nd I met no one suitable until you came. It is a great
deal to ask, but if you would spend a little time with me sometimes I
should be infinitely grateful."

"Oh, don't be grateful, please, until you realise what you have to
endure. Nothing worth having can be gained without suffering," I said
solemnly. "I shall lead you a terrible dance, and you must promise
implicit obedience. I'm a terrible bully when I get the chance."

I privately determined that I'd teach her other things besides play, and
we agreed to meet next morning at eleven o'clock to take our first walk.
Mother was much amused when I told her of our conversation.

"You'll soon grow tired of her, darling; she is impossibly dull, but a
good creature who can do you no harm. You can easily drop her if she
bores you too much."

But I don't expect to be bored, I expect it will be very amusing.

_Next Day_.
It was! She was there to meet me with a mushroom hat over her face,
looking as solemn as ever, and never in all my life did I see a poor
creature work so hard at trying to enjoy herself. She runs like an
elephant, and puffs like a grampus; says, "One, two, three," at the edge
of the streams, then gives a convulsive leap, and lands right in the
middle of the water. She was splashed from head to foot, and quite pink
in the cheeks imagining she was going to be drowned, and in the next
hedge her hat caught in a branch, and was literally torn from her head.
Then we sat down to consider the situation, and to collect the fallen
hairpins from the ground.

She has a great long rope of hair, and she twists and twists and twists
it together like a nurse wringing out a fomentation, so I politely
offered to fasten it for her, and loosened it out and pulled it up over
her forehead, and you wouldn't believe the difference it made. We found
some wild strawberries, and ate them for lunch, and I wreathed the
leaves round her head, and when her fingers were nicely stained with the
juice, and she looked thoroughly disreputable, I held out the little
looking-glass on my chatelaine, and gave her a peep at herself, and
said--

"That's the result of the first lesson! What do you think of the effect
on your appearance?"

"I beg your pardon! I'm quite ashamed. What have I been doing?" she
cried all in a breath, and up went both hands to drag her hair back, and
tear out the leaves, but I caught them in time