"Fairy! O Fairy!" she cried under her breath, "a fine dream has come true! I shall go to Mistress Kent and learn! learn! learn! Blessings on thee, good parson! I would like to thank thee."
"Be wise and let not any one know what you have overheard," warned her Fairy.
"Indeed, I shall know nothing at all," laughed Sally, "until Mistress Cory Ann says to me I can go schooling twice a week;" and Sally's eyes sparkled like fire.
When Saturday came, but not until then, Mistress Cory Ann said, with a scornful toss of her head:
"Since you think it so fine a thing to dabble in books, and choose to fill your head with what others have got along plenty well without, I care not where you go this afternoon, but mind you show smartness at other times, or the twice-a-week trips will cease."
That was all, and that was enough. Sally knew now that her pet dream was to work itself out beautifully.
She had a few pence earned by mending, and at Goodman Chatfield's store she begged to know if ninepence would buy a decent pair of stockings.
"Indeed, no, a shilling is the least that will buy stockings of any kind," said storeman Chatfield, who in very truth liked to chatter. "But I am much wanting an errand done at the Cloverlove plantation, and if you would do it, I will, with the ninepence, give a pair of hosen that will stand you well."
It was half a mile to Cloverlove plantation, and half a mile back, but Sally gladly did the errand, and ran home happy as any bird with a smart new pair of stockings tucked under her arm.