"You goose! You donkey!" exclaimed the indignant guardian. "Your new Leghorn—trimmed with real lace! Where are you to get another hat for the voyage?"
"Don't want one," cried Shelah saucily, shaking her fiery locks. The child thought her covering of thick, untidy hair quite sufficient for comfort.
"You may not want one now," observed Harold Hartley, "but the protection of a hat will be quite necessary when we encounter the heat of the tropics."
"You'll have sun-stroke, and coup-de-soleil, and fall down in a fit!" cried Miss Petty. "And what will your father and mother say to me after all the trouble I've taken with their child!"
Robin good-naturedly clapped his own wide-awake over the little girl's head; but the hat being much too large for Shelah, it extinguished her forehead and eyes, only arrested by the turned-up tip of her nose.
Shelah pulled off the wide-awake, and laughed as she flung it back to its owner.
"I think that I can improvise something which will at least keep out the heat," said Mrs. Evendale, after some minutes' consideration. "I have a round, fancy basket below, which is, I think, about the right size for the crown of a hat, and I could quilt a brim if I had proper materials. Ah! This will supply both the wadding and silk," and the lady drew from behind her a small red cushion which had been given for a comfort during the voyage. "The gay colour will not matter on the head of a child."
"I like gay colours," said Shelah; "I won't throw your hat into the sea."
Mrs. Evendale gave no hint that the basket was one which she prized, or that the cushion was one that she would miss; a weakness in her back making the pillow almost a necessary to the widow. Mrs. Evendale went down to the cabin for her workbox and basket, and after removing the handle from the latter, tried it on the head of Shelah O'More.
"Nothing could fit better," observed Miss Petty.