Page:Carroll Rankin--Dandelion Cottage.djvu/149

 Rh  "No you won't," said Mrs. Crane, quickly. "You can do all the watering you like, but if I catch any of you weeding, there'll be trouble."

The young cottagers were even better than their promises, for they took excellent care of Mrs. Crane, the lodgers, the parrot, the canary and the garden, until the injured foot was well again; but while doing all this they learned something that distressed them very much indeed. Of course they had always known in a general way that their friend was far from being wealthy, but they had not guessed how touchingly poor she really was. But now they saw that her cupboard was very scantily filled, that her clothing was very much patched and mended, her shoes distressingly worn out and that even her dish-towels were neatly darned.

"But we won't talk about it to people," said fine-minded Jean. "Perhaps she wouldn't like to have everybody know." Even Jean, however, did not guess what