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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Road, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Golden Road
+
+Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+Release Date: July 5, 2008 [EBook #316]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN ROAD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hamm
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN ROAD
+
+By L. M. Montgomery
+
+
+     "Life was a rose-lipped comrade
+      With purple flowers dripping from her fingers."
+                                        --The Author.
+
+
+               TO
+               THE MEMORY OF
+               Aunt Mary Lawson
+               WHO TOLD ME MANY OF THE TALES
+               REPEATED BY THE
+               STORY GIRL
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road. It was a fair
+highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine were
+blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh charm and a
+new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.
+
+On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in fragrances
+aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in gossamer fancies and
+iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the boon of dreams; the years
+waited beyond and they were very fair; life was a rose-lipped comrade
+with purple flowers dripping from her fingers.
+
+We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are the
+dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them as such
+may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose people are
+pilgrims on the golden road of youth.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN ROAD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. A NEW DEPARTURE
+
+
+"I've thought of something amusing for the winter," I said as we
+drew into a half-circle around the glorious wood-fire in Uncle Alec's
+kitchen.
+
+It had been a day of wild November wind, closing down into a wet, eerie
+twilight. Outside, the wind was shrilling at the windows and around the
+eaves, and the rain was playing on the roof. The old willow at the gate
+was writhing in the storm and the orchard was a place of weird music,
+born of all the tears and fears that haunt the halls of night. But
+little we cared for the gloom and the loneliness of the outside world;
+we kept them at bay with the light of the fire and the laughter of our
+young lips.
+
+We had been having a splendid game of Blind-Man's Buff. That is, it
+had been splendid at first; but later the fun went out of it because we
+found that Peter was, of malice prepense, allowing himself to be
+caught too easily, in order that he might have the pleasure of catching
+Felicity--which he never failed to do, no matter how tightly his eyes
+were bound. What remarkable goose said that love is blind? Love can see
+through five folds of closely-woven muffler with ease!
+
+"I'm getting tired," said Cecily, whose breath was coming rather quickly
+and whose pale cheeks had bloomed into scarlet. "Let's sit down and get
+the Story Girl to tell us a story."
+
+But as we dropped into our places the Story Girl shot a significant
+glance at me which intimated that this was the psychological moment for
+introducing the scheme she and I had been secretly developing for some
+days. It was really the Story Girl's idea and none of mine. But she had
+insisted that I should make the suggestion as coming wholly from myself.
+
+"If you don't, Felicity won't agree to it. You know yourself, Bev, how
+contrary she's been lately over anything I mention. And if she goes
+against it Peter will too--the ninny!--and it wouldn't be any fun if we
+weren't all in it."
+
+"What is it?" asked Felicity, drawing her chair slightly away from
+Peter's.
+
+"It is this. Let us get up a newspaper of our own--write it all
+ourselves, and have all we do in it. Don't you think we can get a lot of
+fun out of it?"
+
+Everyone looked rather blank and amazed, except the Story Girl. She knew
+what she had to do, and she did it.
+
+"What a silly idea!" she exclaimed, with a contemptuous toss of her long
+brown curls. "Just as if WE could get up a newspaper!"
+
+Felicity fired up, exactly as we had hoped.
+
+"I think it's a splendid idea," she said enthusiastically. "I'd like to
+know why we couldn't get up as good a newspaper as they have in town!
+Uncle Roger says the Daily Enterprise has gone to the dogs--all the news
+it prints is that some old woman has put a shawl on her head and gone
+across the road to have tea with another old woman. I guess we could do
+better than that. You needn't think, Sara Stanley, that nobody but you
+can do anything."
+
+"I think it would be great fun," said Peter decidedly. "My Aunt Jane
+helped edit a paper when she was at Queen's Academy, and she said it was
+very amusing and helped her a great deal."
+
+The Story Girl could hide her delight only by dropping her eyes and
+frowning.
+
+"Bev wants to be editor," she said, "and I don't see how he can, with no
+experience. Anyhow, it would be a lot of trouble."
+
+"Some people are so afraid of a little bother," retorted Felicity.
+
+"I think it would be nice," said Cecily timidly, "and none of us have
+any experience of being editors, any more than Bev, so that wouldn't
+matter."
+
+"Will it be printed?" asked Dan.
+
+"Oh, no," I said. "We can't have it printed. We'll just have to write it
+out--we can buy foolscap from the teacher."
+
+"I don't think it will be much of a newspaper if it isn't printed," said
+Dan scornfully.
+
+"It doesn't matter very much what YOU think," said Felicity.
+
+"Thank you," retorted Dan.
+
+"Of course," said the Story Girl hastily, not wishing to have Dan turned
+against our project, "if all the rest of you want it I'll go in for it
+too. I daresay it would be real good fun, now that I come to think of
+it. And we'll keep the copies, and when we become famous they'll be
+quite valuable."
+
+"I wonder if any of us ever will be famous," said Felix.
+
+"The Story Girl will be," I said.
+
+"I don't see how she can be," said Felicity skeptically. "Why, she's
+just one of us."
+
+"Well, it's decided, then, that we're to have a newspaper," I resumed
+briskly. "The next thing is to choose a name for it. That's a very
+important thing."
+
+"How often are you going to publish it?" asked Felix.
+
+"Once a month."
+
+"I thought newspapers came out every day, or every week at least," said
+Dan.
+
+"We couldn't have one every week," I explained. "It would be too much
+work."
+
+"Well, that's an argument," admitted Dan. "The less work you can get
+along with the better, in my opinion. No, Felicity, you needn't say it.
+I know exactly what you want to say, so save your breath to cool your
+porridge. I agree with you that I never work if I can find anything else
+to do."
+
+
+    "'Remember it is harder still
+      To have no work to do,"'
+
+
+quoted Cecily reprovingly.
+
+"I don't believe THAT," rejoined Dan. "I'm like the Irishman who said he
+wished the man who begun work had stayed and finished it."
+
+"Well, is it decided that Bev is to be editor?" asked Felix.
+
+"Of course it is," Felicity answered for everybody.
+
+"Then," said Felix, "I move that the name be The King Monthly Magazine."
+
+"That sounds fine," said Peter, hitching his chair a little nearer
+Felicity's.
+
+"But," said Cecily timidly, "that will leave out Peter and the Story
+Girl and Sara Ray, just as if they didn't have a share in it. I don't
+think that would be fair."
+
+"You name it then, Cecily," I suggested.
+
+"Oh!" Cecily threw a deprecating glance at the Story Girl and Felicity.
+Then, meeting the contempt in the latter's gaze, she raised her head
+with unusual spirit.
+
+"I think it would be nice just to call it Our Magazine," she said. "Then
+we'd all feel as if we had a share in it."
+
+"Our Magazine it will be, then," I said. "And as for having a share in
+it, you bet we'll all have a share in it. If I'm to be editor you'll all
+have to be sub-editors, and have charge of a department."
+
+"Oh, I couldn't," protested Cecily.
+
+"You must," I said inexorably. "'England expects everyone to do his
+duty.' That's our motto--only we'll put Prince Edward Island in place of
+England. There must be no shirking. Now, what departments will we have?
+We must make it as much like a real newspaper as we can."
+
+"Well, we ought to have an etiquette department, then," said Felicity.
+"The Family Guide has one."
+
+"Of course we'll have one," I said, "and Dan will edit it."
+
+"Dan!" exclaimed Felicity, who had fondly expected to be asked to edit
+it herself.
+
+"I can run an etiquette column as well as that idiot in the Family
+Guide, anyhow," said Dan defiantly. "But you can't have an etiquette
+department unless questions are asked. What am I to do if nobody asks
+any?"
+
+"You must make some up," said the Story Girl. "Uncle Roger says that is
+what the Family Guide man does. He says it is impossible that there can
+be as many hopeless fools in the world as that column would stand for
+otherwise."
+
+"We want you to edit the household department, Felicity," I said, seeing
+a cloud lowering on that fair lady's brow. "Nobody can do that as well
+as you. Felix will edit the jokes and the Information Bureau, and Cecily
+must be fashion editor. Yes, you must, Sis. It's easy as wink. And the
+Story Girl will attend to the personals. They're very important. Anyone
+can contribute a personal, but the Story Girl is to see there are some
+in every issue, even if she has to make them up, like Dan with the
+etiquette."
+
+"Bev will run the scrap book department, besides the editorials," said
+the Story Girl, seeing that I was too modest to say it myself.
+
+"Aren't you going to have a story page?" asked Peter.
+
+"We will, if you'll be fiction and poetry editor," I said.
+
+Peter, in his secret soul, was dismayed, but he would not blanch before
+Felicity.
+
+"All right," he said, recklessly.
+
+"We can put anything we like in the scrap book department," I explained,
+"but all the other contributions must be original, and all must have the
+name of the writer signed to them, except the personals. We must all do
+our best. Our Magazine is to be 'a feast of reason and flow of soul."'
+
+I felt that I had worked in two quotations with striking effect. The
+others, with the exception of the Story Girl, looked suitably impressed.
+
+"But," said Cecily, reproachfully, "haven't you anything for Sara Ray to
+do? She'll feel awful bad if she is left out."
+
+I had forgotten Sara Ray. Nobody, except Cecily, ever did remember
+Sara Ray unless she was on the spot. But we decided to put her in as
+advertising manager. That sounded well and really meant very little.
+
+"Well, we'll go ahead then," I said, with a sigh of relief that the
+project had been so easily launched. "We'll get the first issue out
+about the first of January. And whatever else we do we mustn't let Uncle
+Roger get hold of it. He'd make such fearful fun of it."
+
+"I hope we can make a success of it," said Peter moodily. He had been
+moody ever since he was entrapped into being fiction editor.
+
+"It will be a success if we are determined to succeed," I said. "'Where
+there is a will there is always a way.'"
+
+"That's just what Ursula Townley said when her father locked her in her
+room the night she was going to run away with Kenneth MacNair," said the
+Story Girl.
+
+We pricked up our ears, scenting a story.
+
+"Who were Ursula Townley and Kenneth MacNair?" I asked.
+
+"Kenneth MacNair was a first cousin of the Awkward Man's grandfather,
+and Ursula Townley was the belle of the Island in her day. Who do you
+suppose told me the story--no, read it to me, out of his brown book?"
+
+"Never the Awkward Man himself!" I exclaimed incredulously.
+
+"Yes, he did," said the Story Girl triumphantly. "I met him one day
+last week back in the maple woods when I was looking for ferns. He was
+sitting by the spring, writing in his brown book. He hid it when he saw
+me and looked real silly; but after I had talked to him awhile I just
+asked him about it, and told him that the gossips said he wrote poetry
+in it, and if he did would he tell me, because I was dying to know. He
+said he wrote a little of everything in it; and then I begged him to
+read me something out of it, and he read me the story of Ursula and
+Kenneth."
+
+"I don't see how you ever had the face," said Felicity; and even Cecily
+looked as if she thought the Story Girl had gone rather far.
+
+"Never mind that," cried Felix, "but tell us the story. That's the main
+thing."
+
+"I'll tell it just as the Awkward Man read it, as far as I can," said
+the Story Girl, "but I can't put all his nice poetical touches in,
+because I can't remember them all, though he read it over twice for me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. A WILL, A WAY AND A WOMAN
+
+
+"One day, over a hundred years ago, Ursula Townley was waiting for
+Kenneth MacNair in a great beechwood, where brown nuts were falling
+and an October wind was making the leaves dance on the ground like
+pixy-people."
+
+"What are pixy-people?" demanded Peter, forgetting the Story Girl's
+dislike of interruptions.
+
+"Hush," whispered Cecily. "That is only one of the Awkward Man's
+poetical touches, I guess."
+
+"There were cultivated fields between the grove and the dark blue gulf;
+but far behind and on each side were woods, for Prince Edward Island a
+hundred years ago was not what it is today. The settlements were few and
+scattered, and the population so scanty that old Hugh Townley boasted
+that he knew every man, woman and child in it.
+
+"Old Hugh was quite a noted man in his day. He was noted for
+several things--he was rich, he was hospitable, he was proud, he was
+masterful--and he had for daughter the handsomest young woman in Prince
+Edward Island.
+
+"Of course, the young men were not blind to her good looks, and she had
+so many lovers that all the other girls hated her--"
+
+"You bet!" said Dan, aside--
+
+"But the only one who found favour in her eyes was the very last man she
+should have pitched her fancy on, at least if old Hugh were the
+judge. Kenneth MacNair was a dark-eyed young sea-captain of the next
+settlement, and it was to meet him that Ursula stole to the beechwood on
+that autumn day of crisp wind and ripe sunshine. Old Hugh had forbidden
+his house to the young man, making such a scene of fury about it that
+even Ursula's high spirit quailed. Old Hugh had really nothing against
+Kenneth himself; but years before either Kenneth or Ursula was born,
+Kenneth's father had beaten Hugh Townley in a hotly contested election.
+Political feeling ran high in those days, and old Hugh had never
+forgiven the MacNair his victory. The feud between the families dated
+from that tempest in the provincial teapot, and the surplus of votes
+on the wrong side was the reason why, thirty years after, Ursula had to
+meet her lover by stealth if she met him at all."
+
+"Was the MacNair a Conservative or a Grit?" asked Felicity.
+
+"It doesn't make any difference what he was," said the Story Girl
+impatiently. "Even a Tory would be romantic a hundred years ago. Well,
+Ursula couldn't see Kenneth very often, for Kenneth lived fifteen miles
+away and was often absent from home in his vessel. On this particular
+day it was nearly three months since they had met.
+
+"The Sunday before, young Sandy MacNair had been in Carlyle church. He
+had risen at dawn that morning, walked bare-footed for eight miles along
+the shore, carrying his shoes, hired a harbour fisherman to row him over
+the channel, and then walked eight miles more to the church at Carlyle,
+less, it is to be feared, from a zeal for holy things than that he might
+do an errand for his adored brother, Kenneth. He carried a letter which
+he contrived to pass into Ursula's hand in the crowd as the people came
+out. This letter asked Ursula to meet Kenneth in the beechwood the
+next afternoon, and so she stole away there when suspicious father and
+watchful stepmother thought she was spinning in the granary loft."
+
+"It was very wrong of her to deceive her parents," said Felicity primly.
+
+The Story Girl couldn't deny this, so she evaded the ethical side of the
+question skilfully.
