“But we always do at home!” complained Lucy, with a frown.

“Like as not you don’t clear up the muss afterward, either,” suggested Mrs. Fields, with a sharp look.

“Course we don’t,” Randolph asserted, with a curl of his handsome upper lip.  “What’s servants for, I’d like to know?”

“To make friends with, not to treat impolitely,” said a clear voice behind the boy.

Randolph and Lucy turned quickly, and Mrs. Fields’s face, which had grown grim, softened perceptibly.  Both children looked ready to make some tart reply to Charlotte’s interpolation, but as their eyes fell upon her they discovered that to be impossible.  How could one speak rudely when one met that kind but authoritative glance?

“This is Mrs. Fields’s busiest time, you know,” Charlotte said, “and it wouldn’t do to bother her now with making candy.  In the afternoon I’ll help you make it.  Come, suppose we go for a walk.  I’ve some marketing to do.”

“Ran can go with you,” said Lucy, as Charlotte proceeded to make ready for the trip.  “It’s too cold for me.  I’d rather stay here by the fire and read.”

Charlotte looked at her.  Lucy’s delicate face was paler than usual this morning; she had a languid air.

“The walk in this fresh November breeze will be sure to make you feel ever so much better,” said Charlotte.  “Don’t you think so, Cousin Lula?”

Mrs. Peyton looked up reluctantly from her embroidery.

“Why, I wouldn’t urge her, Charlotte, if she doesn’t want to go,” she said, with a glance at Lucy, who was leaning back in a big chair with a discontented expression.  “You mustn’t expect people from the South to enjoy your freezing weather as you seem to.  Lucy feels the cold very much.”

Charlotte and Randolph marched away down the street together, the boy as full of spirits as his companion.

She had found it easy from the first to make friends with him, and was beginning, in spite of certain rather unpleasant qualities of his, to like him very much.  His mother had done her best to spoil him, yet the child showed plainly that there was in him the material for a sturdy, strong character.

When Charlotte had made several small purchases at the market, she did not offer to give Randolph the little wicker basket she carried, but the boy took it from her with a smile and a proud air.

“Ran,” said Charlotte, “just round this corner there’s a jolly hill.  I don’t believe anybody will mind if we have a race down it, do you?”

It was a back street, and the hill was an inviting one.  The two had their race, and Randolph won by a yard.  Just as the pair, laughing and panting, slowed down into their ordinary pace, a runabout, driven by a smiling young man in a heavy ulster and cap, turned the corner with a rush.  Amid a cloud of steam the motor came to a standstill.

“Aha!  Caught you at it!” cried Doctor Churchill.  “Came down that hill faster than the law allows.  Get in here, both of you, and take the run out to the hospital with me.  I shall not be there long.  I’ve been out once this morning.  This is just to make sure of a case I operated on two hours ago.”