"No," said Belle; "but it don't sound very nice."
"Oh, I think it sounds so nice!" said Maggie "It means to be very, very great friends, and to be very fond of each other, and tell each other all our secrets."
"I'd just as lief be, if it means that," said Belle. "I think you and Bessie are very good, and I am going to love you a great deal. But I don't have any secrets. Can you tell me yours if I don't have any?"
"Oh yes!" said Maggie; "and maybe some of these days you'll have some, and then you can tell us. But Bessie and I always tell our secrets to mamma, 'cause she says it is not right for little girls to have secrets from their mothers."
So the treaty was made, and things proved as the children had hoped they would; for it was made certain that Belle's mamma had been Mrs. Bradford's friend of bygone days; and her papa being only too thankful for the interest and sympathy the lady showed for his lonely little child, and that Belle should have as companions and playmates our well-behaved and ladylike Maggie and Bessie, the three children became very nearly what Maggie had desired—"inseparables."
CHAPTER V.
THE PRIZES.
Maggie and Bessie had been going to school about a week, when one morning Miss Ashton said she wished all her little scholars, except Bessie, Belle, and Carrie Ransom, to write a short composition for her. This was received with some very long faces and a good many ohs! and ahs! of which Miss Ashton took no notice. Maggie and Gracie were the only two who seemed to be pleased with the prospect. Maggie, as we know, had been accustomed to composing a little. Her "History of the Complete Family" had been of great use to her in this, as well as her habit of writing letters to her friends whenever she found an opportunity. So she looked upon Miss Ashton's order more as a pleasant pastime than as a task; and she and Gracie Howard, who was also a good writer and fond of composition, seized upon their slates and pencils with great satisfaction.
Miss Ashton said each child might take as a subject the history of yesterday, and tell what she had done or what happened to her; that she would give them half an hour, and at the end of that time they must all hand her something, even if it were only a few lines; but she trusted each little girl to do her best.
"Miss Ashton," said Bessie, "could not I make a little composition too? I can't write, but I can print it."