+
+"I am not telling you what Ursula Townley ought to have done," she said
+loftily. "I am only telling you what she DID do. If you don't want to
+hear it you needn't listen, of course. There wouldn't be many stories to
+tell if nobody ever did anything she shouldn't do.
+
+"Well, when Kenneth came, the meeting was just what might have been
+expected between two lovers who had taken their last kiss three months
+before. So it was a good half-hour before Ursula said,
+
+"'Oh, Kenneth, I cannot stay long--I shall be missed. You said in your
+letter that you had something important to talk of. What is it?'
+
+"'My news is this, Ursula. Next Saturday morning my vessel, The Fair
+Lady, with her captain on board, sails at dawn from Charlottetown
+harbour, bound for Buenos Ayres. At this season this means a safe and
+sure return--next May.'
+
+"'Kenneth!' cried Ursula. She turned pale and burst into tears. 'How can
+you think of leaving me? Oh, you are cruel!'
+
+"'Why, no, sweetheart,' laughed Kenneth. 'The captain of The Fair Lady
+will take his bride with him. We'll spend our honeymoon on the high
+seas, Ursula, and the cold Canadian winter under southern palms.'
+
+"'You want me to run away with you, Kenneth?' exclaimed Ursula.
+
+"'Indeed, dear girl, there's nothing else to do!'
+
+"'Oh, I cannot!' she protested. 'My father would--'
+
+"'We'll not consult him--until afterward. Come, Ursula, you know there's
+no other way. We've always known it must come to this. YOUR father will
+never forgive me for MY father. You won't fail me now. Think of the
+long parting if you send me away alone on such a voyage. Pluck up your
+courage, and we'll let Townleys and MacNairs whistle their mouldy feuds
+down the wind while we sail southward in The Fair Lady. I have a plan.'
+
+"'Let me hear it,' said Ursula, beginning to get back her breath.
+
+"'There is to be a dance at The Springs Friday night. Are you invited,
+Ursula?'
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Good. I am not--but I shall be there--in the fir grove behind the
+house, with two horses. When the dancing is at its height you'll steal
+out to meet me. Then 'tis but a fifteen mile ride to Charlottetown,
+where a good minister, who is a friend of mine, will be ready to marry
+us. By the time the dancers have tired their heels you and I will be on
+our vessel, able to snap our fingers at fate.'
+
+"'And what if I do not meet you in the fir grove?' said Ursula, a little
+impertinently.
+
+"'If you do not, I'll sail for South America the next morning, and many
+a long year will pass ere Kenneth MacNair comes home again.'
+
+"Perhaps Kenneth didn't mean that, but Ursula thought he did, and it
+decided her. She agreed to run away with him. Yes, of course that was
+wrong, too, Felicity. She ought to have said, 'No, I shall be married
+respectably from home, and have a wedding and a silk dress and
+bridesmaids and lots of presents.' But she didn't. She wasn't as prudent
+as Felicity King would have been."
+
+"She was a shameless hussy," said Felicity, venting on the long-dead
+Ursula that anger she dare not visit on the Story Girl.
+
+"Oh, no, Felicity dear, she was just a lass of spirit. I'd have done the
+same. And when Friday night came she began to dress for the dance with
+a brave heart. She was to go to The Springs with her uncle and aunt,
+who were coming on horseback that afternoon, and would then go on to The
+Springs in old Hugh's carriage, which was the only one in Carlyle then.
+They were to leave in time to reach The Springs before nightfall, for
+the October nights were dark and the wooded roads rough for travelling.
+
+"When Ursula was ready she looked at herself in the glass with a good
+deal of satisfaction. Yes, Felicity, she was a vain baggage, that same
+Ursula, but that kind didn't all die out a hundred years ago. And she
+had good reason for being vain. She wore the sea-green silk which had
+been brought out from England a year before and worn but once--at the
+Christmas ball at Government House. A fine, stiff, rustling silk it was,
+and over it shone Ursula's crimson cheeks and gleaming eyes, and masses
+of nut brown hair.
+
+"As she turned from the glass she heard her father's voice below, loud
+and angry. Growing very pale, she ran out into the hall. Her father was
+already half way upstairs, his face red with fury. In the hall below
+Ursula saw her step-mother, looking troubled and vexed. At the door
+stood Malcolm Ramsay, a homely neighbour youth who had been courting
+Ursula in his clumsy way ever since she grew up. Ursula had always hated
+him.
+
+"'Ursula!' shouted old Hugh, 'come here and tell this scoundrel he lies.
+He says that you met Kenneth MacNair in the beechgrove last Tuesday.
+Tell him he lies! Tell him he lies!'
+
+"Ursula was no coward. She looked scornfully at poor Ramsay.
+
+"'The creature is a spy and a tale-bearer,' she said, 'but in this he
+does not lie. I DID meet Kenneth MacNair last Tuesday.'
+
+"'And you dare to tell me this to my face!' roared old Hugh. 'Back to
+your room, girl! Back to your room and stay there! Take off that finery.
+You go to no more dances. You shall stay in that room until I choose to
+let you out. No, not a word! I'll put you there if you don't go. In with
+you--ay, and take your knitting with you. Occupy yourself with that this
+evening instead of kicking your heels at The Springs!'
+
+"He snatched a roll of gray stocking from the hall table and flung
+it into Ursula's room. Ursula knew she would have to follow it, or be
+picked up and carried in like a naughty child. So she gave the miserable
+Ramsay a look that made him cringe, and swept into her room with her
+head in the air. The next moment she heard the door locked behind
+her. Her first proceeding was to have a cry of anger and shame and
+disappointment. That did no good, and then she took to marching up and
+down her room. It did not calm her to hear the rumble of the carriage
+out of the gate as her uncle and aunt departed.
+
+"'Oh, what's to be done?' she sobbed. 'Kenneth will be furious. He will
+think I have failed him and he will go away hot with anger against me.
+If I could only send a word of explanation I know he would not leave me.
+But there seems to be no way at all--though I have heard that there's
+always a way when there's a will. Oh, I shall go mad! If the window
+were not so high I would jump out of it. But to break my legs or my neck
+would not mend the matter.'
+
+"The afternoon passed on. At sunset Ursula heard hoof-beats and ran to
+the window. Andrew Kinnear of The Springs was tying his horse at the
+door. He was a dashing young fellow, and a political crony of old Hugh.
+No doubt he would be at the dance that night. Oh, if she could get
+speech for but a moment with him!
+
+"When he had gone into the house, Ursula, turning impatiently from the
+window, tripped and almost fell over the big ball of homespun yarn
+her father had flung on the floor. For a moment she gazed at it
+resentfully--then, with a gay little laugh, she pounced on it. The next
+moment she was at her table, writing a brief note to Kenneth MacNair.
+When it was written, Ursula unwound the gray ball to a considerable
+depth, pinned the note on it, and rewound the yarn over it. A gray
+ball, the color of the twilight, might escape observation, where a white
+missive fluttering down from an upper window would surely be seen by
+someone. Then she softly opened her window and waited.
+
+"It was dusk when Andrew went away. Fortunately old Hugh did not come to
+the door with him. As Andrew untied his horse Ursula threw the ball with
+such good aim that it struck him, as she had meant it to do, squarely on
+the head. Andrew looked up at her window. She leaned out, put her finger
+warningly on her lips, pointed to the ball, and nodded. Andrew, looking
+somewhat puzzled, picked up the ball, sprang to his saddle, and galloped
+off.
+
+"So far, well, thought Ursula. But would Andrew understand? Would he
+have wit enough to think of exploring the big, knobby ball for its
+delicate secret? And would he be at the dance after all?
+
+"The evening dragged by. Time had never seemed so long to Ursula. She
+could not rest or sleep. It was midnight before she heard the patter of
+a handful of gravel on her window-panes. In a trice she was leaning out.
+Below in the darkness stood Kenneth MacNair.
+
+"'Oh, Kenneth, did you get my letter? And is it safe for you to be
+here?'
+
+"'Safe enough. Your father is in bed. I've waited two hours down the
+road for his light to go out, and an extra half-hour to put him to
+sleep. The horses are there. Slip down and out, Ursula. We'll make
+Charlottetown by dawn yet.'
+
+"'That's easier said than done, lad. I'm locked in. But do you go out
+behind the new barn and bring the ladder you will find there.'
+
+"Five minutes later, Miss Ursula, hooded and cloaked, scrambled
+soundlessly down the ladder, and in five more minutes she and Kenneth
+were riding along the road.
+
+"'There's a stiff gallop before us, Ursula,' said Kenneth.
+
+"'I would ride to the world's end with you, Kenneth MacNair,' said
+Ursula. Oh, of course she shouldn't have said anything of the sort,
+Felicity. But you see people had no etiquette departments in those days.
+And when the red sunlight of a fair October dawn was shining over the
+gray sea The Fair Lady sailed out of Charlottetown harbour. On her deck
+stood Kenneth and Ursula MacNair, and in her hand, as a most precious
+treasure, the bride carried a ball of gray homespun yarn."
+
+"Well," said Dan, yawning, "I like that kind of a story. Nobody goes and
+dies in it, that's one good thing."
+
+"Did old Hugh forgive Ursula?" I asked.
+
+"The story stopped there in the brown book," said the Story Girl, "but
+the Awkward Man says he did, after awhile."
+
+"It must be rather romantic to be run away with," remarked Cecily,
+wistfully.
+
+"Don't you get such silly notions in your head, Cecily King," said
+Felicity, severely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE CHRISTMAS HARP
+
+
+Great was the excitement in the houses of King as Christmas drew nigh.
+The air was simply charged with secrets. Everybody was very penurious
+for weeks beforehand and hoards were counted scrutinizingly every day.
+Mysterious pieces of handiwork were smuggled in and out of sight, and
+whispered consultations were held, about which nobody thought of being
+jealous, as might have happened at any other time. Felicity was in her
+element, for she and her mother were deep in preparations for the
+day. Cecily and the Story Girl were excluded from these doings
+with indifference on Aunt Janet's part and what seemed ostentatious
+complacency on Felicity's. Cecily took this to heart and complained to
+me about it.
+
+"I'm one of this family just as much as Felicity is," she said, with as
+much indignation as Cecily could feel, "and I don't think she need
+shut me out of everything. When I wanted to stone the raisins for the
+mince-meat she said, no, she would do it herself, because Christmas
+mince-meat was very particular--as if I couldn't stone raisins right!
+The airs Felicity puts on about her cooking just make me sick,"
+concluded Cecily wrathfully.
+
+"It's a pity she doesn't make a mistake in cooking once in a while
+herself," I said. "Then maybe she wouldn't think she knew so much more
+than other people."
+
+All parcels that came in the mail from distant friends were taken charge
+of by Aunts Janet and Olivia, not to be opened until the great day of
+the feast itself. How slowly the last week passed! But even watched pots
+will boil in the fulness of time, and finally Christmas day came, gray
+and dour and frost-bitten without, but full of revelry and rose-red
+mirth within. Uncle Roger and Aunt Olivia and the Story Girl came over
+early for the day; and Peter came too, with his shining, morning face,
+to be hailed with joy, for we had been afraid that Peter would not be
+able to spend Christmas with us. His mother had wanted him home with
+her.
+
+"Of course I ought to go," Peter had told me mournfully, "but we won't
+have turkey for dinner, because ma can't afford it. And ma always cries
+on holidays because she says they make her think of father. Of course
+she can't help it, but it ain't cheerful. Aunt Jane wouldn't have cried.
+Aunt Jane used to say she never saw the man who was worth spoiling her
+eyes for. But I guess I'll have to spend Christmas at home."
+
+At the last moment, however, a cousin of Mrs. Craig's in Charlottetown
+invited her for Christmas, and Peter, being given his choice of going or
+staying, joyfully elected to stay. So we were all together, except Sara
+Ray, who had been invited but whose mother wouldn't let her come.
+
+"Sara Ray's mother is a nuisance," snapped the Story Girl. "She just
+lives to make that poor child miserable, and she won't let her go to the
+party tonight, either."
+
+"It is just breaking Sara's heart that she can't," said Cecily
+compassionately. "I'm almost afraid I won't enjoy myself for thinking of
+her, home there alone, most likely reading the Bible, while we're at the
+party."
+
+"She might be worse occupied than reading the Bible," said Felicity
+rebukingly.
+
+"But Mrs. Ray makes her read it as a punishment," protested Cecily.
+"Whenever Sara cries to go anywhere--and of course she'll cry
+tonight--Mrs. Ray makes her read seven chapters in the Bible. I wouldn't
+think that would make her very fond of it. And I'll not be able to talk
+the party over with Sara afterwards--and that's half the fun gone."
+
+"You can tell her all about it," comforted Felix.
+
+"Telling isn't a bit like talking it over," retorted Cecily. "It's too
+one-sided."
+
+We had an exciting time opening our presents. Some of us had more than
+others, but we all received enough to make us feel comfortably that we
+were not unduly neglected in the matter. The contents of the box which
+the Story Girl's father had sent her from Paris made our eyes stick out.
+It was full of beautiful things, among them another red silk dress--not
+the bright, flame-hued tint of her old one, but a rich, dark crimson,
+with the most distracting flounces and bows and ruffles; and with it
+were little red satin slippers with gold buckles, and heels that made
+Aunt Janet hold up her hands in horror. Felicity remarked scornfully
+that she would have thought the Story Girl would get tired wearing red
+so much, and even Cecily commented apart to me that she thought when
+you got so many things all at once you didn't appreciate them as much as
+when you only got a few.
+
+"I'd never get tired of red," said the Story Girl. "I just love it--it's
+so rich and glowing. When I'm dressed in red I always feel ever so much
+cleverer than in any other colour. Thoughts just crowd into my brain
+one after the other. Oh, you darling dress--you dear, sheeny, red-rosy,
+glistening, silky thing!"
+
+She flung it over her shoulder and danced around the kitchen.
+
+"Don't be silly, Sara," said Aunt Janet, a little stimy. She was a good
+soul, that Aunt Janet, and had a kind, loving heart in her ample bosom.
+But I fancy there were times when she thought it rather hard that the
+daughter of a roving adventurer--as she considered him--like Blair
+Stanley should disport herself in silk dresses, while her own daughters
+must go clad in gingham and muslin--for those were the days when a
+feminine creature got one silk dress in her lifetime, and seldom more
+than one.
+
+The Story Girl also got a present from the Awkward Man--a little,
+shabby, worn volume with a great many marks on the leaves.
+
+"Why, it isn't new--it's an old book!" exclaimed Felicity. "I didn't
+think the Awkward Man was mean, whatever else he was."
