I think you should not,' Maimie replied, which so perplexed them that
they said petulantly there was no arguing with her. 'I wouldn't ask it
of you,' she assured them, 'if I thought it was wrong,' and of course
after this they could not well carry tales. They then said,
'Well-a-day,' and 'Such is life,' for they can be frightfully
sarcastic; but she felt sorry for those of them who had no crutches,
and she said good-naturedly, 'Before I go to the fairies' ball, I
should like to take you for a walk one at a time; you can lean on me,
you know.'

At this