for Aunt Martha and Uncle Enos, and something for Amanda Cary.
I should like to take Amos and the Starkweather children something, but
I fear there will not be enough money."

Mrs. Freeman smiled at Anne's thought for her playmates. "You can
perhaps make something for some of your little friends. Would not the
Starkweather children like a little work-bag or a hemstitched
handkerchief?" she asked.

The thought of the Starkweather boys with work-bags and hemstitched
handkerchiefs seemed very funny to Anne, and she gave a little laugh,
saying, "But they are all boys."

"Oh, well, then we will make some fine candy just before you go home,
and you and Rose can make some pretty boxes to put it in. So there's
your present for the Starkweather boys. And you'll have a whole guinea
to buy gifts for Mrs. Stoddard and the captain, and for Amanda. I
suppose Amanda is your dearest friend, isn't she?" and Mrs. Freeman
looked down into Anne's happy smiling face, quite sure that Mrs.
Stoddard must be very glad that she had taken the little girl into her
own home.

"Best friend, indeed!" exclaimed Rose, before Anne could answer. "Why,
mother! Had it not been for that Amanda, Anne never would have run
away."

"But Anne wants to take her a present," said Mrs. Freeman.

A little flush crept into Anne's brown cheeks. "I guess Amanda didn't
mean to," she said.

The clerk was waiting patiently, and Mrs. Freeman now begged his pardon
for so long delaying her purchases, and ordered enough dimity for Anne's
dress. It was a light blue with a tiny white sprig, and Anne thought it
the prettiest pattern that any one could imagine.

"I have plenty of nainsook in the house for your underwear, so we will
not purchase that," said Mrs. Freeman, "but we will buy some good white
cotton yarn so that I can make up some stockings for you. It
will make work for you at odd times." For in those days children were
taught that useful occupation brought as much pleasure as play, and
every girl had "pieced a quilt" before she was ten years of age, worked
a sampler, and usually knit all her own stockings and mittens.

"Can't Anne have some thread gloves like mine?" Rose asked, and Anne
drew a quick breath of delight. "White thread gloves," she thought to
herself, would be more than she could hope for, but Mrs. Freeman seemed
to think it a very reasonable request, and told Rose to go with Anne to
a shop on Queen Street and select a pair of gloves.

"I mus