"And mamma," asked she, as soon as she saw her mother alone, "may I give the honey to Sadie Stockwell next Christmas? Let me go my own self, please, with Blackdrop and the little sleigh, and carry it."
"Perhaps so, my dear. But it is quite uncertain where you will be next Christmas," replied Mrs. Gray, who had strong reason to think she might be in Washington.
Flaxie, however, had forgotten all about Washington. "Oh, perhaps I'm going to Hilltop," thought she. "But that wouldn't be quite so splendid as to have Milly come to my house. If she can come to my house next winter, and go to school to Miss Pike in the pink chamber, I'll be perfectly happy."
The little girl's dreams that night were of going to some wonderful country she had never seen before. It must have been somewhere in fairyland, for
"Everything was strange and new,
And honey-bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles' wings."
[CHAPTER X.]
THE LAST FEATHER.
Things happen to us sometimes that are even better than we have dreamed. To be with Miss Pike in the pink chamber again had seemed happiness to Flaxie; but to be with Miss Pike in Washington, going everywhere and seeing everything, this was bliss indeed!
Dr. Gray was elected to Congress; Preston was sent to boarding-school; Julia stayed with Grandma Gray at Mrs. Prim's; and Mrs. Gray went with her husband and the three youngest children to board in Washington for the winter.