ook her bright head in vigorous denial. "I haven't! I
can be fifty times nicer than that, when I really try. Let me stay,
Aunt Maria, and you'll see... It's quite true that I was cross at
first. I hated giving up the holiday with the Vernons, and there seemed
nothing to do; but I've changed my mind. I didn't know you, you see,
and now I do, and I--I would like you to be pleased with me before I
_go_! Please, _please_, Aunt Maria, let me stay!"

"Certainly, my dear, I shall be most pleased." Lady Hayes still wore a
somewhat puzzled expression, but she was undoubtedly gratified by the
girl's appeal, and Darsie bent forward and kissed her cheek with the
feeling of one who has narrowly escaped a great danger.

"That's settled, and now we are going to live happily ever after!"

"Ah, my dear, I am afraid that is too much to expect! I have no
amusements to offer you to relieve the dullness. My health obliges me
to live a quiet life, and I have grown to dread change. Of course,
there are plenty of books to read--improving, well-written books, very
different from the rubbish published to-day. If you would like to have
a little reading aloud, or I could give you lessons in knitting and
crochet..."

Darsie laughed, a bright, audacious laugh.

"I wouldn't like it a bit! I've another plan to suggest, fifty times
nicer and more exciting. Suppose,"--she leaned her arms on the old
lady's knee and looked gaily into her spectacled eyes--"suppose, instead
of your trying to make me old with you, _I_ tried, for a time, to make
you young with _me_? Eh? What do you think? Wouldn't it be far more
fun!"

"You ridiculous child!" But Lady Hayes laughed in her turn, and showed
no signs of dismay. "That would be too difficult an undertaking even
for you. To make me young again, ah, Darsie! that's an impossible
task."

"Not a whit more impossible than to make me old!" cried Darsie quickly.
"Suppose we took turns? That would be only fair. Your day first, when
you would read aloud dull books with the blinds half down; and then my
day, when I'd read funny ones, with the blinds drawn up to the top, and
the sun streaming into the room; your day, when we drove the ordinary
round and came back to lunch; and mine when we went away over the hill
and took a picnic basket and drew up at the side of the road, and ate
it, and got milk from a cottage and drank it out of cups without
saucers! Your night, when we played Patience; and