+
+"Oh, you don't understand, Felicity," said the Story Girl patiently.
+"And I don't suppose I can make you understand. But I'll try. I'd ten
+times rather have this than a new book. It's one of his own, don't you
+see--one that he has read a hundred times and loved and made a friend
+of. A new book, just out of a shop, wouldn't be the same thing at all.
+It wouldn't MEAN anything. I consider it a great compliment that he has
+given me this book. I'm prouder of it than of anything else I've got."
+
+"Well, you're welcome to it," said Felicity. "I don't understand and I
+don't want to. I wouldn't give anybody a Christmas present that wasn't
+new, and I wouldn't thank anybody who gave me one."
+
+Peter was in the seventh heaven because Felicity had given him a
+present--and, moreover, one that she had made herself. It was a bookmark
+of perforated cardboard, with a gorgeous red and yellow worsted goblet
+worked on it, and below, in green letters, the solemn warning, "Touch
+Not The Cup." As Peter was not addicted to habits of intemperance, not
+even to looking on dandelion wine when it was pale yellow, we did not
+exactly see why Felicity should have selected such a device. But Peter
+was perfectly satisfied, so nobody cast any blight on his happiness by
+carping criticism. Later on Felicity told me she had worked the bookmark
+for him because his father used to drink before he ran away.
+
+"I thought Peter ought to be warned in time," she said.
+
+Even Pat had a ribbon of blue, which he clawed off and lost half an hour
+after it was tied on him. Pat did not care for vain adornments of the
+body.
+
+We had a glorious Christmas dinner, fit for the halls of Lucullus, and
+ate far more than was good for us, none daring to make us afraid on that
+one day of the year. And in the evening--oh, rapture and delight!--we
+went to Kitty Marr's party.
+
+It was a fine December evening; the sharp air of morning had mellowed
+until it was as mild as autumn. There had been no snow, and the long
+fields, sloping down from the homestead, were brown and mellow. A weird,
+dreamy stillness had fallen on the purple earth, the dark fir woods, the
+valley rims, the sere meadows. Nature seemed to have folded satisfied
+hands to rest, knowing that her long wintry slumber was coming upon her.
+
+At first, when the invitations to the party had come, Aunt Janet had
+said we could not go; but Uncle Alec interceded in our favour, perhaps
+influenced thereto by Cecily's wistful eyes. If Uncle Alec had a
+favourite among his children it was Cecily, and he had grown even more
+indulgent towards her of late. Now and then I saw him looking at her
+intently, and, following his eyes and thought, I had, somehow, seen that
+Cecily was paler and thinner than she had been in the summer, and that
+her soft eyes seemed larger, and that over her little face in moments of
+repose there was a certain languor and weariness that made it very sweet
+and pathetic. And I heard him tell Aunt Janet that he did not like to
+see the child getting so much the look of her Aunt Felicity.
+
+"Cecily is perfectly well," said Aunt Janet sharply. "She's only growing
+very fast. Don't be foolish, Alec."
+
+But after that Cecily had cups of cream where the rest of us got only
+milk; and Aunt Janet was very particular to see that she had her rubbers
+on whenever she went out.
+
+On this merry Christmas evening, however, no fears or dim foreshadowings
+of any coming event clouded our hearts or faces. Cecily looked brighter
+and prettier than I had ever seen her, with her softly shining eyes and
+the nut brown gloss of her hair. Felicity was too beautiful for words;
+and even the Story Girl, between excitement and the crimson silk array,
+blossomed out with a charm and allurement more potent than any regular
+loveliness--and this in spite of the fact that Aunt Olivia had tabooed
+the red satin slippers and mercilessly decreed that stout shoes should
+be worn.
+
+"I know just how you feel about it, you daughter of Eve," she said, with
+gay sympathy, "but December roads are damp, and if you are going to
+walk to Marrs' you are not going to do it in those frivolous Parisian
+concoctions, even with overboots on; so be brave, dear heart, and show
+that you have a soul above little red satin shoes."
+
+"Anyhow," said Uncle Roger, "that red silk dress will break the hearts
+of all the feminine small fry at the party. You'd break their spirits,
+too, if you wore the slippers. Don't do it, Sara. Leave them one wee
+loophole of enjoyment."
+
+"What does Uncle Roger mean?" whispered Felicity.
+
+"He means you girls are all dying of jealousy because of the Story
+Girl's dress," said Dan.
+
+"I am not of a jealous disposition," said Felicity loftily, "and she's
+entirely welcome to the dress--with a complexion like that."
+
+But we enjoyed that party hugely, every one of us. And we enjoyed the
+walk home afterwards, through dim, enshadowed fields where silvery
+star-beams lay, while Orion trod his stately march above us, and a red
+moon climbed up the black horizon's rim. A brook went with us part of
+the way, singing to us through the dark--a gay, irresponsible vagabond
+of valley and wilderness.
+
+Felicity and Peter walked not with us. Peter's cup must surely have
+brimmed over that Christmas night. When we left the Marr house, he had
+boldly said to Felicity, "May I see you home?" And Felicity, much to our
+amazement, had taken his arm and marched off with him. The primness
+of her was indescribable, and was not at all ruffled by Dan's hoot of
+derision. As for me, I was consumed by a secret and burning desire to
+ask the Story Girl if I might see HER home; but I could not screw my
+courage to the sticking point. How I envied Peter his easy, insouciant
+manner! I could not emulate him, so Dan and Felix and Cecily and the
+Story Girl and I all walked hand in hand, huddling a little closer
+together as we went through James Frewen's woods--for there are strange
+harps in a fir grove, and who shall say what fingers sweep them? Mighty
+and sonorous was the music above our heads as the winds of the night
+stirred the great boughs tossing athwart the starlit sky. Perhaps it was
+that aeolian harmony which recalled to the Story Girl a legend of elder
+days.
+
+"I read such a pretty story in one of Aunt Olivia's books last night,"
+she said. "It was called 'The Christmas Harp.' Would you like to hear
+it? It seems to me it would just suit this part of the road."
+
+"There isn't anything about--about ghosts in it, is there?" said Cecily
+timidly.
+
+"Oh, no, I wouldn't tell a ghost story here for anything. I'd frighten
+myself too much. This story is about one of the shepherds who saw the
+angels on the first Christmas night. He was just a youth, and he loved
+music with all his heart, and he longed to be able to express the melody
+that was in his soul. But he could not; he had a harp and he often tried
+to play on it; but his clumsy fingers only made such discord that
+his companions laughed at him and mocked him, and called him a madman
+because he would not give it up, but would rather sit apart by himself,
+with his arms about his harp, looking up into the sky, while they
+gathered around their fire and told tales to wile away their long night
+vigils as they watched their sheep on the hills. But to him the thoughts
+that came out of the great silence were far sweeter than their mirth;
+and he never gave up the hope, which sometimes left his lips as a
+prayer, that some day he might be able to express those thoughts in
+music to the tired, weary, forgetful world. On the first Christmas night
+he was out with his fellow shepherds on the hills. It was chill and
+dark, and all, except him, were glad to gather around the fire. He sat,
+as usual, by himself, with his harp on his knee and a great longing in
+his heart. And there came a marvellous light in the sky and over the
+hills, as if the darkness of the night had suddenly blossomed into a
+wonderful meadow of flowery flame; and all the shepherds saw the angels
+and heard them sing. And as they sang, the harp that the young shepherd
+held began to play softly by itself, and as he listened to it he
+realized that it was playing the same music that the angels sang
+and that all his secret longings and aspirations and strivings were
+expressed in it. From that night, whenever he took the harp in his
+hands, it played the same music; and he wandered all over the world
+carrying it; wherever the sound of its music was heard hate and discord
+fled away and peace and good-will reigned. No one who heard it could
+think an evil thought; no one could feel hopeless or despairing or
+bitter or angry. When a man had once heard that music it entered into
+his soul and heart and life and became a part of him for ever. Years
+went by; the shepherd grew old and bent and feeble; but still he
+roamed over land and sea, that his harp might carry the message of the
+Christmas night and the angel song to all mankind. At last his strength
+failed him and he fell by the wayside in the darkness; but his harp
+played as his spirit passed; and it seemed to him that a Shining One
+stood by him, with wonderful starry eyes, and said to him, 'Lo, the
+music thy harp has played for so many years has been but the echo of the
+love and sympathy and purity and beauty in thine own soul; and if at any
+time in the wanderings thou hadst opened the door of that soul to evil
+or envy or selfishness thy harp would have ceased to play. Now thy life
+is ended; but what thou hast given to mankind has no end; and as long as
+the world lasts, so long will the heavenly music of the Christmas harp
+ring in the ears of men.' When the sun rose the old shepherd lay dead by
+the roadside, with a smile on his face; and in his hands was a harp with
+all its strings broken."
+
+We left the fir woods as the tale was ended, and on the opposite hill
+was home. A dim light in the kitchen window betokened that Aunt Janet
+had no idea of going to bed until all her young fry were safely housed
+for the night.
+
+"Ma's waiting up for us," said Dan. "I'd laugh if she happened to go to
+the door just as Felicity and Peter were strutting up. I guess she'll be
+cross. It's nearly twelve."
+
+"Christmas will soon be over," said Cecily, with a sigh. "Hasn't it
+been a nice one? It's the first we've all spent together. Do you suppose
+we'll ever spend another together?"
+
+"Lots of 'em," said Dan cheerily. "Why not?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," answered Cecily, her footsteps lagging somewhat.
+"Only things seem just a little too pleasant to last."
+
+"If Willy Fraser had had as much spunk as Peter, Miss Cecily King
+mightn't be so low spirited," quoth Dan, significantly.
+
+Cecily tossed her head and disdained reply. There are really some
+remarks a self-respecting young lady must ignore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS
+
+
+If we did not have a white Christmas we had a white New Year. Midway
+between the two came a heavy snowfall. It was winter in our orchard of
+old delights then,--so truly winter that it was hard to believe summer
+had ever dwelt in it, or that spring would ever return to it. There were
+no birds to sing the music of the moon; and the path where the apple
+blossoms had fallen were heaped with less fragrant drifts. But it was a
+place of wonder on a moonlight night, when the snowy arcades shone
+like avenues of ivory and crystal, and the bare trees cast fairy-like
+traceries upon them. Over Uncle Stephen's Walk, where the snow had
+fallen smoothly, a spell of white magic had been woven. Taintless and
+wonderful it seemed, like a street of pearl in the new Jerusalem.
+
+On New Year's Eve we were all together in Uncle Alec's kitchen, which
+was tacitly given over to our revels during the winter evenings. The
+Story Girl and Peter were there, of course, and Sara Ray's mother had
+allowed her to come up on condition that she should be home by eight
+sharp. Cecily was glad to see her, but the boys never hailed her arrival
+with over-much delight, because, since the dark began to come down
+early, Aunt Janet always made one of us walk down home with her. We
+hated this, because Sara Ray was always so maddeningly self-conscious
+of having an escort. We knew perfectly well that next day in school she
+would tell her chums as a "dead" secret that "So-and-So King saw her
+home" from the hill farm the night before. Now, seeing a young lady home
+from choice, and being sent home with her by your aunt or mother are two
+entirely different things, and we thought Sara Ray ought to have sense
+enough to know it.
+
+Outside there was a vivid rose of sunset behind the cold hills of fir,
+and the long reaches of snowy fields glowed fairily pink in the western
+light. The drifts along the edges of the meadows and down the lane
+looked as if a series of breaking waves had, by the lifting of a
+magician's wand, been suddenly transformed into marble, even to their
+toppling curls of foam.
+
+Slowly the splendour died, giving place to the mystic beauty of a winter
+twilight when the moon is rising. The hollow sky was a cup of blue. The
+stars came out over the white glens and the earth was covered with a
+kingly carpet for the feet of the young year to press.
+
+"I'm so glad the snow came," said the Story Girl. "If it hadn't the New
+Year would have seemed just as dingy and worn out as the old. There's
+something very solemn about the idea of a New Year, isn't there? Just
+think of three hundred and sixty-five whole days, with not a thing
+happened in them yet."
+
+"I don't suppose anything very wonderful will happen in them," said
+Felix pessimistically. To Felix, just then, life was flat, stale and
+unprofitable because it was his turn to go home with Sara Ray.
+
+"It makes me a little frightened to think of all that may happen in
+them," said Cecily. "Miss Marwood says it is what we put into a year,
+not what we get out of it, that counts at last."
+
+"I'm always glad to see a New Year," said the Story Girl. "I wish we
+could do as they do in Norway. The whole family sits up until midnight,
+and then, just as the clock is striking twelve, the father opens the
+door and welcomes the New Year in. Isn't it a pretty custom?"
+
+"If ma would let us stay up till twelve we might do that too," said Dan,
+"but she never will. I call it mean."
+
+"If I ever have children I'll let them stay up to watch the New Year
+in," said the Story Girl decidedly.
+
+"So will I," said Peter, "but other nights they'll have to go to bed at
+seven."
+
+"You ought to be ashamed, speaking of such things," said Felicity, with
+a scandalized face.
+
+Peter shrank into the background abashed, no doubt believing that he had
+broken some Family Guide precept all to pieces.
+
+"I didn't know it wasn't proper to mention children," he muttered
+apologetically.
+
+"We ought to make some New Year resolutions," suggested the Story Girl.
+"New Year's Eve is the time to make them."
+
+"I can't think of any resolutions I want to make," said Felicity, who
+was perfectly satisfied with herself.
+
+"I could suggest a few to you," said Dan sarcastically.
+
+"There are so many I would like to make," said Cecily, "that I'm afraid
+it wouldn't be any use trying to keep them all."
+
+"Well, let's all make a few, just for the fun of it, and see if we can
+keep them," I said. "And let's get paper and ink and write them out.
+That will make them seem more solemn and binding."
+
+"And then pin them up on our bedroom walls, where we'll see them every
+day," suggested the Story Girl, "and every time we break a resolution
+we must put a cross opposite it. That will show us what progress we are
+making, as well as make us ashamed if we have too many crosses."
+
+"And let's have a Roll of Honour in Our Magazine," suggested Felix, "and
+every month we'll publish the names of those who keep their resolutions
+perfect."
+
+"I think it's all nonsense," said Felicity. But she joined our circle
+around the table, though she sat for a long time with a blank sheet
+before her.
+
+"Let's each make a resolution in turn," I said. "I'll lead off."
