"There, there! Don't you cry any more, Trix," urged good-natured Agnes. "I'm so glad you got out of that horrid place safely. And we didn't help you, you know. It was Neale O'Neil."
"That circus boy" had slunk away as though he had done something criminal; but Joe was blowing a horn of praise for Neale in the crowd, as the Corner House girls led Trix away.
Ruth and Agnes went home with Trix Severn, but they would not go into the house that evening as Trix desired. The very next morning Trix was around before schooltime, to walk to school with Agnes. And within a week (as Neale laughingly declared to Ruth) Agnes and Trix were "as thick as thieves!"
"Can you beat Aggie?" scoffed Neale. "That Trix girl has been treating her as mean as she knows how for months, and now you couldn't pry Aggie away from her with a crowbar."
"I am glad," said Ruth, "that Agnes so soon gets over being mad."
"Huh! Trix is soft just now. But wait till she gets mad again," he prophesied.
However, this intimacy of Agnes with her former enemy continued so long that winter passed, and spring tiptoed through the woods and fields, flinging her bounties with lavish hand, while still Agnes and Trix remained the best of friends.
As spring advanced, the usual restless spirit of the season pervaded the old Corner House. Especially did the little girls find it infectious. Tess and Dot neglected the nursery and the dolls for the sake of being out-of-doors.
Old Billy Bumps, who had lived almost the life of a hermit for part of the winter, was now allowed the freedom of the premises for a part of each day. They kept the gates shut; but the goat had too good a home, and led too much a life of ease here at the Corner House, to wish to wander far.
The girls ran out to the rescue of any stranger who came to the Willow Street gate. It was not everybody that Billy Bumps "took to," but many he "took after."