How Marjorie’s eyes brightened!  She had found her ideal; she would give herself no rest until she had become like Helen Rheid.  But Helen Rheid had everything to push her on, every one to help her.  For the first time in her life Marjorie was disheartened.  But, with a reassuring conviction, flashed the thought—­there were years before she would be seventeen.

“Wouldn’t you like to see her, Mousie?”

“Indeed, I would,” said Marjorie, enthusiastically.

“I brought her photograph to mother—­how she looked at me when ‘marm’ slipped out one day.  The boys always used to say ‘Marm,’” he said laughing.

Marjorie remembered that she had been taught to say “grandmarm,” but as she grew older she had softened it to “grandma.”

“I’ll bring you her photograph when I come to-morrow to say good-bye.  Now, tell me what you’ve been looking sad about.”

Is it possible that she was forgetting?

“Oh, perhaps you can help me!”

“Help you!  Of course I will.”

“How did you know I was troubled?” she asked seriously, looking up into his eyes.

“Have I eyes?” he answered as seriously.  “Father happened to think that mother had an errand for him to do on this road, so I jumped off and ran after you.”

“No, you ran after your mother’s errand,” she answered, jealously.

“Well, then, I found you, my precise little maiden, and now you must tell me what you were crying about.”

“Not spilt milk, but only a broken milk pitcher! Do you think you can find me a yellow pitcher, with yellow figures—­a man, or a lion, or something, a hundred or two hundred years old?”

“In New York?  I’m rather doubtful.  Oh, I know—­mother has some old ware, it belonged to her grandmother, perhaps I can beg a piece of it for you.  Will it do if it isn’t a pitcher?”

“I’d rather have a pitcher, a yellow pitcher.  The one I broke belongs to a friend of Miss Prudence.”

“Prudence!  Is she a Puritan maiden?” he asked.

Marjorie felt very ignorant, she colored and was silent.  She supposed Helen Rheid would know what a Puritan maiden was.

“I won’t tease you,” he said penitently.  “I’ll find you something to make the loss good, perhaps I’ll find something she’ll like a great deal better.”

“Mr. Onderdonk has a plate that came from Holland, it’s over two hundred years old he told Miss Prudence; oh, if you could get that!” cried Marjorie, clasping her hands in her eagerness.

“Mr. Onderdonk?  Oh, the shoemaker, near the schoolhouse.  Well, Mousie, you shall have some old thing if I have to go back a century to get it.  Helen will be interested to know all about it; I’ve told her about you.”

“There’s nothing to tell about me,” returned Marjorie.

“Then I must have imagined it; you used to be such a cunning little thing.”

“Used to be!” repeated sensitive Marjorie, to herself.  She was sure Hollis was disappointed in her.  And she thought he was so tall and wise and handsome and grand!  She could never be disappointed in him.