"This is Doris Adams, a little girl who came from England not long ago. You must make her welcome and show her what delightful children there are in Boston. These two girls are Helen and Eudora Chapman, my grandchildren, and the others are grandnieces and friends. Helen, you must do the honors."
Dorcas Payne came forward. "She goes to the same school that I do." She had been entertaining the girls with nearly all she knew about Doris. That Mr. Winthrop Adams was her uncle and guardian raised her a good deal in the estimation of Dorcas, for even then a man was thought unusually well off to be able to live without doing any real business.
"Would you like to play graces?" asked Eudora.
"I don't know," admitted Doris.
"We were playing. Grace and Molly, you go down that end of the room. Now, this is the way. When Betty tosses it you catch it on the sticks, so."
It seemed very easy when Eudora caught it and tossed it back, and Betty threw it again.
"Now you try," and she put the sticks in Doris' hands. "Oh, what tiny little hands you have, and as white as snow!"
Doris blushed. She threw the hoop and it "wabbled," but Betty, a bright, black-eyed girl, made a lunge or two, and caught it on the tip of one stick, and back it came. Doris was looking at her and never moved her hand.
"Pick it up and try again," said Eudora. "That isn't the right way, but we will excuse you this time."
Alas! this time Doris ran and brandished her stick in the air to no purpose.