As they went out from the dimness of the spring house into the warm sunshine, who should they see coming toward them but the little girl Mary Jane had seen that morning on the bridge in the hotel gardens. Mary Jane hung back a minute to speak to her.
“I’m Mary Jane and you live in my house,” she said by way of introduction.
“No,” replied the little girl half shyly; “you live in mine because I lived here first. I’m Ellen. Are you tired?”
“No-o!” answered Mary Jane positively; “what is there to be tired about?”
“It’s such a long way out here,” said Ellen.
Ellen’s mother came up just then and seeing her little girl speaking to the newcomers she added, “We tried to walk out here and I should have known better because it’s much too far for Ellen. But she’ll have to be a brave girl because there’s no other way to get back.”
“There is if you don’t mind being crowded a bit,” suggested Mrs. Merrill hospitably. “We three can sit on the back seat and you and Ellen can sit in front with the driver. We’re just ready to start back now.”
On the way back the two ladies chatted and found they had many mutual friends, and the little girls planned to play together as soon as they got home. At the suggestion of Ellen’s mother, Mrs. Berry, they stopped at an orange orchard and saw the funny little stoves that are set among the trees to keep the orchard warmer in a cold spell. Mary Jane thought those little stoves the queerest things she’d seen yet.
“You tell me when I leave the door open at home, Mother,” she said, “that I must be trying to warm the whole out of doors and here they really do it!” “So they do,” agreed Mrs. Merrill; “only you see we haven’t an orchard to use the heat up our way!”
The owner of the orchard gave each girl an orange and was so nice to them, showing them around and letting the girls pick fruit and take pictures, that they could hardly bear to leave.