"Very well," she said; "we'll just be friends and tea will come later on. Now I've finished my sketch for to-day, so must say good-bye to you. And I shall be here every afternoon this week, so you will know where to find me."
Charity and Hope went home and informed Faith that they had got a charming friend and would be very often away in the woods with her.
Faith of course was curious, but for some time she could not find out who it was.
And then one day Granny and Aunt Alice went to tea with Lady Melville and met Miss Huntingdon, and Aunt Alice and she became the greatest friends. But Charity and Hope still maintained that they had the first claim upon her, and the invitation to take tea with her came and was accepted.
They went to the Farm when Faith went to the Towers and all seemed satisfied.
[CHAPTER XI]
THE GREY DONKEY
THE summer holidays came at last and Miss Vale said good-bye to her pupils for six weeks.
Charlie Evans had been away with his mother for a month at the seaside. Now he returned looking as brown as a berry and much stronger in every way. He came round to the Cottage the first evening after his return home, and the little girls took him into the orchard, where they had been trying to erect a kind of tent with an old piece of sacking and four stout sticks, which wobbled about in the ground at the least touch. Charlie did not think much of their attempt.
"Why don't you get a man to put the poles in?" he said. "I know a chap who would do it. The blacksmith's son. He comes once a week to do up our garden."