"Not the nice home we used to have, though!" sighed Zillah.
"No, daughter; but we must try to be content and thankful; and if we are, we may be as happy in the new home as we were in the old."
With that the now sleeping babe was laid gently down on the robe, a light covering thrown over her, and with a charge to the others to take care of her, and a caress bestowed upon each, the mother hastened back to the house.
"We're tired running 'bout and picking flowers, Fan and Don and me," said Cyril; "so won't you please tell us a story now, Zil?"
"Yes; I'll tell you Androcles and the Lion; you always like that."
"Yes; and then tell 'bout the girl that had a silk dress and couldn't run and play 'cause her shoes pinched," begged Fan.
"Oh look!" exclaimed Ada in an undertone, "see those girls. They haven't silk dresses or shoes to pinch their toes. Don't they look queer?"
The subjects of her remarks were two little maids—one about her own size, the other a trifle smaller—who were slowly making their way through the bushes toward the spot where the Keith children were seated.
They had sallow, sunburnt faces, tawny, yellow locks straggling over their shoulders, and their thin, lanky little forms were arrayed in calico dresses faded, worn and skimpy: pantalets of the same material but different color, appeared below their skirts. Their feet were bare, and on their heads were sunbonnets of pasteboard covered with still another pattern of calico both faded and soiled.