+
+And, recalling with shame certain unpleasant differences of opinion I
+had lately had with Felicity, I wrote down in my best hand,
+
+"I shall try to keep my temper always."
+
+"You'd better," said Felicity tactfully.
+
+It was Dan's turn next.
+
+"I can't think of anything to start with," he said, gnawing his
+penholder fiercely.
+
+"You might make a resolution not to eat poison berries," suggested
+Felicity.
+
+"You'd better make one not to nag people everlastingly," retorted Dan.
+
+"Oh, don't quarrel the last night of the old year," implored Cecily.
+
+"You might resolve not to quarrel any time," suggested Sara Ray.
+
+"No, sir," said Dan emphatically. "There's no use making a resolution
+you CAN'T keep. There are people in this family you've just GOT to
+quarrel with if you want to live. But I've thought of one--I won't do
+things to spite people."
+
+Felicity--who really was in an unbearable mood that night--laughed
+disagreeably; but Cecily gave her a fierce nudge, which probably
+restrained her from speaking.
+
+"I will not eat any apples," wrote Felix.
+
+"What on earth do you want to give up eating apples for?" asked Peter in
+astonishment.
+
+"Never mind," returned Felix.
+
+"Apples make people fat, you know," said Felicity sweetly.
+
+"It seems a funny kind of resolution," I said doubtfully. "I think our
+resolutions ought to be giving up wrong things or doing right ones."
+
+"You make your resolutions to suit yourself and I'll make mine to suit
+myself," said Felix defiantly.
+
+"I shall never get drunk," wrote Peter painstakingly.
+
+"But you never do," said the Story Girl in astonishment.
+
+"Well, it will be all the easier to keep the resolution," argued Peter.
+
+"That isn't fair," complained Dan. "If we all resolved not to do the
+things we never do we'd all be on the Roll of Honour."
+
+"You let Peter alone," said Felicity severely. "It's a very good
+resolution and one everybody ought to make."
+
+"I shall not be jealous," wrote the Story Girl.
+
+"But are you?" I asked, surprised.
+
+The Story Girl coloured and nodded. "Of one thing," she confessed, "but
+I'm not going to tell what it is."
+
+"I'm jealous sometimes, too," confessed Sara Ray, "and so my first
+resolution will be 'I shall try not to feel jealous when I hear the
+other girls in school describing all the sick spells they've had.'"
+
+"Goodness, do you want to be sick?" demanded Felix in astonishment.
+
+"It makes a person important," explained Sara Ray.
+
+"I am going to try to improve my mind by reading good books and
+listening to older people," wrote Cecily.
+
+"You got that out of the Sunday School paper," cried Felicity.
+
+"It doesn't matter where I got it," said Cecily with dignity. "The main
+thing is to keep it."
+
+"It's your turn, Felicity," I said.
+
+Felicity tossed her beautiful golden head.
+
+"I told you I wasn't going to make any resolutions. Go on yourself."
+
+"I shall always study my grammar lesson," I wrote--I, who loathed
+grammar with a deadly loathing.
+
+"I hate grammar too," sighed Sara Ray. "It seems so unimportant."
+
+Sara was rather fond of a big word, but did not always get hold of the
+right one. I rather suspected that in the above instance she really
+meant uninteresting.
+
+"I won't get mad at Felicity, if I can help it," wrote Dan.
+
+"I'm sure I never do anything to make you mad," exclaimed Felicity.
+
+"I don't think it's polite to make resolutions about your sisters," said
+Peter.
+
+"He can't keep it anyway," scoffed Felicity. "He's got such an awful
+temper."
+
+"It's a family failing," flashed Dan, breaking his resolution ere the
+ink on it was dry.
+
+"There you go," taunted Felicity.
+
+"I'll work all my arithmetic problems without any help," scribbled
+Felix.
+
+"I wish I could resolve that, too," sighed Sara Ray, "but it wouldn't be
+any use. I'd never be able to do those compound multiplication sums the
+teacher gives us to do at home every night if I didn't get Judy Pineau
+to help me. Judy isn't a good reader and she can't spell AT ALL, but you
+can't stick her in arithmetic as far as she went herself. I feel sure,"
+concluded poor Sara, in a hopeless tone, "that I'll NEVER be able to
+understand compound multiplication."
+
+
+          "'Multiplication is vexation,
+               Division is as bad,
+           The rule of three perplexes me,
+               And fractions drive me mad,'"
+
+
+quoted Dan.
+
+"I haven't got as far as fractions yet," sighed Sara, "and I hope I'll
+be too big to go to school before I do. I hate arithmetic, but I am
+PASSIONATELY fond of geography."
+
+"I will not play tit-tat-x on the fly leaves of my hymn book in church,"
+wrote Peter.
+
+"Mercy, did you ever do such a thing?" exclaimed Felicity in horror.
+
+Peter nodded shamefacedly.
+
+"Yes--that Sunday Mr. Bailey preached. He was so long-winded, I got
+awful tired, and, anyway, he was talking about things I couldn't
+understand, so I played tit-tat-x with one of the Markdale boys. It was
+the day I was sitting up in the gallery."
+
+"Well, I hope if you ever do the like again you won't do it in OUR pew,"
+said Felicity severely.
+
+"I ain't going to do it at all," said Peter. "I felt sort of mean all
+the rest of the day."
+
+"I shall try not to be vexed when people interrupt me when I'm telling
+stories," wrote the Story Girl. "but it will be hard," she added with a
+sigh.
+
+"I never mind being interrupted," said Felicity.
+
+"I shall try to be cheerful and smiling all the time," wrote Cecily.
+
+"You are, anyway," said Sara Ray loyally.
+
+"I don't believe we ought to be cheerful ALL the time," said the Story
+Girl. "The Bible says we ought to weep with those who weep."
+
+"But maybe it means that we're to weep cheerfully," suggested Cecily.
+
+"Sorter as if you were thinking, 'I'm very sorry for you but I'm mighty
+glad I'm not in the scrape too,'" said Dan.
+
+"Dan, don't be irreverent," rebuked Felicity.
+
+"I know a story about old Mr. and Mrs. Davidson of Markdale," said
+the Story Girl. "She was always smiling and it used to aggravate her
+husband, so one day he said very crossly, 'Old lady, what ARE you
+grinning at?' 'Oh, well, Abiram, everything's so bright and pleasant,
+I've just got to smile.'
+
+"Not long after there came a time when everything went wrong--the crop
+failed and their best cow died, and Mrs. Davidson had rheumatism; and
+finally Mr. Davidson fell and broke his leg. But still Mrs. Davidson
+smiled. 'What in the dickens are you grinning about now, old lady?'
+he demanded. 'Oh, well, Abiram,' she said, 'everything is so dark and
+unpleasant I've just got to smile.' 'Well,' said the old man crossly, 'I
+think you might give your face a rest sometimes.'"
+
+"I shall not talk gossip," wrote Sara Ray with a satisfied air.
+
+"Oh, don't you think that's a little TOO strict?" asked Cecily
+anxiously. "Of course, it's not right to talk MEAN gossip, but the
+harmless kind doesn't hurt. If I say to you that Emmy MacPhail is going
+to get a new fur collar this winter, THAT is harmless gossip, but if I
+say I don't see how Emmy MacPhail can afford a new fur collar when her
+father can't pay my father for the oats he got from him, that would be
+MEAN gossip. If I were you, Sara, I'd put MEAN gossip."
+
+Sara consented to this amendment.
+
+"I will be polite to everybody," was my third resolution, which passed
+without comment.
+
+"I'll try not to use slang since Cecily doesn't like it," wrote Dan.
+
+"I think some slang is real cute," said Felicity.
+
+"The Family Guide says it's very vulgar," grinned Dan. "Doesn't it, Sara
+Stanley?"
+
+"Don't disturb me," said the Story Girl dreamily. "I'm just thinking a
+beautiful thought."
+
+"I've thought of a resolution to make," cried Felicity. "Mr. Marwood
+said last Sunday we should always try to think beautiful thoughts and
+then our lives would be very beautiful. So I shall resolve to think a
+beautiful thought every morning before breakfast."
+
+"Can you only manage one a day?" queried Dan.
+
+"And why before breakfast?" I asked.
+
+"Because it's easier to think on an empty stomach," said Peter, in all
+good faith. But Felicity shot a furious glance at him.
+
+"I selected that time," she explained with dignity, "because when I'm
+brushing my hair before my glass in the morning I'll see my resolution
+and remember it."
+
+"Mr. Marwood meant that ALL our thoughts ought to be beautiful," said
+the Story Girl. "If they were, people wouldn't be afraid to say what
+they think."
+
+"They oughtn't to be afraid to, anyhow," said Felix stoutly. "I'm going
+to make a resolution to say just what I think always."
+
+"And do you expect to get through the year alive if you do?" asked Dan.
+
+"It might be easy enough to say what you think if you could always be
+sure just what you DO think," said the Story Girl. "So often I can't be
+sure."
+
+"How would you like it if people always said just what they think to
+you?" asked Felicity.
+
+"I'm not very particular what SOME people think of me," rejoined Felix.
+
+"I notice you don't like to be told by anybody that you're fat,"
+retorted Felicity.
+
+"Oh, dear me, I do wish you wouldn't all say such sarcastic things to
+each other," said poor Cecily plaintively. "It sounds so horrid the last
+night of the old year. Dear knows where we'll all be this night next
+year. Peter, it's your turn."
+
+"I will try," wrote Peter, "to say my prayers every night regular, and
+not twice one night because I don't expect to have time the next,--like
+I did the night before the party," he added.
+
+"I s'pose you never said your prayers until we got you to go to church,"
+said Felicity--who had had no hand in inducing Peter to go to church,
+but had stoutly opposed it, as recorded in the first volume of our
+family history.
+
+"I did, too," said Peter. "Aunt Jane taught me to say my prayers. Ma
+hadn't time, being as father had run away; ma had to wash at night same
+as in day-time."
+
+"I shall learn to cook," wrote the Story Girl, frowning.
+
+"You'd better resolve not to make puddings of--" began Felicity, then
+stopped as suddenly as if she had bitten off the rest of her sentence
+and swallowed it. Cecily had nudged her, so she had probably remembered
+the Story Girl's threat that she would never tell another story if she
+was ever twitted with the pudding she had made from sawdust. But we all
+knew what Felicity had started to say and the Story Girl dealt her a
+most uncousinly glance.
+
+"I will not cry because mother won't starch my aprons," wrote Sara Ray.
+
+"Better resolve not to cry about anything," said Dan kindly.
+
+Sara Ray shook her head forlornly.
+
+"That would be too hard to keep. There are times when I HAVE to cry.
+It's a relief."
+
+"Not to the folks who have to hear you," muttered Dan aside to Cecily.
+
+"Oh, hush," whispered Cecily back. "Don't go and hurt her feelings the
+last night of the old year. Is it my turn again? Well, I'll resolve not
+to worry because my hair is not curly. But, oh, I'll never be able to
+help wishing it was."
+
+"Why don't you curl it as you used to do, then?" asked Dan.
+
+"You know very well that I've never put my hair up in curl papers since
+the time Peter was dying of the measles," said Cecily reproachfully. "I
+resolved then I wouldn't because I wasn't sure it was quite right."
+
+"I will keep my finger-nails neat and clean," I wrote. "There, that's
+four resolutions. I'm not going to make any more. Four's enough."
+
+"I shall always think twice before I speak," wrote Felix.
+
+"That's an awful waste of time," commented Dan, "but I guess you'll need
+to if you're always going to say what you think."
+
+"I'm going to stop with three," said Peter.
+
+"I will have all the good times I can," wrote the Story Girl.
+
+"THAT'S what I call sensible," said Dan.
+
+"It's a very easy resolution to keep, anyhow," commented Felix.
+
+"I shall try to like reading the Bible," wrote Sara Ray.
+
+"You ought to like reading the Bible without trying to," exclaimed
+Felicity.
+
+"If you had to read seven chapters of it every time you were naughty I
+don't believe you would like it either," retorted Sara Ray with a flash
+of spirit.
+
+"I shall try to believe only half of what I hear," was Cecily's
+concluding resolution.
+
+"But which half?" scoffed Dan.
+
+"The best half," said sweet Cecily simply.
+
+"I'll try to obey mother ALWAYS," wrote Sara Ray, with a tremendous
+sigh, as if she fully realized the difficulty of keeping such a
+resolution. "And that's all I'm going to make."
+
+"Felicity has only made one," said the Story Girl.
+
+"I think it better to make just one and keep it than make a lot and
+break them," said Felicity loftily.
+
+She had the last word on the subject, for it was time for Sara Ray to
+go, and our circle broke up. Sara and Felix departed and we watched
+them down the lane in the moonlight--Sara walking demurely in one runner
+track, and Felix stalking grimly along in the other. I fear the romantic
+beauty of that silver shining night was entirely thrown away on my
+mischievous brother.
+
+And it was, as I remember it, a most exquisite night--a white poem, a
+frosty, starry lyric of light. It was one of those nights on which one
+might fall asleep and dream happy dreams of gardens of mirth and
+song, feeling all the while through one's sleep the soft splendour and
+radiance of the white moon-world outside, as one hears soft, far-away
+music sounding through the thoughts and words that are born of it.
+
+As a matter of fact, however, Cecily dreamed that night that she saw
+three full moons in the sky, and wakened up crying with the horror of
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE FIRST NUMBER OF "OUR MAGAZINE"
+
+
+The first number of Our Magazine was ready on New Year's Day, and we
+read it that evening in the kitchen. All our staff had worked nobly and
+we were enormously proud of the result, although Dan still continued
+to scoff at a paper that wasn't printed. The Story Girl and I read it
+turnabout while the others, except Felix, ate apples. It opened with a
+short
+
+
+EDITORIAL
+
+With this number Our Magazine makes its first bow to the public. All
+the editors have done their best and the various departments are full of
+valuable information and amusement. The tastefully designed cover is by
+a famous artist, Mr. Blair Stanley, who sent it to us all the way from
+Europe at the request of his daughter. Mr. Peter Craig, our enterprising
+literary editor, contributes a touching love story. (Peter, aside, in
+a gratified pig's whisper: "I never was called 'Mr.' before.") Miss
+Felicity King's essays on Shakespeare is none the worse for being an
+old school composition, as it is new to most of our readers. Miss
+Cecily King contributes a thrilling article of adventure. The various
+departments are ably edited, and we feel that we have reason to be proud
+of Our Magazine. But we shall not rest on our oars. "Excelsior" shall
+ever be our motto. We trust that each succeeding issue will be better
+than the one that went before. We are well aware of many defects, but
+it is easier to see them than to remedy them. Any suggestion that would
+tend to the improvement of Our Magazine will be thankfully received,
+but we trust that no criticism will be made that will hurt anyone's
+feelings. Let us all work together in harmony, and strive to make Our
+Magazine an influence for good and a source of innocent pleasure, and
+let us always remember the words of the poet.
