“Yes, I know,” Mr. Badger smiled and nodded.  ’Your methods seem to have turned out a mighty nice little girl, and it’s been a wonder to me ever since I came, to see you going about, such a different creature from what you used to be.”

“Yes, I’m well and happy,” returned Mrs. Wright, “and I long to have this trouble between you and aunt Hazel at an end.  I suppose Hazel isn’t likely to come in contact with her at all.”

“No, indeed; no more than if aunt Hazel lived in Kamschatka.  She does, if it’s cold enough there.”

“Dear woman.  She ignored the last two letters I wrote her, I suppose because I sided with you.”

“Oh, certainly, that would be an unpardonable offense.  Hannah tells me she has a crippled child visiting her now, the daughter of some friends.  Hannah persists in keeping an eye on aunt Hazel’s affairs, and telling me about them.  Hannah will be pleased to have little Hazel to make a pet of for a few weeks.”

He was right.  The housekeeper was charmed.  She did everything to make Hazel feel at home in her uncle’s house, and discovering that the little girl had a passion for flowers, let her make a garden bed of her own.  Hazel went with her uncle to buy plants for this, and she had great fun taking geraniums and pansies out of their pots and planting them in the soft brown earth of the round garden plot; and every day blue-eyed Ella, her doll, sat by and watched Hazel pick out every little green weed that had put its head up in the night.

“You’re only grass, dearie,” she would say to one as she uprooted it, “and grass is all right most everywhere; but this is a garden, so run away.”

Not very far down the street was a real garden, though, that gave Hazel such joy to look at that she carried Ella there every day when it didn’t rain, and would have gone every day when it did, only Hannah wouldn’t let her.

The owner of the garden, Miss Fletcher, at the window where she sat sewing, began to notice the little stranger at last; for the child stood outside the fence with her doll, and gazed and gazed so long each time, that the lady began to regard her with suspicion.

“That young one is after my flowers, I’m afraid, Flossie,” she said one day to the pale little girl in the wheeled chair that stood near another window looking on the street.

“I’ve noticed her ever so many times,” returned Flossie listlessly.  “I never saw her until this week, and she’s always alone.”

“Well, I won’t have her climbing on my fence!” exclaimed Miss Fletcher, half laying down her work and watching Hazel’s movements sharply through her spectacles.  “There, she’s grabbing hold of a picket now!” she exclaimed suddenly.  “I’ll see to her in quick order.”

She jumped up and hurried out of the room, and Flossie’s tired eyes watched her spare figure as she marched down the garden path.  She didn’t care if Miss Fletcher did send the strange child away.  What difference could it make to a girl who had the whole world to walk around in, and who could take her doll and go and play in some other pleasant place?