"I guess not!" said Miss Penny. "I expect she's come to see me, ain't you, Annie Lizzie? I've got a new piece of ribbin in, jest matches your dress, and your cheeks, too."
Annie Lizzie dimpled and smiled shyly. "I'd love to see it, Miss Penny," she said; "but first I come with a message for Mr. Weaver."
"Then I'll go and feed the rest of them birds," said Miss Penny. "There! hear 'em hollerin' the minute I say 'feed'? They are the cutest!"
She vanished into the shop, and Seth looked up at the young girl with a friendly twinkle. "Back stairs again, Annie Liz?" he asked. "I expect to get at 'em to-morrow, honest I do."
"No, sir, 'twasn't the stairs this time," said Annie Lizzie, looking down. "Ma didn't know I was comin', or she might have said something. I come with a message from Tommy, Mr. Weaver. He wanted to know could you spare him some white paint."
"What does he want of white paint?" asked Seth.
"Wants to paint the front gate," replied Annie Lizzie.
"Sho!" said Seth. "The front gate was painted only last fall. There ain't no need to paint it ag'in for three years."
"I know!" said the girl, patiently. "But all the same he's goin' to paint it, and he wants you should put somethin' in it so's it won't dry."
"So's it will dry, you mean!" corrected Seth. "Tell him I won't do it. Hastenin' white paint's like hastenin' a mud-turtle; it's bad for his constitution, and then he don't get anywheres. White paint has to dry slow, or it's no good. You tell Tommy that, and tell him he'd oughter know it, much as he's hung round my shop."