idea of a little girl’s running away from her own party was truly amazing.

“You think I don’t dare,” said Flaxie; “but I do dare! I’m agoin’ right off in the woods, and stay there! And I thought you’s agoin’ with me. You’re my twin cousin, and it’s your party as much as ’tis mine.”

Milly knew this was very wrong, and ought to have said so to Flaxie. If they had already done one foolish thing, it would make it no better to do another foolish thing, as you can see in a moment. But Milly wanted to please Flaxie, so she said stoutly:

“Oh, yes, I’m going!”

Silly children! Flaxie pretended she was running away from her party, but she didn’t mean to stay away. Oh, no! She wouldn’t have missed the party for anything. Even now she was beginning to wonder what Dora was baking.

The woods were deep and high and dark. Before they had gone quarter of a mile Flaxie wanted to turn back, but waited for Milly to speak first.

“Oh dear!” cried Milly, trembling, for she had never been in such a place before. “You s’pose it’s night, Flaxie? Has the sun set?”

“No, it hasn’t. But we ought to brought a imbreller; it’s goin’ to rain,” replied Flaxie, holding out her hand to catch a drop. “I didn’t spect you’d be so ’fraid, Milly Allen; but if you are afraid, we’ll go right home this minute.”

They turned, but the wrong way, and instead of going home, only struck deeper into the woods. They didn’t see the sky at all, and all the light seemed to come from the gay leaves and the gold of Flaxie’s hair; for I am sorry to say she had lost her hat.

“Ha’ pas’ two; ha’ pas’ two,” said she dreamily. “Let’s go home to the party.”

“Thought you hated the old party,” said Milly, falling over a dead tree, and crying.

“Well, I was only in fun. Don’t you know when I’m in fun, you goosie?”

You see they were both getting cross as well as hungry, for dinner-time was past long ago. In another hour they were half-starved.

“I spect we’re lost,” said Flaxie, calmly. “Going to rain, too; sun setting. Pretty near midnight—”

Upon this Milly began to scream.

“Well, then, what made you hide behind the lilac-bush, and not invite the folks, Milly Allen?” exclaimed Flaxie, feeling obliged to scold somebody; and then she too began to scream, though nobody heard, for they were three or four miles from the village.

They wound in and out, in and out, among the trees; but it was like a little bird putting his head through the bars of his cage. It did no good at all; they couldn’t get out.

Thoroughly tired at last and discouraged, the poor babes in the wood lay down and fell asleep in each other’s arms. I know it was a pretty sight,—the black head and the golden head so close together, and the beautiful bright trees bending over to say, “Good night.”

But before the robins had had time to cover them with leaves, or even to think of it, there was a shout from Preston Gray.

“Hurrah, boys, I’ve found ’em!”

He and half a dozen other lads had been out all the afternoon in search of the little wanderers, and here it was five o’clock. They carried them home on their backs, taking turns, and Flaxie looked up only once to ask sleepily:

“Is it ha’ pas’ two?”

“Won’t she catch it, though?” said Bert Abbott, who was in great awe of Mrs. Prim.

But Mrs. Prim was a just woman, and she thought poor little Flaxie’s punishment had been hard enough. Her party was over long ago; the guests hadn’t stayed to supper, and had gone home saying they “didn’t think Flaxie was very polite,” and they “wouldn’t go to her parties any more.” And here she was, tired and wretched, and scratched all over by blackberry bushes. No, Auntie Prim didn’t even scold. She merely looked through her spectacles at grandma, and said, “Children are so absurd!”

And grandma replied sorrowfully:

“Well, they have to suffer for their own naughtiness, and that does grieve me!”

“They ought to suffer,” said Mrs. Prim; “it is the only way they can learn not to behave so again.”

Dear little Milly heard this, and remembered it, and repeated it to her mother the next week when she went home to Hilltop. She thought she had suffered so much that she should never be “absurd” again, even to please her beloved Flaxie Frizzle.

After she had gone away, Flaxie wandered drearily about the house, saying, “Oh dear! what shall I do without my twin cousin?”

You would have thought she had enough left to make her happy. Dr. Gray’s house stood on a hill facing the river, with a green yard in front, and a stable and two gardens behind it. It was all beautiful, and Flaxie enjoyed the stable as well as the fruit and flower gardens, for she was very fond of the horses, Whiz and Hiawatha, and the cows and the hens. You needn’t tell anybody, but I do pity children who never hunted for hens’ nests: it is such capital fun! And then there was the handsome dog, Tantra-Bogus, one of Flaxie’s best friends.

In the house she had her “splendid Dr. Papa;” her dear brother Preston, who could whittle all sorts of things with a penknife; her darling Grandma Gray, an old lady with white hair, white cap, and white ribbons; and last, but not least, she had the “beautifullest baby” Philip, who could stand on his head “just as cunning,” and “hug grizzly”—that is, like a grizzly bear. Flaxie loved him with her whole heart, but there were moments when she felt half ashamed of him, for he was eighteen months old, and hadn’t a sign of a tooth; wasn’t it awful?

“Perhaps he’ll cut one before your mother and Julia come home; I keep hoping so,” said grandma, feeling in baby’s mouth with her finger, which baby bit hard, like an old rogue as he was.

“Will they give him some gold teeth, if his don’t ever cut?” asked Flaxie anxiously. “Preston says they will.”

“No,” replied Mrs. Prim, who sat by the window, with her little ebony work-box on a stand beside her. “Your brother Preston says very absurd things merely in sport; but you must not be so foolish as to believe them.”

Down dropped Flaxie’s head in grandma’s lap, her hair falling over grandma’s black silk apron in a golden shower.

Mrs. Prim looked surprised. She did not know that Flaxie really had believed in those gold teeth, and had been comforted by thinking how Phil would outshine everybody by-and-by! And now the poor little girl was crying because it was all a mistake, and because Mrs. Prim had said she was “foolish.”

“Run and let in the cat,” said grandma; “don’t you hear her mewing?”

When Kitty Gray was let in, she came bringing a mouse, and Flaxie laughed to see her run right up to grandma and rub against her dress.

“Good pussy, pretty pussy,” said grandma, stroking the cat, who almost purred her heart out for joy. Not a mouse did she ever catch but she brought it to grandma or mamma to show it; but she never brought one to Mrs. Prim. I wonder why not.

“Now let her out, Mary,” said grandma to Flaxie. “And go ask Dora if it isn’t almost time to make the gravy for dinner.”

When Flaxie skipped away, grandma said