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“My mother won’t like it,” said she.

“Yes, she will.”

Mehitable stood as if she and the doll-carriage were anchored to the road.

“I think you’re real mean, Mehitable Lamb,” said Hannah Maria. “You’re a terrible ‘fraid cat. I’m goin’, anyhow, and I won’t bring you a single apple; so there!”

“Don’t want any,” returned Mehitable, with some spirit. She turned the doll-carriage around. Hannah Maria walked up the road a few steps. Suddenly she faced about. Mehitable had already started homeward.

“Mehitable Lamb!” said she.

Mehitable looked around.

“I s’pose you’ll go right straight home and tell my mother just as quick as you can get there.”

Mehitable said nothing.

“You’ll be an awful telltale if you do.”

“Sha’n’t tell,” said Mehitable, in a sulky voice.

“Will you promise–‘Honest and true. Black and blue. Lay me down and cut me in two’–that you won’t tell?”

Mehitable nodded.

“Say it over then.”

Mehitable repeated the formula. It sounded like inaudible gibberish.

“I shall tell her myself when I get home,” said Hannah Maria. “I shall be back pretty soon, anyway, but I don’t want her sending father after me. You’re sure you’re not goin’ to tell, now, Mehitable Lamb? Say it over again.”

Mehitable said it again.

“Well, you’ll be an awful telltale if you do tell after that!” said Hannah Maria.

She went on up one road towards her uncle Timothy Dunn’s, and Mehitable trundled her doll-carriage homeward down the other. She went straight on past Hannah Maria’s house. Hannah Maria’s mother, Mrs. Green, had come home. She saw the white horse and buggy out in the south yard. She heard Mrs. Green’s voice calling, “Hannah Maria, Hannah Maria!” and she scudded by like a rabbit.

Mehitable’s own house was up the hill, not far beyond. She lived there with her mother and grandmother and her two aunts; her father was dead. The smoke was coming out of the kitchen chimney; her aunt Susy was getting supper. Aunt Susy was the younger and prettier of the aunts. Mehitable thought her perfection. She came to the kitchen door when Mehitable entered the yard, and stood there smiling at her.

“Well,” said she, “did you have a nice time at Hannah Maria’s?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What makes you look so sober?”

Mehitable said nothing.

“Did you play dolls?”

“Hannah Maria’s too big.”

“Stuff!” cried Aunt Susy. Then her shortcake was burning, and she had to run in to see to it.

Mehitable took her china doll out of the carriage, set her carefully on the step, and then lugged the carriage laboriously to a corner of the piazza, where she always kept it. It was a very nice large carriage, and rather awkward to be kept in the house. Then she took her doll and went in through the kitchen to the sitting-room. Her mother and grandmother and other aunt were in there, and they were all glad to see her, and inquired if she had had a nice time at Hannah Maria’s. But Mehitable was very sober. She did not seem like herself. Her mother asked whether she did not feel well, and, in spite of her saying that she did, would not let her eat any of her aunt Susy’s shortcake for supper. She had to eat some stale bread, and shortly after supper she had to go to bed. Her mother went up-stairs with her, and tucked her in.

“She’s all tired out,” she said to the others, “it’s quite a little walk over to the Greens’, and I s’pose she played hard. I don’t really like to have her play with a girl so much older as Hannah Maria. She isn’t big enough to run and race.”

“She didn’t seem like herself when she came into the yard,” said Aunt Susy.

“I should have given her a good bowl of thoroughwort tea, when she went to bed,” said her grandmother.

“The kitchen fire isn’t out yet; I can steep some thoroughwort now,” said Aunt Susy, and she forthwith started. She brewed a great bowl of thoroughwort tea and carried it up to Mehitable. Mehitable’s wistful innocent blue eyes stared up out of the pillows at Aunt Susy and the bowl.