"Take care, Claudy; the President won't have you all freckled and
tanned."

"Won't he?" queried the child, with a saucy sparkle in her black
eyes.

"That he won't. Here, tie on my hood, and the next time you come
running after me bareheaded, I will make you go back; do you hear?"

"Yes, I hear. I wonder why Miss Dorothy don't bleach off her
freckles; she looks like a--"

"Hush about her, and run on ahead."

"Do, pray, let me get my breath first. Which way are we going?"

"To the piney woods yonder," cried Lilly, clapping her hands in
childish glee; "won't we have fun, rolling and sliding on the
straw?" The two little ones walked on in advance.

The path along which their feet pattered so carelessly led to a
hollow or ravine, and the ground on the opposite side rose into
small hillocks, thickly wooded with pines. Beulah sat down upon a
mound of moss and leaves; while Claudia and Lillian, throwing off
their hoods, commenced the glorious game of sliding. The pine straw
presented an almost glassy surface, and, starting from the top of a
hillock, they slid down, often stumbling and rolling together to the
bottom. Many a peal of laughter rang out, and echoed far back in the
forest, and two blackbirds could not have kept up a more continuous