"You needn't tell me you did them things by yourself. You took 'em from some picturs."
So she came home tired and dispirited. Mary Jane had a crowd of gay company in the evening, and Charlie slipped off to bed. Oh, if she could only give Dot a good hug, and kiss Hal's pale face, and hear Granny's cracked voice! Even the horrible tuning of Kit's fiddle would sound sweet. But to be here,—among strangers,—and not be able to make her plans work.
Charlie turned her face over on the pillow, and had a good cry. After all, there never could be anybody in this world half so sweet as "The old woman who lived in a shoe!"
On Wednesday it rained. Charlie was positively glad to have a good excuse for staying within doors. She helped Mrs. Wilcox with her sewing, and told her every thing she could remember about the people at Madison.
"How strange it must look,—and a railroad through the middle of it! There wa'n't no mills in my time, either. And rows of houses, Mary Jane said. She'd never 'a' known the place if it hadn't been for the folks. Dear, dear!"
Mary Jane came home in high feather that night.
"I found they were taking on some girls to-day, Charlie; and I spoke a good word for you. You can come next Monday. I don't believe you'll make out much with the pictures."
"You were very good;" but Charlie's lip quivered a little.
"It will be ever so nice to have company up and down! and you'll like it, I'm sure."
Mary Jane, being of a particularly discursive nature, was delighted to have a constant listener.