"I did feel sorry to see them hungry," confessed Pauline; "and I love pets."
"Say, you may have a couple of 'em, if you want," he said generously.
"And I'll help you fix a pen," he added.
"Oh, thank you! I'd like them ever so much!" beamed Pauline. And there was the beginning of a firm friendship between the small neighbors.
Pauline was to be satisfied with no such little makeshift as John gave his own pets. Only the biggest sized dry-goods box would do for the house itself, and the yard that he helped to fence off with wire netting made him look disgustedly upon the tiny space allotted to the bunnies on his side of the pickets.
When at last, Pauline's rabbits were in their new quarters. John gazed at them thoughtfully.
"Say!" he suddenly burst out. "I'm going to have just such a place for mine—big yard and all!"
"Oh, and I'll help you!" cried Pauline.
The new pen brought about other improvements. Tangled weeds and rubbish heaps seemed most unsuitable surroundings for so dainty a little maid as Pauline Randall; so John cut down the weeds and mowed the grass. He raked up the brush and rags and tin cans. Pauline gave him slips from her own geraniums, and he made a flower bed to put them in.
"Mother says she's awfully glad you fed my rabbits," he confided to Pauline, one day, "for if you hadn't our yard would probably be the same old place it has been for all these years."