f us, for that matter.'

I began to think Sharley a very nice girl. I put my hand in hers
confidingly.

'I'd like to come,' I said, 'and I'd like to play that funny name down
the grass-bank here, if you'll show me how.'

'All right,' she said. 'We'll have to ask leave, I suppose. But you
haven't told me your name yet. The children are sure to ask me.'

I repeated it--or them--solemnly.

'"Charlotte"--that's my name,' Sharley remarked.

'I'm never called it,' I said. 'I'm always called Helena.'

Sharley looked rather surprised.

'Fancy!' she said. '_We_ all call each other by short names and
nicknames and all kinds of absurd names. Anna is generally Nan, and the
boys are Pert and Quick--at least those are the names that have lasted
longest. I daresay it's partly because they are just a little like their
real names--Percival and Quintin.'

'What a great many of you there are!' I said, but Sharley took my remark
in perfectly good part, even though I went on to add--'It's like the
baker's children--I counted them once, but I couldn't get them right;
sometimes they came to nine and sometimes to eleven.'

'Do you mean the baker's on the way to High Middlemoor?' said Sharley.
'Oh yes, it must be them--papa calls them the baker's dozen always. No,
we're not as many as that. We are only seven--us four girls, and Pert
and Quick, and Jerry, our big brother, who's at school. Dear me, it must
be dull to be only one!'

Just then we heard the voices of grandmamma and Sharley's mother coming
towards us. And a minute or two later the pony-carriage drove away
again, Sharley nodding back friendly farewells.

CHAPTER IV

NEW FRIENDS AND A PLAN

I stood looking after it as long as it was in sight. I felt quite
strange, almost a little dazed, as if I had more than I could manage to
think over in my head. Grandmamma, who was standing behind me, put her
hand on my shoulder.

I looked up at her, and I saw that her face seemed pleased.

'Is that a nice lady, grandmamma?' I said.

I do not quite know why I asked about Sharley's mother in that way, for
I felt sure she was nice. I think I wanted grandmamma to help me to
arrange my ideas a little.

'Very nice, dear,' she said. 'Did you not think she spoke very kindly?'

'Yes, I did, grandmamma,' I replied. I had a rather 'old-fashioned' way
of speaking sometimes, I think.

'And her little girl--well, she is not a little girl, exactly, is
she?--seems very bright and