"I'd like to come very much, thank you," said Ladybird; and the two scrambled down the old apple-tree to the ground. Seen at this better advantage, Stella Russell proved to be an exceptionally beautiful girl. Tall and slender, with brown eyes and dark-brown hair, her fresh, sweet color and dainty grace showed the best type of physical beauty, combined with an unusual amount of perceptive and responsive intelligence. Unsophisticated in many ways, she was possessed of an inherent power to see things clearly, and this showed in her beautiful, sensitive face. Ladybird, too, possessed this power; but while hers was quicker, Stella's was truer. As the two girls walked up the path to the house, Stella said: "It's very strange, but though you are twelve and I am twenty-one, I see very clearly that we shall be good friends." "Oh, twelve from twenty-one doesn't leave much," said Ladybird, laughing. Stella's grandparents, old Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, were very much pleased to meet the young stranger. "I knew your mother," said Mr. Marshall, as he looked at Ladybird; "but you do not look a bit like her." "No," said Ladybird; "that's what my aunts told me." The two girls spent a long and pleasant afternoon together. Stella showed Ladybird all her books and other treasures, and notwithstanding the difference in their ages, the girls became congenial friends. As it neared four o'clock Ladybird said she must go home, for her aunt had told her to come at that time. "I am going over to Primrose Hall," said Mrs. Marshall, "to the meeting of the Dorcas Circle. You can drive over with me." So among the earliest arrivals at the Dorcas meeting were Mrs. Marshall and Miss Ladybird Lovell. Now that Ladybird's quick and tempestuous anger had spent itself, she felt sorry to see her Aunt Priscilla arrayed in her second-best black silk, for she knew how it must have hurt that good lady to appear before her guests in anything less than the resplendent glory of her best and cherished black silk gown. Both the Misses Flint wore a look of sternness that Ladybird could not misinterpret. But they said nothing to the child, and cordially invited Mrs. Marshall to step into the bedroom and lay off her bonnet. Many successive guests were treated with the same punctilious courtesy. The Dorcas meeting came, the Dorcas meeting ate its supper, the Dorcas meeting went, and after the door of Primrose Hall had closed behind the last departing guest, Miss Priscilla said: "Now, Lavinia, I will talk with you, if you please." "Good for you, aunty," said Ladybird, clambering into her Aunt Priscilla's lap and twining her thin brown arms about the old lady's neck, thereby--although unconsciously--seriously modifying the tenor of the remarks which Miss Flint had meant to make. "Lavinia," she said, with much sternness in her voice. "Now, aunty," murmured Ladybird, "please!"