'
I was so interested – my eyes were very wide open, and I shouldn't wonder if my mouth was too – that for once in my life I was almost sorry to see grandmamma, who at that moment opened the door and came in.
'I hope Helena has been a good hostess?' she said, after she had shaken hands with Mrs. Nestor, whom she had met before once or twice. 'We have been having a cake baking this morning, and I was just giving some directions about a special kind of gingerbread we want to try.'
'I should apologise for coming in the morning,' said Mrs. Nestor, but grandmamma assured her it was quite right to have chosen the morning. 'Helena and I go out in the afternoon whenever the weather is fine enough, and I should have been sorry to miss you. Now, my little girl, you may run off to Kezia. Say good-bye to Mrs. Nestor.'
I felt very disappointed, but I was accustomed to obey at once. But Mrs. Nestor read the disappointment in my eyes: that was one of the nice things about her. She was so 'understanding.'
She turned to grandmamma.
'One of my daughters is in the pony-carriage,' she said. 'Would you allow Helena to go out to her? She would be pleased to see your garden, I am sure.'
'Certainly,' said grandmamma. 'Put on your hat and jacket, Helena, and ask Miss' – she had caught sight of the girl from the window and saw that she was pretty big – 'Miss Nestor to walk about with you a little.'
I flew off – too excited to feel at all timid about making friends by myself.
'Call her Sharley,' said Mrs. Nestor, as I left the room. 'She would not know herself by any other name.'
In a minute or two I was running down the garden-path. When I found myself fairly out at the gate, and within a few steps of the girl, I think a feeling of shyness did come over me, though I did not myself understand what it was. I hung back a little and began to wonder what I should say. I had so seldom spoken to a child belonging to my own rank in life. And I had not often spoken to any of the poorer children about, as there happened to be none in the cottages near us, and grandmamma was perhaps a little too anxious about me, too afraid of my catching any childish illness. She says herself that she thinks she was. But of course I am now so strong and big that it makes it rather different.
I had not much time left in which to grow shy, however. As soon as the girl saw that I was plainly coming towards her she sprang out of the carriage.
'Has mother sent you to fetch me?' she said.
I looked at her. Now that she was out of the carriage and standing, I could see that she was not as tall as grandmamma, or as her own mother, and that her frock was a good way off the ground. And her hair was hanging down her back. Still she seemed to me almost a grown-up lady.
I am afraid her first impression of me must have been that I was extremely stupid. For I went on staring at her for a moment or two before I answered. She was indeed opening her lips to repeat the question when I at last found my voice.
'I don't know,' I said. And if she did not think me stupid before I spoke, she certainly must have done so when I did.
'I don't know,' I repeated, considering over what her question exactly meant. 'No, I don't think it was fetching you. I was to ask you – would you like to walk round our garden? And p'raps – your mamma was going to tell me all your names, but grandmamma told me to run away. I'd like to know your sisters that are as little as me's names.'
I remember exactly what I said, for Sharley has often told me since how difficult it was for her not to burst out laughing at the funny way I spoke. But tomboy though she was in some respects, she had a very tender heart, and like her mother she was quick at understanding. So she answered quite soberly —
'Thank you. I should like very much to walk round your garden – though running would be even nicer. I'm not very fond of walking if I can run, and you have got such jolly steep paths and banks.'
I eyed the steep paths doubtfully.
'You hurt yourself a good deal if you run too fast down the paths,' I said. 'The stones are so sharp.'
Sharley laughed.
'You speak from experience,' she said. 'That grass bank would be lovely for tobogganing.'
'I don't know what that is,' I replied.
'We'll show you if you come to see us at home,' she said. 'But I suppose I'd better not try anything like that to-day. You want to know my sisters' names? They are Anna and Valetta and Baby – '
'Never mind about Baby,' I interrupted, rather abruptly, I fear. 'How big is Anna, and – the other one?'
Sharley stood still and looked me well over.
'Do you really mean "big"?' she said, 'or "old"? Anna is nine and Val is six; but as for bigness – Anna is nearly as tall as I am, and Val is a good bit bigger than you.'
I felt and looked nearly ready to cry.
'And I'm past seven,' I said, 'I wish I wasn't so little. It's like being a baby, and I don't care for babies.'
'Never mind,' replied Sharley consolingly, 'you needn't be at all babyish because you're little. One of our boys is very little, but he's not a bit of a baby. I'm sure Val will like to play with you, and so will Anna – and all of us, for that matter.'
I began to think Sharley a very nice girl. I put my hand in hers confidingly.
'I'd like to come,' I said, 'and I'd like to play that funny name down the grass-bank here, if you'll show me how.'
'All right,' she said. 'We'll have to ask leave, I suppose. But you haven't told me your name yet. The children are sure to ask me.'
I repeated it – or them – solemnly.
'"Charlotte" – that's my name,' Sharley remarked.
'I'm never called it,' I said. 'I'm always called Helena.'
Sharley looked rather surprised.
'Fancy!' she said. 'We all call each other by short names and nicknames and all kinds of absurd names. Anna is generally Nan, and the boys are Pert and Quick – at least those are the names that have lasted longest. I daresay it's partly because they are just a little like their real names – Percival and Quintin.'
'What a great many of you there are!' I said, but Sharley took my remark in perfectly good part, even though I went on to add – 'It's like the baker's children – I counted them once, but I couldn't get them right; sometimes they came to nine and sometimes to eleven.'
'Do you mean the baker's on the way to High Middlemoor?' said Sharley. 'Oh yes, it must be them – papa calls them the baker's dozen always. No, we're not as many as that. We are only seven – us four girls, and Pert and Quick, and Jerry, our big brother, who's at school. Dear me, it must be dull to be only one!'
Just then we heard the voices of grandmamma and Sharley's mother coming towards us. And a minute or two later the pony-carriage drove away again, Sharley nodding back friendly farewells.
CHAPTER IV
NEW FRIENDS AND A PLAN
I stood looking after it as long as it was in sight. I felt quite strange, almost a little dazed, as if I had more than I