+
+
+  "The heights by great men reached and kept
+     Were not attained by sudden flight,
+   But they, while their companions slept,
+     Were toiling upwards in the night."
+
+
+(Peter, IMPRESSIVELY:--"I've read many a worse editorial in the
+Enterprise.")
+
+
+ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE
+
+Shakespeare's full name was William Shakespeare. He did not always spell
+it the same way. He lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and wrote a
+great many plays. His plays are written in dialogue form. Some people
+think they were not written by Shakespeare but by another man of the
+same name. I have read some of them because our school teacher says
+everybody ought to read them, but I did not care much for them. There
+are some things in them I cannot understand. I like the stories of
+Valeria H. Montague in the Family Guide ever so much better. They are
+more exciting and truer to life. Romeo and Juliet was one of the plays I
+read. It was very sad. Juliet dies and I don't like stories where people
+die. I like it better when they all get married especially to dukes and
+earls. Shakespeare himself was married to Anne Hatheway. They are both
+dead now. They have been dead a good while. He was a very famous man.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+(PETER, MODESTLY: "I don't know much about Shakespeare myself but I've
+got a book of his plays that belonged to my Aunt Jane, and I guess I'll
+have to tackle him as soon as I finish with the Bible.")
+
+
+THE STORY OF AN ELOPEMENT FROM CHURCH
+
+This is a true story. It happened in Markdale to an uncle of my mothers.
+He wanted to marry Miss Jemima Parr. Felicity says Jemima is not a
+romantic name for a heroin of a story but I cant help it in this case
+because it is a true story and her name realy was Jemima. My mothers
+uncle was named Thomas Taylor. He was poor at that time and so the
+father of Miss Jemima Parr did not want him for a soninlaw and told him
+he was not to come near the house or he would set the dog on him. Miss
+Jemima Parr was very pretty and my mothers uncle Thomas was just crazy
+about her and she wanted him too. She cried almost every night after
+her father forbid him to come to the house except the nights she had to
+sleep or she would have died. And she was so frightened he might try to
+come for all and get tore up by the dog and it was a bull-dog too that
+would never let go. But mothers uncle Thomas was too cute for that. He
+waited till one day there was preaching in the Markdale church in the
+middle of the week because it was sacrament time and Miss Jemima Parr
+and her family all went because her father was an elder. My mothers
+uncle Thomas went too and set in the pew just behind Miss Jemima Parrs
+family. When they all bowed their heads at prayer time Miss Jemima Parr
+didnt but set bolt uprite and my mothers uncle Thomas bent over and
+wispered in her ear. I dont know what he said so I cant right it but
+Miss Jemima Parr blushed that is turned red and nodded her head. Perhaps
+some people may think that my mothers uncle Thomas shouldent of wispered
+at prayer time in church but you must remember that Miss Jemima Parrs
+father had thretened to set the dog on him and that was hard lines when
+he was a respektable young man though not rich. Well when they were
+singing the last sam my mothers uncle Thomas got up and went out very
+quitely and as soon as church was out Miss Jemima Parr walked out too
+real quick. Her family never suspekted anything and they hung round
+talking to folks and shaking hands while Miss Jemima Parr and my mothers
+uncle Thomas were eloping outside. And what do you suppose they eloped
+in. Why in Miss Jemima Parrs fathers slay. And when he went out they
+were gone and his slay was gone also his horse. Of course my mothers
+uncle Thomas didnt steal the horse. He just borroed it and sent it home
+the next day. But before Miss Jemima Parrs father could get another rig
+to follow them they were so far away he couldent catch them before they
+got married. And they lived happy together forever afterwards. Mothers
+uncle Thomas lived to be a very old man. He died very suddent. He felt
+quite well when he went to sleep and when he woke up he was dead.
+
+                                       PETER CRAIG.
+
+
+MY MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE
+
+The editor says we must all write up our most exciting adventure for Our
+Magazine. My most exciting adventure happened a year ago last November.
+I was nearly frightened to death. Dan says he wouldn't of been scared
+and Felicity says she would of known what it was but it's easy to talk.
+
+It happened the night I went down to see Kitty Marr. I thought when I
+went that Aunt Olivia was visiting there and I could come home with her.
+But she wasn't there and I had to come home alone. Kitty came a piece
+of the way but she wouldn't come any further than Uncle James Frewen's
+gate. She said it was because it was so windy she was afraid she would
+get the tooth-ache and not because she was frightened of the ghost of
+the dog that haunted the bridge in Uncle James' hollow. I did wish she
+hadn't said anything about the dog because I mightn't of thought about
+it if she hadn't. I had to go on alone thinking of it. I'd heard the
+story often but I'd never believed in it. They said the dog used to
+appear at one end of the bridge and walk across it with people and
+vanish when he got to the other end. He never tried to bite anyone but
+one wouldn't want to meet the ghost of a dog even if one didn't believe
+in him. I knew there was no such thing as ghosts and I kept saying a
+paraphrase over to myself and the Golden Text of the next Sunday School
+lesson but oh, how my heart beat when I got near the hollow! It was so
+dark. You could just see things dim-like but you couldn't see what they
+were. When I got to the bridge I walked along sideways with my back to
+the railing so I couldn't think the dog was behind me. And then just in
+the middle of the bridge I met something. It was right before me and
+it was big and black, just about the size of a Newfoundland dog, and
+I thought I could see a white nose. And it kept jumping about from one
+side of the bridge to the other. Oh, I hope none of my readers will ever
+be so frightened as I was then. I was too frightened to run back because
+I was afraid it would chase me and I couldn't get past it, it moved so
+quick, and then it just made one spring right on me and I felt its claws
+and I screamed and fell down. It rolled off to one side and laid there
+quite quiet but I didn't dare move and I don't know what would have
+become of me if Amos Cowan hadn't come along that very minute with a
+lantern. And there was me sitting in the middle of the bridge and that
+awful thing beside me. And what do you think it was but a big umbrella
+with a white handle? Amos said it was his umbrella and it had blown away
+from him and he had to go back and get the lantern to look for it. I
+felt like asking him what on earth he was going about with an umbrella
+open when it wasent raining. But the Cowans do such queer things. You
+remember the time Jerry Cowan sold us God's picture. Amos took me right
+home and I was thankful for I don't know what would have become of me
+if he hadn't come along. I couldn't sleep all night and I never want to
+have any more adventures like that one.
+
+                                      CECILY KING.
+
+
+PERSONALS
+
+Mr. Dan King felt somewhat indisposed the day after Christmas--probably
+as the result of too much mince pie. (DAN, INDIGNANTLY:--"I wasn't. I
+only et one piece!")
+
+Mr. Peter Craig thinks he saw the Family Ghost on Christmas Eve. But
+the rest of us think all he saw was the white calf with the red tail.
+(PETER, MUTTERING SULKILY:--"It's a queer calf that would walk up on end
+and wring its hands.")
+
+Miss Cecily King spent the night of Dec. 20th with Miss Kitty Marr. They
+talked most of the night about new knitted lace patterns and their beaus
+and were very sleepy in school next day. (CECILY, SHARPLY:--"We never
+mentioned such things!")
+
+Patrick Grayfur, Esq., was indisposed yesterday, but seems to be
+enjoying his usual health to-day.
+
+The King family expect their Aunt Eliza to visit them in January. She
+is really our great-aunt. We have never seen her but we are told she is
+very deaf and does not like children. So Aunt Janet says we must make
+ourselves scarece when she comes.
+
+Miss Cecily King has undertaken to fill with names a square of the
+missionary quilt which the Mission Band is making. You pay five cents
+to have your name embroidered in a corner, ten cents to have it in
+the centre, and a quarter if you want it left off altogether. (CECILY,
+INDIGNANTLY:--"That isn't the way at all.")
+
+
+ADS.
+
+WANTED--A remedy to make a fat boy thin. Address, "Patient Sufferer,
+care of Our Magazine."
+
+(FELIX, SOURLY:--"Sara Ray never got that up. I'll bet it was Dan. He'd
+better stick to his own department.")
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENT
+
+Mrs. Alexander King killed all her geese the twentieth of December. We
+all helped pick them. We had one Christmas Day and will have one every
+fortnight the rest of the winter.
+
+The bread was sour last week because mother wouldn't take my advice. I
+told her it was too warm for it in the corner behind the stove.
+
+Miss Felicity King invented a new recete for date cookies recently,
+which everybody said were excelent. I am not going to publish it though,
+because I don't want other people to find it out.
+
+ANXIOUS INQUIRER:--If you want to remove inkstains place the stain
+over steam and apply salt and lemon juice. If it was Dan who sent this
+question in I'd advise him to stop wiping his pen on his shirt sleeves
+and then he wouldn't have so many stains.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+ETIQUETTE DEPARTMENT
+
+
+
+F-l-x:--Yes, you should offer your arm to a lady when seeing her home,
+but don't keep her standing too long at the gate while you say good
+night.
+
+(FELIX, ENRAGED:--"I never asked such a question.")
+
+C-c-l-y:--No, it is not polite to use "Holy Moses" or "dodgasted" in
+ordinary conversation.
+
+(Cecily had gone down cellar to replenish the apple plate, so this
+passed without protest.)
+
+S-r-a:--No, it isn't polite to cry all the time. As to whether you
+should ask a young man in, it all depends on whether he went home with
+you of his own accord or was sent by some elderly relative.
+
+F-l-t-y:--It does not break any rule of etiquette if you keep a button
+off your best young man's coat for a keepsake. But don't take more than
+one or his mother might miss them.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+FASHION NOTES
+
+Knitted mufflers are much more stylish than crocheted ones this winter.
+It is nice to have one the same colour as your cap.
+
+Red mittens with a black diamond pattern on the back are much run after.
+Em Frewen's grandma knits hers for her. She can knit the double diamond
+pattern and Em puts on such airs about it, but I think the single
+diamond is in better taste.
+
+The new winter hats at Markdale are very pretty. It is so exciting to
+pick a hat. Boys can't have that fun. Their hats are so much alike.
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+FUNNY PARAGRAPHS
+
+This is a true joke and really happened.
+
+There was an old local preacher in New Brunswick one time whose name was
+Samuel Clask. He used to preach and pray and visit the sick just like a
+regular minister. One day he was visiting a neighbour who was dying and
+he prayed the Lord to have mercy on him because he was very poor and
+had worked so hard all his life that he hadn't much time to attend to
+religion.
+
+"And if you don't believe me, O Lord," Mr. Clask finished up with, "just
+take a look at his hands."
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+GENERAL INFORMATION BUREAU
+
+DAN:--Do porpoises grow on trees or vines?
+
+Ans. Neither. They inhabit the deep sea.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+(DAN, AGGRIEVED:--"Well, I'd never heard of porpoises and it sounded
+like something that grew. But you needn't have gone and put it in the
+paper."
+
+FELIX:--"It isn't any worse than the things you put in about me that I
+never asked at all."
+
+CECILY, SOOTHINGLY:--"Oh, well, boys, it's all in fun, and I think Our
+Magazine is perfectly elegant."
+
+FELICITY, FAILING TO SEE THE STORY GIRL AND BEVERLEY EXCHANGING WINKS
+BEHIND HER BACK:--"It certainly is, though SOME PEOPLE were so opposed
+to starting it.")
+
+
+What harmless, happy fooling it all was! How we laughed as we read and
+listened and devoured apples! Blow high, blow low, no wind can ever
+quench the ruddy glow of that faraway winter night in our memories. And
+though Our Magazine never made much of a stir in the world, or was the
+means of hatching any genius, it continued to be capital fun for us
+throughout the year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. GREAT-AUNT ELIZA'S VISIT
+
+
+It was a diamond winter day in February--clear, cold, hard, brilliant.
+The sharp blue sky shone, the white fields and hills glittered, the
+fringe of icicles around the eaves of Uncle Alec's house sparkled. Keen
+was the frost and crisp the snow over our world; and we young fry of the
+King households were all agog to enjoy life--for was it not Saturday,
+and were we not left all alone to keep house?
+
+Aunt Janet and Aunt Olivia had had their last big "kill" of market
+poultry the day before; and early in the morning all our grown-ups set
+forth to Charlottetown, to be gone the whole day. They left us many
+charges as usual, some of which we remembered and some of which we
+forgot; but with Felicity in command none of us dared stray far out of
+line. The Story Girl and Peter came over, of course, and we all agreed
+that we would haste and get the work done in the forenoon, that we might
+have an afternoon of uninterrupted enjoyment. A taffy-pull after dinner
+and then a jolly hour of coasting on the hill field before supper were
+on our programme. But disappointment was our portion. We did manage to
+get the taffy made but before we could sample the result satisfactorily,
+and just as the girls were finishing with the washing of the dishes,
+Felicity glanced out of the window and exclaimed in tones of dismay,
+
+"Oh, dear me, here's Great-aunt Eliza coming up the lane! Now, isn't
+that too mean?"
+
+We all looked out to see a tall, gray-haired lady approaching the house,
+looking about her with the slightly puzzled air of a stranger. We had
+been expecting Great-aunt Eliza's advent for some weeks, for she was
+visiting relatives in Markdale. We knew she was liable to pounce down on
+us any time, being one of those delightful folk who like to "surprise"
+people, but we had never thought of her coming that particular day. It
+must be confessed that we did not look forward to her visit with any
+pleasure. None of us had ever seen her, but we knew she was very deaf,
+and had very decided opinions as to the way in which children should
+behave.
+
+"Whew!" whistled Dan. "We're in for a jolly afternoon. She's deaf as a
+post and we'll have to split our throats to make her hear at all. I've a
+notion to skin out."
+
+"Oh, don't talk like that, Dan," said Cecily reproachfully. "She's old
+and lonely and has had a great deal of trouble. She has buried three
+husbands. We must be kind to her and do the best we can to make her
+visit pleasant."
+
+"She's coming to the back door," said Felicity, with an agitated glance
+around the kitchen. "I told you, Dan, that you should have shovelled the
+snow away from the front door this morning. Cecily, set those pots
+in the pantry quick--hide those boots, Felix--shut the cupboard door,
+Peter--Sara, straighten up the lounge. She's awfully particular and ma
+says her house is always as neat as wax."
