The maid was so well dressed in her quiet street suit that aunt Martha
groaned in spirit at first at the prospect of caring for a fashionable city
servant; and it was a relief when the stranger looked up and said
pleasantly: "I'm just Ellen."

There was an hour left before dinner, and Faith and Ernest carried Gladys
off to a place they called the grove. The farmhouse was painted in light
yellow and white. It was built on a grassy slope, and at the foot of a
gentle hill a pretty pond lay, and out from this flowed a brook. If one
kept quite still he could hear the soft babble of the little stream even
from the piazza. Nearer by was a large elm-tree, so wide-spreading that the
pair of Baltimore orioles who hung their swaying nest on one limb scarcely
had a bowing acquaintance with the robins who lived on the other side. The
air was full of pleasant scents, and Gladys followed her hosts willingly,
far to the right side of the house, where a stone wall divided the grounds
from a piece of woodland. Her cousins bounded over the wall, and she tried
to find a safe spot for her dainty, thin shoe, the large doll impeding her
movements.

"Oh, let me take her!" cried Faith eagerly, seeing her cousin's
predicament; and as she carefully lifted the beautiful Vera, she added:
"Help Gladys over, Ernest."

Ernest was very unused to girls who had to be helped, and he was rather
awkward in trying to give his cousin assistance, but as Gladys tetered on
the unsteady stones, she grasped his strong shoulder and jumped down.

"Father and Ernest cleared this grove out for us," explained Faith. All the
underbrush had been carried away and the straight, sweet-smelling pines
rose from a carpet of dry needles. A hammock was swung between two trees.
It was used more by the children's mother than by them, as they were too
active to care for it; but Gladys immediately ran toward it, her recovered
doll in her arms, and seated herself in the netting. Her cousins regarded
her admiringly as she sat there pushing herself with her dainty shoe-tips.

"I'll swing you," said Ernest, and running to her side began with such a
will that Gladys cried out:--

"Oh, not so hard, not so hard!" and the boy dropped his hands, abashed.

Now, while they were both standing before her, was a good time for Gladys
to give them her great surprise; so she put her hands about Vera's waist,
and at once "Ma-ma--Pa-pa" sounded in the still grove.

Ernest pricked up his ears. "