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18 and let’s wash up for supper. You said your name was Mark; sure it isn’t Maud? Wish it were!”

“Why?” asked the guest, evidently both alarmed and pleased by this cordiality.

“We never catch a Maud. We want to say: ‘Come into the Garden, Maud’—either this nice old garden, or the Garden house—but no one turns up to fit! Come into the house, anyway. Mark is within three letters—two—of being Maud.”

And Win laid his hand on the lame lad’s shoulder, with great kindness underneath his nonsense, and bore him away in triumph. As he went the girls heard him saying: “We fit our Tennyson in one way: we’ve a rosebud garden of girls, three of ’em.”

“Take the dog around to Abbie, and ask her to feed her and make a place in the woodhouse for her to sleep. She must stay to-night, anyway,” said Mary. “Then hurry to get yourself ready for supper, Florimel; you’re covered with white hair and dogginess!”

“Good thing to be covered with,” said Florimel. “What’ll we call the dog, Janie?”

“I was thinking; Chum is a nice name for a dog,” said Jane.