+
+To do Felicity justice, while she issued orders to the rest of us,
+she was flying busily about herself, and it was amazing how much was
+accomplished in the way of putting the kitchen in perfect order during
+the two minutes in which Great-aunt Eliza was crossing the yard.
+
+"Fortunately the sitting-room is tidy and there's plenty in the pantry,"
+said Felicity, who could face anything undauntedly with a well-stocked
+larder behind her.
+
+Further conversation was cut short by a decided rap at the door.
+Felicity opened it.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Aunt Eliza?" she said loudly.
+
+A slightly bewildered look appeared on Aunt Eliza's face. Felicity
+perceived she had not spoken loudly enough.
+
+"How do you do, Aunt Eliza," she repeated at the top of her voice.
+"Come in--we are glad to see you. We've been looking for you for ever so
+long."
+
+"Are your father and mother at home?" asked Aunt Eliza, slowly.
+
+"No, they went to town today. But they'll be home this evening."
+
+"I'm sorry they're away," said Aunt Eliza, coming in, "because I can
+stay only a few hours."
+
+"Oh, that's too bad," shouted poor Felicity, darting an angry glance at
+the rest of us, as if to demand why we didn't help her out. "Why, we've
+been thinking you'd stay a week with us anyway. You MUST stay over
+Sunday."
+
+"I really can't. I have to go to Charlottetown tonight," returned Aunt
+Eliza.
+
+"Well, you'll take off your things and stay to tea, at least," urged
+Felicity, as hospitably as her strained vocal chords would admit.
+
+"Yes, I think I'll do that. I want to get acquainted with my--my nephews
+and nieces," said Aunt Eliza, with a rather pleasant glance around our
+group. If I could have associated the thought of such a thing with my
+preconception of Great-aunt Eliza I could have sworn there was a twinkle
+in her eye. But of course it was impossible. "Won't you introduce
+yourselves, please?"
+
+Felicity shouted our names and Great-aunt Eliza shook hands all round.
+She performed the duty grimly and I concluded I must have been mistaken
+about the twinkle. She was certainly very tall and dignified and
+imposing--altogether a great-aunt to be respected.
+
+Felicity and Cecily took her to the spare room and then left her in the
+sitting-room while they returned to the kitchen, to discuss the matter
+in family conclave.
+
+"Well, and what do you think of dear Aunt Eliza?" asked Dan.
+
+"S-s-s-sh," warned Cecily, with a glance at the half-open hall door.
+
+"Pshaw," scoffed Dan, "she can't hear us. There ought to be a law
+against anyone being as deaf as that."
+
+"She's not so old-looking as I expected," said Felix. "If her hair
+wasn't so white she wouldn't look much older than your mother."
+
+"You don't have to be very old to be a great-aunt," said Cecily. "Kitty
+Marr has a great-aunt who is just the same age as her mother. I expect
+it was burying so many husbands turned her hair white. But Aunt Eliza
+doesn't look just as I expected she would either."
+
+"She's dressed more stylishly than I expected," said Felicity. "I
+thought she'd be real old-fashioned, but her clothes aren't too bad at
+all."
+
+"She wouldn't be bad-looking if 'tweren't for her nose," said Peter.
+"It's too long, and crooked besides."
+
+"You needn't criticize our relations like that," said Felicity tartly.
+
+"Well, aren't you doing it yourselves?" expostulated Peter.
+
+"That's different," retorted Felicity. "Never you mind Great-aunt
+Eliza's nose."
+
+"Well, don't expect me to talk to her," said Dan, "'cause I won't."
+
+"I'm going to be very polite to her," said Felicity. "She's rich. But
+how are we to entertain her, that's the question."
+
+"What does the Family Guide say about entertaining your rich, deaf old
+aunt?" queried Dan ironically.
+
+"The Family Guide says we should be polite to EVERYBODY," said Cecily,
+with a reproachful look at Dan.
+
+"The worst of it is," said Felicity, looking worried, "that there isn't
+a bit of old bread in the house and she can't eat new, I've heard father
+say. It gives her indigestion. What will we do?"
+
+"Make a pan of rusks and apologize for having no old bread," suggested
+the Story Girl, probably by way of teasing Felicity. The latter,
+however, took it in all good faith.
+
+"The Family Guide says we should never apologize for things we can't
+help. It says it's adding insult to injury to do it. But you run over
+home for a loaf of stale bread, Sara, and it's a good idea about the
+rusks. I'll make a panful."
+
+"Let me make them," said the Story Girl, eagerly. "I can make real good
+rusks now."
+
+"No, it wouldn't do to trust you," said Felicity mercilessly. "You
+might make some queer mistake and Aunt Eliza would tell it all over the
+country. She's a fearful old gossip. I'll make the rusks myself. She
+hates cats, so we mustn't let Paddy be seen. And she's a Methodist, so
+mind nobody says anything against Methodists to her."
+
+"Who's going to say anything, anyhow?" asked Peter belligerently.
+
+"I wonder if I might ask her for her name for my quilt square?"
+speculated Cecily. "I believe I will. She looks so much friendlier than
+I expected. Of course she'll choose the five-cent section. She's an
+estimable old lady, but very economical."
+
+"Why don't you say she's so mean she'd skin a flea for its hide and
+tallow?" said Dan. "That's the plain truth."
+
+"Well, I'm going to see about getting tea," said Felicity, "so the rest
+of you will have to entertain her. You better go in and show her the
+photographs in the album. Dan, you do it."
+
+"Thank you, that's a girl's job," said Dan. "I'd look nice sitting up
+to Aunt Eliza and yelling out that this was Uncle Jim and 'tother Cousin
+Sarah's twins, wouldn't I? Cecily or the Story Girl can do it."
+
+"I don't know all the pictures in your album," said the Story Girl
+hastily.
+
+"I s'pose I'll have to do it, though I don't like to," sighed Cecily.
+"But we ought to go in. We've left her alone too long now. She'll think
+we have no manners."
+
+Accordingly we all filed in rather reluctantly. Great-aunt Eliza
+was toasting her toes--clad, as we noted, in very smart and shapely
+shoes--at the stove and looking quite at her ease. Cecily, determined to
+do her duty even in the face of such fearful odds as Great-aunt Eliza's
+deafness, dragged a ponderous, plush-covered album from its corner and
+proceeded to display and explain the family photographs. She did her
+brave best but she could not shout like Felicity, and half the time, as
+she confided to me later on, she felt that Great-aunt Eliza did not hear
+one word she said, because she didn't seem to take in who the people
+were, though, just like all deaf folks, she wouldn't let on. Great-aunt
+Eliza certainly didn't talk much; she looked at the photographs in
+silence, but she smiled now and then. That smile bothered me. It was so
+twinkly and so very un-great-aunt-Elizaish. But I felt indignant with
+her. I thought she might have shown a little more appreciation of
+Cecily's gallant efforts to entertain.
+
+It was very dull for the rest of us. The Story Girl sat rather sulkily
+in her corner; she was angry because Felicity would not let her make
+the rusks, and also, perhaps, a little vexed because she could not charm
+Great-aunt Eliza with her golden voice and story-telling gift. Felix
+and I looked at each other and wished ourselves out in the hill field,
+careering gloriously adown its gleaming crust.
+
+But presently a little amusement came our way. Dan, who was sitting
+behind Great-aunt Eliza, and consequently out of her view, began making
+comments on Cecily's explanation of this one and that one among the
+photographs. In vain Cecily implored him to stop. It was too good fun
+to give up. For the next half-hour the dialogue ran after this fashion,
+while Peter and Felix and I, and even the Story Girl, suffered agonies
+trying to smother our bursts of laughter--for Great-aunt Eliza could see
+if she couldn't hear:
+
+CECILY, SHOUTING:--"That is Mr. Joseph Elliott of Markdale, a second
+cousin of mother's."
+
+DAN:--"Don't brag of it, Sis. He's the man who was asked if somebody
+else said something in sincerity and old Joe said 'No, he said it in my
+cellar.'"
+
+CECILY:--"This isn't anybody in our family. It's little Xavy Gautier who
+used to be hired with Uncle Roger."
+
+DAN:--"Uncle Roger sent him to fix a gate one day and scolded him
+because he didn't do it right, and Xavy was mad as hops and said 'How
+you 'spect me to fix dat gate? I never learned jogerfy.'"
+
+CECILY, WITH AN ANGUISHED GLANCE AT DAN:--"This is Great-uncle Robert
+King."
+
+DAN:--"He's been married four times. Don't you think that's often
+enough, dear great-aunty?"
+
+CECILY:--"(Dan!!) This is a nephew of Mr. Ambrose Marr's. He lives out
+west and teaches school."
+
+DAN:--"Yes, and Uncle Roger says he doesn't know enough not to sleep in
+a field with the gate open."
+
+CECILY:--"This is Miss Julia Stanley, who used to teach in Carlisle a
+few years ago."
+
+DAN:--"When she resigned the trustees had a meeting to see if they'd ask
+her to stay and raise her supplement. Old Highland Sandy was alive then
+and he got up and said, 'If she for go let her for went. Perhaps she for
+marry.'"
+
+CECILY, WITH THE AIR OF A MARTYR:--"This is Mr. Layton, who used to
+travel around selling Bibles and hymn books and Talmage's sermons."
+
+DAN:--"He was so thin Uncle Roger used to say he always mistook him for
+a crack in the atmosphere. One time he stayed here all night and went to
+prayer meeting and Mr. Marwood asked him to lead in prayer. It had been
+raining 'most every day for three weeks, and it was just in haymaking
+time, and everybody thought the hay was going to be ruined, and old
+Layton got up and prayed that God would send gentle showers on the
+growing crops, and I heard Uncle Roger whisper to a fellow behind
+me, 'If somebody don't choke him off we won't get the hay made this
+summer.'"
+
+CECILY, IN EXASPERATION:--"(Dan, shame on you for telling such
+irreverent stories.) This is Mrs. Alexander Scott of Markdale. She has
+been very sick for a long time."
+
+DAN:--"Uncle Roger says all that keeps her alive is that she's scared
+her husband will marry again."
+
+CECILY:--"This is old Mr. James MacPherson who used to live behind the
+graveyard."
+
+DAN:--"He's the man who told mother once that he always made his own
+iodine out of strong tea and baking soda."
+
+CECILY:--"This is Cousin Ebenezer MacPherson on the Markdale road."
+
+DAN:--"Great temperance man! He never tasted rum in his life. He took
+the measles when he was forty-five and was crazy as a loon with them,
+and the doctor ordered them to give him a dose of brandy. When he
+swallowed it he looked up and says, solemn as an owl, 'Give it to me
+oftener and more at a time.'"
+
+CECILY, IMPLORINGLY:--"(Dan, do stop. You make me so nervous I don't
+know what I'm doing.) This is Mr. Lemuel Goodridge. He is a minister."
+
+DAN:--"You ought to see his mouth. Uncle Roger says the drawing string
+has fell out of it. It just hangs loose--so fashion."
+
+Dan, whose own mouth was far from being beautiful, here gave an
+imitation of the Rev. Lemuel's, to the utter undoing of Peter, Felix,
+and myself. Our wild guffaws of laughter penetrated even Great-aunt
+Eliza's deafness, and she glanced up with a startled face. What we would
+have done I do not know had not Felicity at that moment appeared in the
+doorway with panic-stricken eyes and exclaimed,
+
+"Cecily, come here for a moment."
+
+Cecily, glad of even a temporary respite, fled to the kitchen and we
+heard her demanding what was the matter.
+
+"Matter!" exclaimed Felicity, tragically. "Matter enough! Some of you
+left a soup plate with molasses in it on the pantry table and Pat got
+into it and what do you think? He went into the spare room and walked
+all over Aunt Eliza's things on the bed. You can see his tracks plain as
+plain. What in the world can we do? She'll be simply furious."
+
+I looked apprehensively at Great-aunt Eliza; but she was gazing
+intently at a picture of Aunt Janet's sister's twins, a most stolid,
+uninteresting pair; but evidently Great-aunt Eliza found them amusing
+for she was smiling widely over them.
+
+"Let us take a little clean water and a soft bit of cotton," came
+Cecily's clear voice from the kitchen, "and see if we can't clean the
+molasses off. The coat and hat are both cloth, and molasses isn't like
+grease."
+
+"Well, we can try, but I wish the Story Girl would keep her cat home,"
+grumbled Felicity.
+
+The Story Girl here flew out to defend her pet, and we four boys sat on,
+miserably conscious of Great-aunt Eliza, who never said a word to us,
+despite her previously expressed desire to become acquainted with us.
+She kept on looking at the photographs and seemed quite oblivious of our
+presence.
+
+Presently the girls returned, having, as transpired later, been so
+successful in removing the traces of Paddy's mischief that it was not
+deemed necessary to worry Great-aunt Eliza with any account of it.
+Felicity announced tea and, while Cecily conveyed Great-aunt Eliza out
+to the dining-room, lingered behind to consult with us for a moment.
+
+"Ought we to ask her to say grace?" she wanted to know.
+
+"I know a story," said the Story Girl, "about Uncle Roger when he was
+just a young man. He went to the house of a very deaf old lady and when
+they sat down to the table she asked him to say grace. Uncle Roger had
+never done such a thing in his life and he turned as red as a beet
+and looked down and muttered, 'E-r-r, please excuse me--I--I'm not
+accustomed to doing that.' Then he looked up and the old lady said
+'Amen,' loudly and cheerfully. She thought Uncle Roger was saying grace
+all the time."
+
+"I don't think it's right to tell funny stories about such things," said
+Felicity coldly. "And I asked for your opinion, not for a story."
+
+"If we don't ask her, Felix must say it, for he's the only one who can,
+and we must have it, or she'd be shocked."
+
+"Oh, ask her--ask her," advised Felix hastily.
+
+She was asked accordingly and said grace without any hesitation, after
+which she proceeded to eat heartily of the excellent supper Felicity had
+provided. The rusks were especially good and Great-aunt Eliza ate three
+of them and praised them. Apart from that she said little and during the
+first part of the meal we sat in embarrassed silence. Towards the last,
+however, our tongues were loosened, and the Story Girl told us a tragic
+tale of old Charlottetown and a governor's wife who had died of a broken
+heart in the early days of the colony.
