Mary Elizabeth turned in the utmost eagerness and contrition. “Oh,” she said, “I come to see about the work.” The New Family Woman towered at us from the top of the three steps. “How much work,” she inquired with majesty, “do you think I’d get out of you, young miss, at this rate?” Mary Elizabeth drew nearer to her and stood before her, down in the chips, in the absurd shawl. “If you’ll leave me come,” she said earnestly, “I’ll promise not to see pictures. Well,” she added conscientiously, “I’ll promise not to stop to look at ’em.” How much weight this would have carried, I do not know; but at that moment the woman chanced to touch with her foot a mouse-trap that stood on the top step, and it “sprung” and shed its cheese. In an instant Mary Elizabeth had deftly reset and restored it. This made an impression on the arbiter. “You’re kind of a handy little thing, I see,” she said. “And of course you’re _all_ lazy, for that matter. And I do need somebody. Well, I’ve got a woman coming for to-day. You can begin in the morning. Dishes, vegetables, and general cleaning, and anything else I think you can do. Board and clothes only, mind you--and _them_ only as long as you suit.” “Yes’m. No’m. Yes’m.” Mary Elizabeth tried to agree right and left. Outside I skipped in the sun. “We’re going to be next-yard neighbours,” I cried, and that reminded me of the New Boy. I told her about him as we went round by the gate, there being no cross piece for a foothold on that side the fence. “Oh,” said Mary Elizabeth, “I know him. He’s drove me home by my braids. He doesn’t mean anything.” “Well,” I said earnestly, “when you get a chance, you tell him that I wasn’t calling him dirt. I says if he _was_ dirt, how could he tell to be a potato or an apple.” Mary Elizabeth nodded. “Lots of boys pretend mad,” she said philosophically, “to get you to run after them.” This was new to me. Could it be possible that you had to imagine folks, and what they really meant, as well as tending to all the other imagining? “Can’t you stay over?” I extended hospitality to Mary Elizabeth. She could “stay over,” it seemed, and without asking. This freedom of hers used to fill me with longing. To “stay over” without asking, to go down town, to eat unexpected offerings of food, to climb a new tree, as Mary Elizabeth could do, and all without asking! It was almost like being boys. Now that Mary Elizabeth was to be a neighbour, a new footing was established. This I did not reason about, nor did I wonder why this footing might not be everybody’s footing. We merely set to work on the accepted basis.