came out to assist Maida. On the threshold stood an old
silver-haired woman in a black-silk gown, a white cap and apron, a little
black shawl pinned about her shoulders.

“How’s my lamb?” she asked tenderly of Maida.

“Oh, pretty well,” Maida said dully. “Oh, Granny,” she added with a
sudden flare of enthusiasm, “I saw the cunningest little shop. I
think I’d rather tend shop than do anything else in the world.”

Billy Potter smiled all over his pink face. He followed Mr.
Westabrook and Dr. Pierce into the drawing-room.

----------------------

Maida went upstairs with Granny Flynn.

Granny Flynn had come straight to the Westabrook house from the boat
that brought her from Ireland years ago. She had come to America in
search of a runaway daughter but she had never found her. She had
helped to nurse Maida’s mother in the illness of which she died and
she had always taken such care of Maida herself that Maida loved her
dearly. Sometimes when they were alone, Maida would call her “Dame,”
because, she said, “Granny looks just like the ‘Dame’ who comes into
fairy-tales.”

Granny Flynn was very little, very bent, very old. “A t’ousand and
noine, sure,” she always answered when Maida asked her how old. Her
skin had cracked into a hundred wrinkles and her long sharp nose and
her short sharp chin almost met. But the wrinkles surrounded a pair