+
+"They say that story isn't true," said Felicity. "They say what she
+really died of was indigestion. The Governor's wife who lives there now
+is a relation of our own. She is a second cousin of father's but we've
+never seen her. Her name was Agnes Clark. And mind you, when father was
+a young man he was dead in love with her and so was she with him."
+
+"Who ever told you that?" exclaimed Dan.
+
+"Aunt Olivia. And I've heard ma teasing father about it, too. Of course,
+it was before father got acquainted with mother."
+
+"Why didn't your father marry her?" I asked.
+
+"Well, she just simply wouldn't marry him in the end. She got over being
+in love with him. I guess she was pretty fickle. Aunt Olivia said father
+felt awful about it for awhile, but he got over it when he met ma.
+Ma was twice as good-looking as Agnes Clark. Agnes was a sight for
+freckles, so Aunt Olivia says. But she and father remained real good
+friends. Just think, if she had married him we would have been the
+children of the Governor's wife."
+
+"But she wouldn't have been the Governor's wife then," said Dan.
+
+"I guess it's just as good being father's wife," declared Cecily
+loyally.
+
+"You might think so if you saw the Governor," chuckled Dan. "Uncle Roger
+says it would be no harm to worship him because he doesn't look like
+anything in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or the waters
+under the earth."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Roger just says that because he's on the opposite side of
+politics," said Cecily. "The Governor isn't really so very ugly. I saw
+him at the Markdale picnic two years ago. He's very fat and bald and
+red-faced, but I've seen far worse looking men."
+
+"I'm afraid your seat is too near the stove, Aunt Eliza," shouted
+Felicity.
+
+Our guest, whose face was certainly very much flushed, shook her head.
+
+"Oh, no, I'm very comfortable," she said. But her voice had the effect
+of making us uncomfortable. There was a queer, uncertain little sound
+in it. Was Great-aunt Eliza laughing at us? We looked at her sharply
+but her face was very solemn. Only her eyes had a suspicious appearance.
+Somehow, we did not talk much more the rest of the meal.
+
+When it was over Great-aunt Eliza said she was very sorry but she must
+really go. Felicity politely urged her to stay, but was much relieved
+when Great-aunt Eliza adhered to her intention of going. When Felicity
+took her to the spare room Cecily slipped upstairs and presently came
+back with a little parcel in her hand.
+
+"What have you got there?" demanded Felicity suspiciously.
+
+"A--a little bag of rose-leaves," faltered Cecily. "I thought I'd give
+them to Aunt Eliza."
+
+"The idea! Don't you do such a thing," said Felicity contemptuously.
+"She'd think you were crazy."
+
+"She was awfully nice when I asked her for her name for the quilt,"
+protested Cecily, "and she took a ten-cent section after all. So I'd
+like to give her the rose-leaves--and I'm going to, too, Miss Felicity."
+
+Great-aunt Eliza accepted the little gift quite graciously, bade us
+all good-bye, said she had enjoyed herself very much, left messages for
+father and mother, and finally betook herself away. We watched her cross
+the yard, tall, stately, erect, and disappear down the lane. Then,
+as often aforetime, we gathered together in the cheer of the red
+hearth-flame, while outside the wind of a winter twilight sang through
+fair white valleys brimmed with a reddening sunset, and a faint, serene,
+silver-cold star glimmered over the willow at the gate.
+
+"Well," said Felicity, drawing a relieved breath, "I'm glad she's gone.
+She certainly is queer, just as mother said."
+
+"It's a different kind of queerness from what I expected, though," said
+the Story Girl meditatively. "There's something I can't quite make out
+about Aunt Eliza. I don't think I altogether like her."
+
+"I'm precious sure I don't," said Dan.
+
+"Oh, well, never mind. She's gone now and that's the last of it," said
+Cecily comfortingly.
+
+But it wasn't the last of it--not by any manner of means was it! When
+our grown-ups returned almost the first words Aunt Janet said were,
+
+"And so you had the Governor's wife to tea?"
+
+We all stared at her.
+
+"I don't know what you mean," said Felicity. "We had nobody to tea
+except Great-aunt Eliza. She came this afternoon and--"
+
+"Great-aunt Eliza? Nonsense," said Aunt Janet. "Aunt Eliza was in town
+today. She had tea with us at Aunt Louisa's. But wasn't Mrs. Governor
+Lesley here? We met her on her way back to Charlottetown and she told
+us she was. She said she was visiting a friend in Carlisle and thought
+she'd call to see father for old acquaintance sake. What in the world
+are all you children staring like that for? Your eyes are like saucers."
+
+"There was a lady here to tea," said Felicity miserably, "but we thought
+it was Great-aunt Eliza--she never SAID she wasn't--I thought she acted
+queer--and we all yelled at her as if she was deaf--and said things to
+each other about her nose--and Pat running over her clothes--"
+
+"She must have heard all you said while I was showing her the
+photographs, Dan," cried Cecily.
+
+"And about the Governor at tea time," chuckled unrepentant Dan.
+
+"I want to know what all this means," said Aunt Janet sternly.
+
+She knew in due time, after she had pieced the story together from
+our disjointed accounts. She was horrified, and Uncle Alec was mildly
+disturbed, but Uncle Roger roared with laughter and Aunt Olivia echoed
+it.
+
+"To think you should have so little sense!" said Aunt Janet in a
+disgusted tone.
+
+"I think it was real mean of her to pretend she was deaf," said
+Felicity, almost on the verge of tears.
+
+"That was Agnes Clark all over," chuckled Uncle Roger. "How she must
+have enjoyed this afternoon!"
+
+She had enjoyed it, as we learned the next day, when a letter came from
+her.
+
+"Dear Cecily and all the rest of you," wrote the Governor's wife, "I
+want to ask you to forgive me for pretending to be Aunt Eliza. I
+suspect it was a little horrid of me, but really I couldn't resist the
+temptation, and if you will forgive me for it I will forgive you for the
+things you said about the Governor, and we will all be good friends. You
+know the Governor is a very nice man, though he has the misfortune not
+to be handsome.
+
+"I had just a splendid time at your place, and I envy your Aunt Eliza
+her nephews and nieces. You were all so nice to me, and I didn't dare
+to be a bit nice to you lest I should give myself away. But I'll make
+up for that when you come to see me at Government House, as you all must
+the very next time you come to town. I'm so sorry I didn't see Paddy,
+for I love pussy cats, even if they do track molasses over my clothes.
+And, Cecily, thank you ever so much for that little bag of pot-pourri.
+It smells like a hundred rose gardens, and I have put it between the
+sheets for my very sparest room bed, where you shall sleep when you come
+to see me, you dear thing. And the Governor wants you to put his name on
+the quilt square, too, in the ten-cent section.
+
+"Tell Dan I enjoyed his comments on the photographs very much. They were
+quite a refreshing contrast to the usual explanations of 'who's who.'
+And Felicity, your rusks were perfection. Do send me your recipe for
+them, there's a darling.
+
+"Yours most cordially,
+
+                                AGNES CLARK LESLEY.
+
+
+"Well, it was decent of her to apologize, anyhow," commented Dan.
+
+"If we only hadn't said that about the Governor," moaned Felicity.
+
+"How did you make your rusks?" asked Aunt Janet. "There was no
+baking-powder in the house, and I never could get them right with soda
+and cream of tartar."
+
+"There was plenty of baking-powder in the pantry," said Felicity.
+
+"No, there wasn't a particle. I used the last making those cookies
+Thursday morning."
+
+"But I found another can nearly full, away back on the top shelf,
+ma,--the one with the yellow label. I guess you forgot it was there."
+
+Aunt Janet stared at her pretty daughter blankly. Then amazement gave
+place to horror.
+
+"Felicity King!" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me that you
+raised those rusks with the stuff that was in that old yellow can?"
+
+"Yes, I did," faltered Felicity, beginning to look scared. "Why, ma,
+what was the matter with it?"
+
+"Matter! That stuff was TOOTH-POWDER, that's what it was. Your Cousin
+Myra broke the bottle her tooth-powder was in when she was here last
+winter and I gave her that old can to keep it in. She forgot to take it
+when she went away and I put it on that top shelf. I declare you must
+all have been bewitched yesterday."
+
+Poor, poor Felicity! If she had not always been so horribly vain over
+her cooking and so scornfully contemptuous of other people's aspirations
+and mistakes along that line, I could have found it in my heart to pity
+her.
+
+The Story Girl would have been more than human if she had not betrayed a
+little triumphant amusement, but Peter stood up for his lady manfully.
+
+"The rusks were splendid, anyhow, so what difference does it make what
+they were raised with?"
+
+Dan, however, began to taunt Felicity with her tooth-powder rusks, and
+kept it up for the rest of his natural life.
+
+"Don't forget to send the Governor's wife the recipe for them," he said.
+
+Felicity, with eyes tearful and cheeks crimson from mortification,
+rushed from the room, but never, never did the Governor's wife get the
+recipe for those rusks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. WE VISIT COUSIN MATTIE'S
+
+
+One Saturday in March we walked over to Baywater, for a long-talked-of
+visit to Cousin Mattie Dilke. By the road, Baywater was six miles away,
+but there was a short cut across hills and fields and woods which was
+scantly three. We did not look forward to our visit with any particular
+delight, for there was nobody at Cousin Mattie's except grown-ups who
+had been grown up so long that it was rather hard for them to remember
+they had ever been children. But, as Felicity told us, it was necessary
+to visit Cousin Mattie at least once a year, or else she would be
+"huffed," so we concluded we might as well go and have it over.
+
+"Anyhow, we'll get a splendiferous dinner," said Dan. "Cousin Mattie's a
+great cook and there's nothing stingy about her."
+
+"You are always thinking of your stomach," said Felicity pleasantly.
+
+"Well, you know I couldn't get along very well without it, darling,"
+responded Dan who, since New Year's, had adopted a new method of dealing
+with Felicity--whether by way of keeping his resolution or because he
+had discovered that it annoyed Felicity far more than angry retorts,
+deponent sayeth not. He invariably met her criticisms with a
+good-natured grin and a flippant remark with some tender epithet tagged
+on to it. Poor Felicity used to get hopelessly furious over it.
+
+Uncle Alec was dubious about our going that day. He looked abroad on
+the general dourness of gray earth and gray air and gray sky, and said
+a storm was brewing. But Cousin Mattie had been sent word that we
+were coming, and she did not like to be disappointed, so he let us go,
+warning us to stay with Cousin Mattie all night if the storm came on
+while we were there.
+
+We enjoyed our walk--even Felix enjoyed it, although he had been
+appointed to write up the visit for Our Magazine and was rather weighed
+down by the responsibility of it. What mattered it though the world were
+gray and wintry? We walked the golden road and carried spring time in
+our hearts, and we beguiled our way with laughter and jest, and the
+tales the Story Girl told us--myths and legends of elder time.
+
+The walking was good, for there had lately been a thaw and everything
+was frozen. We went over fields, crossed by spidery trails of gray
+fences, where the withered grasses stuck forlornly up through the
+snow; we lingered for a time in a group of hill pines, great, majestic
+tree-creatures, friends of evening stars; and finally struck into the
+belt of fir and maple which intervened between Carlisle and Baywater.
+It was in this locality that Peg Bowen lived, and our way lay near her
+house though not directly in sight of it. We hoped we would not meet
+her, for since the affair of the bewitchment of Paddy we did not know
+quite what to think of Peg; the boldest of us held his breath as we
+passed her haunts, and drew it again with a sigh of relief when they
+were safely left behind.
+
+The woods were full of the brooding stillness that often precedes a
+storm, and the wind crept along their white, cone-sprinkled floors with
+a low, wailing cry. Around us were solitudes of snow, arcades picked out
+in pearl and silver, long avenues of untrodden marble whence sprang the
+cathedral columns of the firs. We were all sorry when we were through
+the woods and found ourselves looking down into the snug, commonplace,
+farmstead-dotted settlement of Baywater.
+
+"There's Cousin Mattie's house--that big white one at the turn of the
+road," said the Story Girl. "I hope she has that dinner ready, Dan. I'm
+hungry as a wolf after our walk."
+
+"I wish Cousin Mattie's husband was still alive," said Dan. "He was an
+awful nice old man. He always had his pockets full of nuts and apples.
+I used to like going there better when he was alive. Too many old women
+don't suit me."
+
+"Oh, Dan, Cousin Mattie and her sisters-in-law are just as nice and kind
+as they can be," reproached Cecily.
+
+"Oh, they're kind enough, but they never seem to see that a fellow gets
+over being five years old if he only lives long enough," retorted Dan.
+
+"I know a story about Cousin Mattie's husband," said the Story Girl.
+"His name was Ebenezer, you know--"
+
+"Is it any wonder he was thin and stunted looking?" said Dan.
+
+"Ebenezer is just as nice a name as Daniel," said Felicity.
+
+"Do you REALLY think so, my angel?" inquired Dan, in honey-sweet tones.
+
+"Go on. Remember your second resolution," I whispered to the Story Girl,
+who was stalking along with an outraged expression.
+
+The Story Girl swallowed something and went on.
+
+"Cousin Ebenezer had a horror of borrowing. He thought it was simply
+a dreadful disgrace to borrow ANYTHING. Well, you know he and Cousin
+Mattie used to live in Carlisle, where the Rays now live. This was when
+Grandfather King was alive. One day Cousin Ebenezer came up the hill and
+into the kitchen where all the family were. Uncle Roger said he looked
+as if he had been stealing sheep. He sat for a whole hour in the kitchen
+and hardly spoke a word, but just looked miserable. At last he got up
+and said in a desperate sort of way, 'Uncle Abraham, can I speak with
+you in private for a minute?' 'Oh, certainly,' said grandfather, and
+took him into the parlour. Cousin Ebenezer shut the door, looked
+all around him and then said imploringly, 'MORE PRIVATE STILL.' So
+grandfather took him into the spare room and shut that door. He was
+getting frightened. He thought something terrible must have happened
+Cousin Ebenezer. Cousin Ebenezer came right up to grandfather, took
+hold of the lapel of his coat, and said in a whisper, 'Uncle Abraham,
+CAN--YOU--LEND--ME--AN--AXE?'"
+
+"He needn't have made such a mystery about it," said Cecily, who had
+missed the point entirely, and couldn't see why the rest of us were
+laughing. But Cecily was such a darling that we did not mind her lack of
+a sense of humour.
+
+"It's kind of mean to tell stories like that about people who are dead,"
+said Felicity.
