“Ah, I know,” said the shopkeeper, smiling, “I know what you want. We have some delicious ice-cream, just in.” “No, no, no!” cried Maida, “I don’t want candy, charlotte russe, or ice-cream; I want some bread and butter and oatmeal.” But the shopkeeper and his clerk stared at each other dumbfounded. Maida looked first at one, then the other, and asked: “Haven’t you anything good to eat here?” The shopkeeper replied in astonishment: “Why, certainly, everything a child can desire--chocolates, and marshmallows, and gum-drops----” Maida interrupted him--“And no fried chicken or corn bread?” she asked. The clerk replied: “Now what strange things are these? Certainly not!” So he and the shop-keeper walked away in high dudgeon, and she went out of the shop disappointed. Who should she meet on the pavement but the Candy Kid and Jack-in-the-Box. They were as glad to find her as she was to meet them, and it took them all a long time to relate their experiences. “Have you had a wish?” finally asked Maida. “No,” replied the Candy Kid, “what do we want a wish for?” “Will you give me yours?” asked Maida. “Of course,” the Candy Kid answered, as he began to feel in his pockets to see if he could find a wish. “I must have had one,” he said, “because they say everyone has one, but I seem to have lost it.” “Never mind,” said Maida, “come with me”; and taking each of them by the hand, she ran, and ran, and ran till she came again to the Wishing Post. She stood by it, the Candy Kid with his left hand resting on the mother-of-pearl mast, and said to him, “Now quick, quick, wish that I am grown up.” So the Candy Kid wished that Maida was grown up, and it happened. Just like _that_! Oh, it didn’t take a second. Before the wish had been made she could walk under the Candy Kid’s outstretched arm, and now she was as tall as he was; but she didn’t have a hangy, traily gown, the kind that Aunt Mary used to wear; she still wore the same little dress, which only reached to her knees. “Oh, deah me!” she said, and my! how different her voice sounded. “What a shocking frock I have on!” Jack-in-the-Box saw that she was disturbed. He said, “oh, never mind, never mind,” and chucked her under the chin. She indignantly boxed his ears. “How dare you?” she said; “why, the _idea_!” Then she looked about in dismay. “Deah me!” she said again, “how very imprudent! Here I have come all the way to the North Pole, and I’ve no chaperone.” There’s no doubt about it, Maida was GROWN UP. Chapter XXII