"Oh, but, Aunt Melvy, won't you please let her come?" begged Nell, throwing off her sun-bonnet and letting down a tangle of yellow curls. "I have n't got anybody to play with me. Mother drove to town with father, and she said I was to get 'Mazin' Grace to stay with me."
"Why, I'se gwine to let her come, honey," said Aunt Melvy, "co'se I is. I wouldn't mek you cry fer nothin'! Only, I'se gwine to whup her fust. She ain't 'sponsible on her word, dat's what's de matter wid her. She done 'low to me she would n't wink her eyeball while I was gone. What you think I ketch her doin' one time?" Aunt Melvy's voice sank to a whisper. "She sewed, on a Sunday! She knowed as well as me dat w'en she gits to heben she'll hab to pick out ebery one ob dem stitches wid her nose."
Nell looked at the sleeper's round pug-nose and wondered how she would ever be able to do it. But it was no use thinking of the punishment in the next world, when an immediate whipping was promised in this; consequently she turned the whole battery of her eloquence upon Aunt Melvy, who in the end gave in.
"'AND I AM GOING TO WEAR THE WATERMELON STOCKINGS,' CRIED NELL."
Ten minutes later the two little playmates were skipping down the avenue under the shady old beech-trees where their fathers had played together in the long ago.
"Is yer maw gwine lemme tek you to de Christian an' Debil Society?" asked 'Mazin' Grace, as they skirted the house, and made their way into the back yard.
"Yes," cried Nell, gleefully, "and I am going to wear the watermelon stockings!"
If 'Mazin' Grace had not been so black, a cloud might have been seen passing over her face. She was the sharer of all Nell's woes, and of all but one of her joys. The exception was the possession of the watermelon stockings.