Betsy had come out of the yard again.  She was carrying a huge feather duster over her head as if it were a parasol.

“The darling!” Maida said joyously.  “I hope she’ll do something naughty every day.”

“Queer how you love a naughty child,” Dick said musingly.  “They’re an awful lot of trouble but you can’t help liking them.  Has Tim Doyle fallen into the puddle yet?”

“Yes, just a little while ago.”

“He’s always falling in mud puddles.  I guess if Molly fishes him out once after a rain, she does a half a dozen times.”

“Do come and see me, Dicky, won’t you?” Maida asked when they got to the shop door.  “You know I shall be lonely when all the children are in school and—­then besides—­you’re the first friend I’ve made.”

At the word friend, Dicky’s beautiful smile shone bright.  “Sure, I’ll come,” he said heartily.  “I’ll come often.”

“Granny,” Maida exclaimed, bursting into the kitchen, “wait until you hear about Betsy Hale.”  She told the whole story.  “Was I ever a naughty little girl?” she concluded.

“Naughty?  Glory be, and what’s ailing you?  ’Twas the best choild this side of Heaven that you was.  Always so sick and yet niver a cross wurrud out of you.”

A shadow fell over Maida’s face.  “Oh, dear, dear,” she grieved.  “I wish I had been a naughty child—­people love naughty children so.  Are you quite sure I was always good, Granny?”

“Why, me blessid lamb, ’twas too sick that you was to be naughty.  You cud hardly lift one little hand from the bed.”

“But, Granny, dear,” Maida persisted, “can’t you think of one single, naughty thing I did?  I’m sure you can if you try hard.”

Maida’s face was touched with a kind of sad wistfulness.  Granny looked down at her, considerably puzzled.  Then a light seemed to break in her mind.  It shone through her blue eyes and twinkled in her smile.

“Sure and Oi moind wance when Oi was joost afther giving you some medicine and you was that mad for having to take the stuff that you sat oop in bed and knocked iv’ry bottle off the table.  Iv’ry wan!  Sure, we picked oop glass for a wake afther.”

Maida’s wistful look vanished in a peal of silvery laughter.  “Did I really, Granny?” she asked in delight.  “Did I break every bottle?  Are you sure?  Every one?”

“Iv’ry wan as sure as OI’m a living sinner,” said Granny.  “Faith and ’twas the bad little gyurl that you was often—­now that I sthop to t’ink av ut.”

Maida bounded back to the shop in high spirits.  Granny heard her say “Every bottle!” again and again in a whispering little voice.

“Just think, Granny,” she called after a while.  “I’ve made one, two, three, four, five friends—­Dicky, Molly, Tim, Betsy and Laura—­though I don’t call her quite a friend yet.  Pretty good for so soon!”

Maida was to make a sixth friend, although not quite so quickly.