"How did he come to be talking to you?" asked Nellie, trying to keep a grave face. "What were you doing?"
"I was very good and nice, just sitting on the grass, and making a wreaf of some clovers Carrie gave me," explained Daisy, piteously, "and he brought the meat in, and said, 'Good-morning, bub; you're a nice little fellow!' and I'm not, now."
"Here he comes again," said Nellie, as a jolly, good-natured-looking butcher's boy came around from the other side of the house.
"I shan't let him see me," cried Daisy, and, scrambling to her feet, she rushed into the house before the disturber of her peace came near her again.
A moment later Nellie heard her rippling laugh over some trifle which had taken her attention, and she knew that the April shower was over, and sunshine restored.
This little incident had so diverted Nellie's thoughts, and amused her so much, that for the time she forgot the subject of the conversation with her mother, which had been so abruptly broken off; and when she returned to her, she laughed merrily again as she related the cause of Daisy's trouble, and her indignation at having been taken for a boy.
Mrs. Ransom did not return to it. She thought that enough had been said, and she agreed with her husband in thinking that Nellie would feel a certain satisfaction in believing she exercised her own will and judgment in the matter.
"Here are the keys, dear," she said, when she and Nellie had laughed over Daisy's tribulations; "and it is time Catherine had her orders for the day. Go first to the kitchen and tell her"—and here Mrs. Ransom gave Nellie the necessary directions, which she in her turn was to repeat to the cook. Then she was to ask the woman what was needed from the store-room, and to give out such things.
"What's Nellie going to do?" asked Carrie, who had come in, and stood listening while her mother gave Nellie her directions.