The child nodded.
"I remember you," she said; "you're the rich lady, mother met at the party, that got father a job."
Victoria smiled. And such was the potency of the smile that the child joined in it.
"Where's brother?" asked Victoria. "He must be quite grown up since we gave him lemonade."
Mary pointed to the woodshed.
"O dear!" exclaimed Victoria, leaping out of the runabout and hitching her horse, "aren't you afraid some of those sharp iron things will fall on him?" She herself rescued brother from what seemed untimely and certain death, and set him down in safety in the middle of the grass plot. He looked up at her with the air of one whose dignity has been irretrievably injured, and she laughed as she reached down and pulled his nose. Then his face, too, became wreathed in smiles.
"Mary, how old are you?"
"Seven, ma'am."
"And I'm five," Mary's sister chimed in.
"I want you to promise me," said Victoria, "that you won't let brother play in that shed. And the very next time I come I'll bring you both the nicest thing I can think of."