"Go and take your hat off, Hendie, and have your hair brushed, and your hands washed, and then come back in a nice quiet little temper, and we'll talk about it," said Mrs. Gartney. "I think," said Faith to her mother, as the boy was heard mounting the stairs to the nursery, right foot foremost all the way, "that Mahala doesn't manage Hendie as she ought. She keeps him in a fret. I hear them in the morning while I am dressing. She seems to talk to him in a taunting sort of way." "What can we do?" exclaimed Mrs. Gartney, worriedly. "These changes are dreadful. We might get some one worse. And then we can't afford to pay extravagantly. Mahala has been content to take less wages, and I think she means to be faithful. Perhaps if I make her understand how important it is, she will try a different manner." "Only it might be too late to do much good, if Hendie has really got to dislike her. And--besides--I've been thinking--only, you will say I'm so full of projects----" But what the project was, Mrs. Gartney did not hear at once, for just then Hendie's voice was heard again at the head of the stairs. "I tell you, mother said I might! I'm going--down--in a nice--little temper--to ask her--to send you--to Jericho!" Left foot foremost, a drop between each few syllables, he came stumping, defiantly, down the stairs, and appeared with all his eager story in his eyes. "She plagues me, mamma! She tells me to see who'll get dressed first; and if _she_ does, she says: "'The first's the best, The second's the same; The last's the worst Of all the game!' "And if _I_ get dressed first--all but the buttoning, you know--she says: "'The last's the best, The second's the same; The first's the worst Of all the game!' "And then she keeps telling me 'her little sister never behaved like me.' I asked her where her little sister was, and she said she'd gone over Jordan. I'm glad of it! I wish Mahala would go too!" Mrs. Gartney smiled, and Faith could not help laughing outright. Hendie burst into a passion of tears. "Everybody keeps plaguing me! It's too bad!" he cried, with tumultuous sobs. Faith checked her laughter instantly. She took the indignant little fellow on her lap, in despite of some slight, implacable struggle on his part, and kissed his pouting lips. "No, indeed, Hendie! We wouldn't plague you for all the world! And you don't know what I've got for you, just as soon as you're ready for it!" Hendie took his little knuckles out of his eyes. "A bunch of great red cherries, as big as your two hands!" "Where?" "I'll get them, if you're good. And then you can go out in the front yard, and eat them, so that you can drop the stones on the grass." Hendie was soon established on a flat stone under the old chestnut trees, in a happy oblivion of Mahala's injustice, and her little sister's perfections.