up town to recite an extra lesson to his teacher, Mr. Garland.

"Oh, you're coming too, are you?" said he, looking around at Flaxie and
Milly, who were skipping along behind him, drawing a handsome doll's
carriage.

"Yes, we are going up on the bank to play with Blanche Jones and Fanny
Townsend: mamma said we might," replied Flaxie, dancing.

Preston was very glad of the company of two such happy little girls,
only he forgot to say so.

"And we've built a house of birch bark under the trees. But it hasn't
any stove-pipe!" said Flaxie, who had never forgotten that unfortunate
house that Jack built.

"And we're going to have a doll's party in it," remarked Milly.

"Oh, no, not a party, it's a _reception_," corrected Flaxie; "that's
what Fanny Townsend says they call 'em in Washington. My biggest dolly,
Christie Gretchen, is going to receive. Oh, you don't know how
beautifully she's dressed! And all the other dollies are coming to call
on her, with the cunningest little cards in their pockets."

"Oh, do your dollies play cards?"

"No, indeed; it's _visiting_ cards,--don't you know?--with their names
printed on them, just like ladies. Ninny did that."

As they chattered in this way they were drawing near the Proudfit house,
which stood at the foot of the hill, and little Milly sang,

"There was an old woman lived under the hill;"

Preston sang to the same tune:

"And she had a little boy who was not very ill,
And he went to bed, and he lies there still."

"Why, Preston Gray, did you make that all up yourself?" cried Flaxie,
amazed at his genius.

But there was no time for more poetry, even if Preston had been able to
make it, for they were standing now at the door. It was an old,
tumble-down house. The children called it black, and in fact it was a
sort of slate-color, though it had never been painted at all, except by
the sun, wind, and rain. In the road before it three dirty children were
poking sand, and they looked so shabby that Milly whispered:

"I shouldn't think they'd be called _Proudfits_: they don't look very
proud!"

"No," replied Preston, trying to be witty, "the name doesn't _fit_."

Mrs. Proudfit was changing Sammy's pillow-cases when she heard the
children knock, and came to the door with a pillow between her teeth.
She was "proper glad of the jelly," as Preston thought she ought to be.

There was a smell of hot gingerbread in the air, which reminded Flaxie
of the time ever