eagerly, "because we're going to hunt violets and you can't sit around much
if you do that."

"No, that's true," laughed Mrs. Merrill, who very well knew how Alice loved
to flower hunt through the woods. "Who are 'we' that you speak of?"

"Oh, Ruth and Marcia and Frances, of course, and maybe Virginia and Jane,"
replied Alice.

"And whose mother is going along?" questioned Mrs. Merrill, who always
liked to get all the information she could before making a decision.

"The girls all _hoped_ you'd go, mother," said Alice, proudly, "because
you're such good fun at a picnic."

"Jollier!" teased Mrs. Merrill. "What would I do with Mary Jane?"

"Why not take her along?" asked Alice. "She's getting big now."

At that, Mary Jane who had been watching and listening all this time,
dropped the napkins she had just taken out of the drawer and clapped her
hands happily.

"Oh, goody, goody, will you really, mother?" she cried. "I've always wanted
to go to one of Alice's picnics!" Which was perfectly true. You see, the
little group of girls of which Alice was a member, often had gay picnic
parties and always and always Mary Jane had wanted to go along. But always
and always she had been told she was too little to walk so far, or too
little, to carry her share of baskets or too little to--something; so she
had had to stay home.