hands under her apron.

"What does tha' think," she said, with a cheerful grin. "I've brought
thee a present."

"A present!" exclaimed Mistress Mary. How could a cottage full of
fourteen hungry people give any one a present!

"A man was drivin' across the moor peddlin'," Martha explained. "An'
he stopped his cart at our door. He had pots an' pans an' odds an'
ends, but mother had no money to buy anythin'. Just as he was goin'
away our 'Lizabeth Ellen called out, 'Mother, he's got skippin'-ropes
with red an' blue handles.' An' mother she calls out quite sudden,
'Here, stop, mister! How much are they?' An' he says 'Tuppence', an'
mother she began fumblin' in her pocket an' she says to me, 'Martha,
tha's brought me thy wages like a good lass, an' I've got four places
to put every penny, but I'm just goin' to take tuppence out of it to
buy that child a skippin'-rope,' an' she bought one an' here it is."

She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly.
It was a strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at
each end, but Mary Lennox had never seen a skipping-rope before. She
gazed at it with a mystified expression.

"What is it for?" she asked curiously.

"For!" cried out Martha. "Does tha' mean that they've not got
skippin'-ropes in India, for all they've got elephants and tigers and
camels! No wonder most of 'em's black. This is what it's for; just
watch me."

And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each
hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip, while Mary turned in her chair
to stare at her, and the queer faces in the old portraits seemed to
stare at her, too, and wonder what on earth this common little cottager
had the impudence to be doing under their very noses. But Martha did
not even see them. The interest and curiosity in Mistress Mary's face
delighted her, and she went on skipping and counted as she skipped
until she had reached a hundred.

"I could skip longer than that," she said when she stopped. "I've
skipped as much as five hundred when I was twelve, but I wasn't as fat
then as I am now, an' I was in practice."

Mary got up from her chair beginning to feel excited herself.

"It looks nice," she said. "Your mother is a kind woman. Do you think
I could ever skip like that?"

"You just try it," urged Martha, handing her the skipping-rope. "You
can't skip a hundred at first, but if you practice you'll mount up.
That's what mothe