Miss Bartlett shrugged her small shoulders.
“I’ll give you a week to find out,” she laughed.
CHAPTER VI
“MAYBE”
THE tiny girl sat in her pillowed chair by the window while the lady from the next street talked with Aunt Sophie. Mrs. Hamilton Garde wanted Aunt Sophie to go over to the great house where she lived and clean some walls and floors. Now they were haggling over the price, or, rather, Mrs. Hamilton Garde was haggling. The plump little woman who scrubbed for her neighbors never haggled. She quietly stated her price by the day or by the hour and let her patron talk. To-day the patron, being Mrs. Hamilton Garde, had argued and hinted and argued again for full seventeen minutes, and finally decided that even if twenty cents an hour was an unreasonably high price to pay, the work must be done and she should not feel justified in hiring somebody outside of the neighborhood. So she bade the little plump woman with red, big-jointed hands “to be sure and get over there and ready to work right on the notch”—which meant seven o’clock on Thursday morning.
Long before this, the child had tired of the uninteresting talk, especially as she had heard the same thing many times over which always ended in the very same fashion. She was looking out of the window when Mrs. Hamilton Garde passed her on the way out. The baby-blue eyes were dwelling on the big, shining car in front of the little house.
Mrs. Hamilton Garde noted the earnest look, and she asked sweetly:
“Are you fond of motoring?”
“Motoring?” repeated the little girl in a puzzled tone.
Mrs. Hamilton Garde laughed in silvery tones, and simplified her question.