CHAPTER XII
A WONDERFUL DAY
Anne held Rose’s hand very tightly as they walked along. It seemed to the little girl that all the people of the town were out walking up and down the streets. Now and then there would be a clatter of hoofs over the cobblestone pavements and Anne would look up to see a man go by on horseback. And Mrs. Freeman told her to notice a fine coach drawn by two horses, that stood in front of the very shop they were about to enter.
“If I spend a guinea for clothes will it not be enough?” Anne questioned, as Mrs. Freeman asked a smiling clerk to show them blue dimity.
“Why, yes, Anne; I think we can manage very nicely with a guinea,” responded Mrs. Freeman, who meant to supply Anne with many needful things from her own stores. “Do you wish to save one?”
Anne shook her head. “No,” she responded, “but I want to buy a grand present for Aunt Martha and Uncle Enos, and something for Amanda Cary. I should like to take Amos and the Starkweather children something, but I fear there will not be enough money.”
Mrs. Freeman smiled at Anne’s thought for her playmates. “You can perhaps make something for some of your little friends. Would not the Starkweather children like a little work-bag or a hemstitched handkerchief?” she asked.
The thought of the Starkweather boys with work-bags and hemstitched handkerchiefs seemed very funny to Anne, and she gave a little laugh, saying, “But they are all boys.”
“Oh, well, then we will make some fine candy just before you go home, and you and Rose can make some pretty boxes to put it in. So there’s your present for the Starkweather boys. And you’ll have a whole guinea to buy gifts for Mrs. Stoddard and the captain, and for Amanda. I suppose Amanda is your dearest friend, isn’t she?” and Mrs. Freeman looked down into Anne’s happy smiling face, quite sure that Mrs. Stoddard must be very glad that she had taken the little girl into her own home.