"Then I will get another cow and enlarge my hothouse, and between the butter and the violets I guess I can bring up my college fund," and Launcelot looked so hopeful that they all smiled in sympathy.
"Where did you get her?" asked Judy, as she patted the pretty creature on the head.
"I bought her a mile or so out in the country, and I tell you I hated to take her after I had paid the money."
"Why?" asked Anne.
"Oh, they were so poor, and the cow was the only thing they had. There is a widow, named McSwiggins, with six children, and I guess they have had a pretty hard time, and now their taxes are due and the interest and two of them have had the typhoid fever, and are just skin and bone, and they had to sell the cow, and they cried, and I felt like a thief when I carried her off."
"Oh, poor things," cried Judy, when Launcelot finished his breathless recital, "poor things."
"I didn't want to take her, after I found out, but Mrs. McSwiggins said that they needed the money awfully, and that I was doing them a favor—only it was hard, and then she cried and the children all cried, too."
"Why haven't they told some one before this?" asked the Judge, wiping his eyes.
"I guess the mother is too proud. They are from the South and they haven't been in this neighborhood long, and she don't know any one."
"What's the cow's name?" asked Anne, whose eyes were like dewy forget-me-nots.