vorite among them, for she had always wanted
to rule them and to secure for herself the chief part in their games.
When Barbara saw that she was not missed by her old friends she was
vexed, and she became angry when she found that they paid no attention
to the grand air with which she now spoke nor to the fine frocks which
she wore.

To one girl Barbara had a special dislike. This was none other than
Susan Price, the sweetest-tempered and busiest lass in the village,
and the pride and delight of all who knew her. The farm rented by
Susan's father was near the house in which Mr. Case lived, and Barbara
from her window used to watch Susan at work.

Sometimes the little girl was raking the garden-plots in her neat
garden; sometimes she was weeding the paths; sometimes she was
kneeling at her beehive with fresh flowers for her bees, and sometimes
she was in the hen-yard scattering corn among the eager little
chickens. In the evening Barbara often saw her sitting in the
summer-house over which sweet honeysuckle crept, and there, with a
clean three-legged pine table before her upon which to lay her work,
Susan would sew busily. Her seams were even and neat, for Mrs. Price
had taught her daughter that what is worth doing is worth doing well.

Both Susan and her mother were great favorites in the village. It was
at Mrs. Price's door that the children began their Mayday rounds, and
it was Susan who was usually Queen of the May.

It was now time for the village children to choose their queen. The
setting sun was shining full upon the pink blossoms of the hawthorn
when the merry group met to make their plans for the morrow.

Barbara Case, sulkily walking alone in her father's garden, heard the
happy voices and, crouching behind the hedge that divided her from the
other children, she listened to their plans.

"Where is Susan?" were the first words she overheard.

"Yes, where is Susan?" repeated a boy called Philip, stopping short in
a tune he was playing on his pipe: "I want her to sing me this air, I
can't remember how it goes."

"And I wish Susan would come, I'm sure," cried Mary, a little girl
whose lap was full of primroses. "She will give me some thread to tie
up my nosegays, and she will show me where the fresh violets grow, and
she has promised to give me a great bunch of her cowslips to wear
to-morrow. I wish she would come."

"Nothing can be done without Susan!" cried another child. "She always
shows us where th