"I thought they would suit one another," returned Agnes.
"I think I shall send them over to Mrs. MacDonald's this afternoon," Mrs. Evans went on. "Edna will like the walk, and I promised to let Mrs. MacDonald know about some flower bulbs."
Therefore, after an early dinner, the two little girls set out to take a walk over the country road to this neighbor's.
Mrs. MacDonald was a widow, who lived all alone in a big house, substantially built of gray stone. She had once been a dressmaker, had married when no longer young a man of wealth, who died a few years after their marriage, leaving her very well off. She had no children, was a little peculiar, but a thoroughly good woman, and a neighbor whom Mrs. Evans much esteemed. She was very fond of Dorothy, and met the little girls very cordially.
"Bless my little Goldilocks," she said, in greeting; "and who is this?"
"This is Edna Conway," Dorothy informed her. "She is making me a visit. O, Mrs. MacDonald, may I show her the greenhouse?"
"To be sure you may; but you must be hungry after your long walk. Go ask Lizzie to get you some doughnuts. You know where to find her."
Edna did not know whether or not to follow her friend, but thought it would be more polite to sit with her hostess. Mrs. MacDonald had nothing to say for a while, and Edna was puzzling her brain as to what suitable remark she could make, when Mrs. MacDonald surprised her by saying:
"How should you like to come here and be my little girl?"
This was a difficult question to answer, but Edna got through bravely by saying, "If I didn't have any mamma and papa of my own I should like it very much, 'cause it is very pretty here, and I'd like to be near Dorothy, and—" she added, timidly, "you look like a very good lady." She would like to have said, "You are a very pretty lady," but Mrs. MacDonald was not handsome.