“That’s a nice, dignified manner, that is!  Your Serene Highness will please calm yourself, and stay just where you are. I shall select the book to read from, and I shall do the reading.  All you have to do is to lie still and listen.”

So Marjorie obeyed, and, of course, Uncle Steve picked out the very book she wanted, and read to her delightfully for an hour or more.

Marjorie’s porch, as it came to be called, proved to be a favorite resort all summer long for the family and for any guests who came to the house.  Marjorie herself almost lived in it for the first few days after she came downstairs, but at last the doctor pronounced her ankle entirely well, and said she might “start out to find some fresh mischief.”

So the next morning, directly after breakfast, she announced her intention of going down to see the boathouse.

“Just think,” she exclaimed, “I have never seen it yet, and King told me to go down there the very first thing.”

“I suppose you’ll come back half-drowned,” said Grandma, “but as you seem unable to learn anything, except by mistakes, go ahead.  But, Marjorie, do try not to do some absurd thing, and then say that I haven’t forbidden it!  I don’t forbid you to go in the boat, if Carter goes with you, but I do forbid you to go alone.  Will you remember that?”

“Yes, Grandma, truly I will,” said Marjorie, with such a seraphic smile that her grandmother kissed her at once.

“Then run along and have a good time; and don’t jump off the dock or anything foolish.”

“I won’t,” cried Marjorie, gayly; and then she went dancing down the path to the garden.  Carter was in the greenhouse potting some plants.

“Carter,” said Marjorie, putting her head in at the door, “are you very busy?”

“Busy, indeed!  I have enough work here with these pesky plants to keep me steady at it till summer after next.  Busy, is it?  I’m so busy that the bees and the ants is idle beside me.  Busy?  Well, I am busy!”

But as the good-natured old man watched Marjorie’s face, and saw the look of disappointment settling upon it, he said:  “But what matters that?  If so be, Miss Midget, I can do anything for you, you’ve only to command.”

“Well, Carter, I thought this morning I’d like to go down to see the boathouse; and I thought, perhaps,—­maybe, if you weren’t busy, you might take me for a little row in the boat.  Just a little row, you know—­not very far.”

It would have taken a harder heart than Carter’s to withstand the pleading tones and the expectant little face; and the gardener set down his flower-pots, and laid down his trowel at once.

“Did your grandmother say you could go, Miss Midget?”

“She said I could go if you went with me.”

“Then it’s with ye I go, and we’ll start at once.”

Marjorie danced along by the side of the old man as he walked more slowly down the garden path, when suddenly a new idea came into her head.