"Does it?" said Lulu, beginning to pick with all her might. She was a sweet little thing, and she hated to have her friend left out of the good time.
As for Cynthia, the sunbonnet fell back on her neck, showing a pair of soft eyes swimming with tears, and a sorrowful little mouth quivering in its determination not to cry.
"I won't be a baby!" she said to herself, resolutely. Presently there came a sharp call from the house.
"Cynthia Elizabeth! are you never coming with those beans? Make haste, child, do?"
Aunt Kate said "Cynthia Elizabeth" only when her patience was almost gone; so, with a quick answer, "Yes, Aunt Kate, I'm coming," Cynthia left Lulu and ran back to the buttery, sitting down, as soon as she reached it, to the weary task of stringing the beans.
Lulu, meanwhile, who was an idle little puss—her mother's pet—sauntered up the road and met Effie Dean's mother, who was driving by herself, and had stopped to gather some late wild roses.
"If there isn't Lulu Pease!" she said. "Lulu dear, won't you get those flowers for me? Thank you so much. And you're coming this afternoon?"
"Yes, 'm," said Lulu, with a dimple showing itself in each plump cheek; "but I'm so very sorry, Mrs. Dean, that my dearest friend, Cynthy Mason, has to stay at home. Her Aunt Kate can't spare her. Cynthy never can go anywhere nor do anything like the rest of us."
"Cynthia Mason? That's the pretty child with the pale face and dark eyes who sits in the pew near the minister's, isn't it?" said Mrs. Dean. "Why, she must not stay at home to-day." And acting on a sudden impulse, the lady said good morning to Lulu, took a brisk turn along the road and back, and presently drew rein at Mr. Mason's door.
She came straight into the buttery, having rapped to give notice of her presence, and with a compliment to Miss Mason on the excellence of her butter, she asked whether that lady could supply her with a few more pounds next week; then her eyes falling on the little figure on the doorstep, she said: "By-the-way, Miss Mason, your niece is to be one of Effie's guests to-day, is she not? Can you, as a great favor, let her come home with me now? I have to drive to the Centre on some errands, and Cynthia, who is a helpful little woman, I can see, can be of so much use if you will part with her for the day. It will be very neighborly of you to say yes. I know it's a good deal to ask, but my own girls are very busy, and I wish you would let me keep Cynthia until to-morrow. I'll take good care of her, and she shall be at home early. Lend her to me, please?"