"I remember," she said after a pause as she helped to put the little girl's sash straight, "when I was a child about your age, Maggie, I often amused myself making up pictures of people before I had seen them. I generally found that the pictures were wrong, and that the people were not at all like what I had fancied them to be."
Maggie pondered over this statement; then she said solemnly:
"But I know about Jo—I'm quite sure that my picture of Jo isn't wrong. She wears a white pinafore, and there are no spots on it, and her hair is so shiny—I 'spect there is vaseline on her hair—and her nails are neat, and her shoes are always buttoned, and—and—and—she's a horrid good little girl—and I don't like her—and I never will like her."
"Maggie! Maggie!" shouted Ralph from below, and Maggie, with a nod at Miss Grey, and the parting words, "I know all about her," rushed out of the room, danced down the stairs, and holding her cousin's hand, and accompanied by the sedate Waters, set out on their morning walk.
It was Maggie's first walk in London, and the children and maid soon found themselves crossing Hyde Park, coming out at one of the gates at the opposite side from Mrs. Grenville's pretty house, and then entering a crowded thoroughfare. Here Waters stepped resolutely between the little pair, took a hand of each, and hurried them along. Ralph carried a small closed basket in his hand, and Maggie wondered what it contained, and why Ralph looked so grave and thoughtful, and why he so often questioned Waters as to the contents of a square box which she also carried.
"You took great care of that box while I was away, Waters?"
"Well, yes, Master Ralph; it always stood on the mantelpiece in my mistress' room, and I dusted it myself most regularly."
"And do you really think it's getting heavy, Waters?"
"Well, sir, you were away exactly two nights and two days, and that means, by the allowance of one penny a day given to you, two pennies more in the money-box. It's two pennies heavier than it was, sir, when you left us, and that's all."
Ralph sighed profoundly.