reckled face all
ashine with pleasure.

"Hello! Lloyd," he called, "I was just going to your house."

"And I was looking for you, Bobby," she answered, as informally as if
it were only yesterday they had parted, instead of eight months before.

"Come and go down to the post-office with me. I must take these
lettahs."

"All right," said Rob, wheeling the gray horse around beside the black
pony, and smiling broadly as he looked down into the Little Colonel's
welcoming eyes. "You don't know how good it feels to get back to the
country again, Lloyd. I could hardly wait for school to close, when I'd
think about the fish waiting for me out here in the creek, and the wild
strawberries getting ripe, and the horses just spoiling to be exercised.
It was more than I could stand. What have you been doing all winter?"

"Oh, the same old things: school and music lessons, and good times in
the evenin' with mothah and papa Jack and grandfathah."

As they jogged along, side by side, the Little Colonel chatting gaily of
all that had happened since their last meeting, Rob kept casting curious
glances at her. "What have you been doing to yourself, Lloyd Sherman?"
he demanded, finally. "You look so--so _different_!" There was such a
puzzled expression in his sharp gray eyes that the Little Colonel
laughed. Then her hand flew up to her head.

"Don't you see? I've had my hair cut. I had to beg and beg befo' mothah
and papa Jack would let me have it done; but it was so long,--away below
my waist,--and _such_ a bothah. It had to be brushed and plaited a dozen
times a day."

"I don't like it that way. It isn't a bit becoming," said Rob, with the
frankness of old comradeship. "You look like a boy. Why, it is as short
as mine."

"I don't care," answered Lloyd, her eyes flashing dangerously. "It's
comfortable this way, and grandfathah likes it. He says he's got his
Little Colonel back again now, and he sent to town for this Napoleon hat
like the ones I used to weah when I was a little thing."

"When you were a little thing!" laughed Rob, teasingly. "What do you
think you are now, missy? You're head and shoulders shorter than I am."

"I'm eleven yeahs old, anyway, I'd have you to undahstand, Bobby Moore,"
answered the Little Colonel, with such dignity that Rob wished he hadn't
spoken. "I was eleven last week. That was one of my birthday presents,
havin' my own way about cuttin' my hair, and anothah was the house
pahty. Oh, you don't kno