+
+"Sometimes it's safer than when they're alive though, sweetheart,"
+commented Dan.
+
+We had our expected good dinner at Cousin Mattie's--may it be counted
+unto her for righteousness. She and her sisters-in-law, Miss Louisa
+Jane and Miss Caroline, were very kind to us. We had quite a nice time,
+although I understood why Dan objected to them when they patted us
+all on the head and told us whom we resembled and gave us peppermint
+lozenges.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. WE VISIT PEG BOWEN
+
+
+We left Cousin Mattie's early, for it still looked like a storm, though
+no more so than it had in the morning. We intended to go home by a
+different path--one leading through cleared land overgrown with scrub
+maple, which had the advantage of being farther away from Peg Bowen's
+house. We hoped to be home before it began to storm, but we had hardly
+reached the hill above the village when a fine, driving snow began to
+fall. It would have been wiser to have turned back even then; but we
+had already come a mile and we thought we would have ample time to reach
+home before it became really bad. We were sadly mistaken; by the time
+we had gone another half-mile we were in the thick of a bewildering,
+blinding snowstorm. But it was by now just as far back to Cousin
+Mattie's as it was to Uncle Alec's, so we struggled on, growing more
+frightened at every step. We could hardly face the stinging snow, and we
+could not see ten feet ahead of us. It had turned bitterly cold and
+the tempest howled all around us in white desolation under the
+fast-darkening night. The narrow path we were trying to follow soon
+became entirely obliterated and we stumbled blindly on, holding to each
+other, and trying to peer through the furious whirl that filled the air.
+Our plight had come upon us so suddenly that we could not realize it.
+Presently Peter, who was leading the van because he was supposed to know
+the path best, stopped.
+
+"I can't see the road any longer," he shouted. "I don't know where we
+are."
+
+We all stopped and huddled together in a miserable group. Fear filled
+our hearts. It seemed ages ago that we had been snug and safe and warm
+at Cousin Mattie's. Cecily began to cry with cold. Dan, in spite of her
+protests, dragged off his overcoat and made her put it on.
+
+"We can't stay here," he said. "We'll all freeze to death if we do. Come
+on--we've got to keep moving. The snow ain't so deep yet. Take hold of
+my hand, Cecily. We must all hold together. Come, now."
+
+"It won't be nice to be frozen to death, but if we get through alive
+think what a story we'll have to tell," said the Story Girl between her
+chattering teeth.
+
+In my heart I did not believe we would ever get through alive. It was
+almost pitch dark now, and the snow grew deeper every moment. We were
+chilled to the heart. I thought how nice it would be to lie down and
+rest; but I remembered hearing that that was fatal, and I endeavoured to
+stumble on with the others. It was wonderful how the girls kept up, even
+Cecily. It occurred to me to be thankful that Sara Ray was not with us.
+
+But we were wholly lost now. All around us was a horror of great
+darkness. Suddenly Felicity fell. We dragged her up, but she declared
+she could not go on--she was done out.
+
+"Have you any idea where we are?" shouted Dan to Peter.
+
+"No," Peter shouted back, "the wind is blowing every which way. I
+haven't any idea where home is."
+
+Home! Would we ever see it again? We tried to urge Felicity on, but she
+only repeated drowsily that she must lie down and rest. Cecily, too,
+was reeling against me. The Story Girl still stood up staunchly and
+counselled struggling on, but she was numb with cold and her words were
+hardly distinguishable. Some wild idea was in my mind that we must dig a
+hole in the snow and all creep into it. I had read somewhere that people
+had thus saved their lives in snowstorms. Suddenly Felix gave a shout.
+
+"I see a light," he cried.
+
+"Where? Where?" We all looked but could see nothing.
+
+"I don't see it now but I saw it a moment ago," shouted Felix. "I'm sure
+I did. Come on--over in this direction."
+
+Inspired with fresh hope we hurried after him. Soon we all saw the
+light--and never shone a fairer beacon. A few more steps and, coming
+into the shelter of the woodland on the further side, we realized where
+we were.
+
+"That's Peg Bowen's house," exclaimed Peter, stopping short in dismay.
+
+"I don't care whose house it is," declared Dan. "We've got to go to it."
+
+"I s'pose so," acquiesced Peter ruefully. "We can't freeze to death even
+if she is a witch."
+
+"For goodness' sake don't say anything about witches so close to her
+house," gasped Felicity. "I'll be thankful to get in anywhere."
+
+We reached the house, climbed the flight of steps that led to that
+mysterious second story door, and Dan rapped. The door opened promptly
+and Peg Bowen stood before us, in what seemed exactly the same costume
+she had worn on the memorable day when we had come, bearing gifts, to
+propitiate her in the matter of Paddy.
+
+"Behind her was a dim room scantly illumined by the one small candle
+that had guided us through the storm; but the old Waterloo stove was
+colouring the gloom with tremulous, rose-red whorls of light, and warm
+and cosy indeed seemed Peg's retreat to us snow-covered, frost-chilled,
+benighted wanderers.
+
+"Gracious goodness, where did yez all come from?" exclaimed Peg. "Did
+they turn yez out?"
+
+"We've been over to Baywater, and we got lost in the storm coming back,"
+explained Dan. "We didn't know where we were till we saw your light.
+I guess we'll have to stay here till the storm is over--if you don't
+mind."
+
+"And if it won't inconvenience you," said Cecily timidly.
+
+"Oh, it's no inconvenience to speak of. Come in. Well, yez HAVE got some
+snow on yez. Let me get a broom. You boys stomp your feet well and shake
+your coats. You girls give me your things and I'll hang them up. Guess
+yez are most froze. Well, sit up to the stove and git het up."
+
+Peg bustled away to gather up a dubious assortment of chairs, with backs
+and rungs missing, and in a few minutes we were in a circle around her
+roaring stove, getting dried and thawed out. In our wildest flights
+of fancy we had never pictured ourselves as guests at the witch's
+hearth-stone. Yet here we were; and the witch herself was actually
+brewing a jorum of ginger tea for Cecily, who continued to shiver long
+after the rest of us were roasted to the marrow. Poor Sis drank that
+scalding draught, being in too great awe of Peg to do aught else.
+
+"That'll soon fix your shivers," said our hostess kindly. "And now I'll
+get yez all some tea."
+
+"Oh, please don't trouble," said the Story Girl hastily.
+
+"'Tain't any trouble," said Peg briskly; then, with one of the sudden
+changes to fierceness which made her such a terrifying personage, "Do
+yez think my vittels ain't clean?"
+
+"Oh, no, no," cried Felicity quickly, before the Story Girl could speak,
+"none of us would ever think THAT. Sara only meant she didn't want you
+to go to any bother on our account."
+
+"It ain't any bother," said Peg, mollified. "I'm spry as a cricket this
+winter, though I have the realagy sometimes. Many a good bite I've had
+in your ma's kitchen. I owe yez a meal."
+
+No more protests were made. We sat in awed silence, gazing with timid
+curiosity about the room, the stained, plastered walls of which were
+well-nigh covered with a motley assortment of pictures, chromos, and
+advertisements, pasted on without much regard for order or character.
+
+We had heard much of Peg's pets and now we saw them. Six cats occupied
+various cosy corners; one of them, the black goblin which had so
+terrified us in the summer, blinked satirically at us from the centre of
+Peg's bed. Another, a dilapidated, striped beastie, with both ears and
+one eye gone, glared at us from the sofa in the corner. A dog, with only
+three legs, lay behind the stove; a crow sat on a roost above our
+heads, in company with a matronly old hen; and on the clock shelf were
+a stuffed monkey and a grinning skull. We had heard that a sailor had
+given Peg the monkey. But where had she got the skull? And whose was it?
+I could not help puzzling over these gruesome questions.
+
+Presently tea was ready and we gathered around the festal board--a board
+literally as well as figuratively, for Peg's table was the work of her
+own unskilled hands. The less said about the viands of that meal, and
+the dishes they were served in, the better. But we ate them--bless you,
+yes!--as we would have eaten any witch's banquet set before us. Peg
+might or might not be a witch--common sense said not; but we knew she
+was quite capable of turning every one of us out of doors in one of
+her sudden fierce fits if we offended her; and we had no mind to trust
+ourselves again to that wild forest where we had fought a losing fight
+with the demon forces of night and storm.
+
+But it was not an agreeable meal in more ways than one. Peg was not
+at all careful of anybody's feelings. She hurt Felix's cruelly as she
+passed him his cup of tea.
+
+"You've gone too much to flesh, boy. So the magic seed didn't work,
+hey?"
+
+How in the world had Peg found out about that magic seed? Felix looked
+uncommonly foolish.
+
+"If you'd come to me in the first place I'd soon have told you how to
+get thin," said Peg, nodding wisely.
+
+"Won't you tell me now?" asked Felix eagerly, his desire to melt his too
+solid flesh overcoming his dread and shame.
+
+"No, I don't like being second fiddle," answered Peg with a crafty
+smile. "Sara, you're too scrawny and pale--not much like your ma. I knew
+her well. She was counted a beauty, but she made no great things of a
+match. Your father had some money but he was a tramp like meself. Where
+is he now?"
+
+"In Rome," said the Story Girl rather shortly.
+
+"People thought your ma was crazy when she took him. But she'd a right
+to please herself. Folks is too ready to call other folks crazy. There's
+people who say I'M not in my right mind. Did yez ever"--Peg fixed
+Felicity with a piercing glance--"hear anything so ridiculous?"
+
+"Never," said Felicity, white to the lips.
+
+"I wish everybody was as sane as I am," said Peg scornfully. Then she
+looked poor Felicity over critically. "You're good-looking but proud.
+And your complexion won't wear. It'll be like your ma's yet--too much
+red in it."
+
+"Well, that's better than being the colour of mud," muttered Peter, who
+wasn't going to hear his lady traduced, even by a witch. All the thanks
+he got was a furious look from Felicity, but Peg had not heard him and
+now she turned her attention to Cecily.
+
+"You look delicate. I daresay you'll never live to grow up."
+
+Cecily's lip trembled and Dan's face turned crimson.
+
+"Shut up," he said to Peg. "You've no business to say such things to
+people."
+
+I think my jaw dropped. I know Peter's and Felix's did. Felicity broke
+in wildly.
+
+"Oh, don't mind him, Miss Bowen. He's got SUCH a temper--that's just the
+way he talks to us all at home. PLEASE excuse him."
+
+"Bless you, I don't mind him," said Peg, from whom the unexpected seemed
+to be the thing to expect. "I like a lad of spurrit. And so your father
+run away, did he, Peter? He used to be a beau of mine--he seen me home
+three times from singing school when we was young. Some folks said he
+did it for a dare. There's such a lot of jealousy in the world, ain't
+there? Do you know where he is now?"
+
+"No," said Peter.
+
+"Well, he's coming home before long," said Peg mysteriously.
+
+"Who told you that?" cried Peter in amazement.
+
+"Better not ask," responded Peg, looking up at the skull.
+
+If she meant to make the flesh creep on our bones she succeeded. But
+now, much to our relief, the meal was over and Peg invited us to draw
+our chairs up to the stove again.
+
+"Make yourselves at home," she said, producing her pipe from her pocket.
+"I ain't one of the kind who thinks their houses too good to live in.
+Guess I won't bother washing the dishes. They'll do yez for breakfast if
+yez don't forget your places. I s'pose none of yez smokes."
+
+"No," said Felicity, rather primly.
+
+"Then yez don't know what's good for yez," retorted Peg, rather
+grumpily. But a few whiffs of her pipe placated her and, observing
+Cecily sigh, she asked her kindly what was the matter.
+
+"I'm thinking how worried they'll be at home about us," explained
+Cecily.
+
+"Bless you, dearie, don't be worrying over that. I'll send them word
+that yez are all snug and safe here."
+
+"But how can you?" cried amazed Cecily.
+
+"Better not ask," said Peg again, with another glance at the skull.
+
+An uncomfortable silence followed, finally broken by Peg, who introduced
+her pets to us and told how she had come by them. The black cat was her
+favourite.
+
+"That cat knows more than I do, if yez'll believe it," she said proudly.
+"I've got a rat too, but he's a bit shy when strangers is round. Your
+cat got all right again that time, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Thought he would," said Peg, nodding sagely. "I seen to that. Now,
+don't yez all be staring at the hole in my dress."
+
+"We weren't," was our chorus of protest.
+
+"Looked as if yez were. I tore that yesterday but I didn't mend it. I
+was brought up to believe that a hole was an accident but a patch was a
+disgrace. And so your Aunt Olivia is going to be married after all?"
+
+This was news to us. We felt and looked dazed.
+
+"I never heard anything of it," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Oh, it's true enough. She's a great fool. I've no faith in husbands.
+But one good thing is she ain't going to marry that Henry Jacobs of
+Markdale. He wants her bad enough. Just like his presumption,--thinking
+himself good enough for a King. His father is the worst man alive. He
+chased me off his place with his dog once. But I'll get even with him
+yet."
+
+Peg looked very savage, and visions of burned barns floated through our
+minds.
+
+"He'll be punished in hell, you know," said Peter timidly.
+
+"But I won't be there to see that," rejoined Peg. "Some folks say I'll
+go there because I don't go to church oftener. But I don't believe it."
+
+"Why don't you go?" asked Peter, with a temerity that bordered on
+rashness.
+
+"Well, I've got so sunburned I'm afraid folks might take me for an
+Injun," explained Peg, quite seriously. "Besides, your minister makes
+such awful long prayers. Why does he do it?"
+
+"I suppose he finds it easier to talk to God than to people," suggested
+Peter reflectively.
+
+"Well, anyway, I belong to the round church," said Peg comfortably, "and
+so the devil can't catch ME at the corners. I haven't been to Carlisle
+church for over three years. I thought I'd a-died laughing the last time
+I was there. Old Elder Marr took up the collection that day. He'd on a
+pair of new boots and they squeaked all the way up and down the aisles.
+And every time the boots squeaked the elder made a face, like he had
+toothache. It was awful funny. How's your missionary quilt coming on,
+Cecily?"
+
+Was there anything Peg didn't know?
+
+"Very well," said Cecily.
+
+"You can put my name on it, if you want to."
+
+"Oh, thank you. Which section--the five-cent one or the ten-cent one?"
+asked Cecily timidly.
+
+"The ten-cent one, of course. The best is none too good for me. I'll
+give you the ten cents another time. I'm short of change just now--not
+being as rich as Queen Victory. There's her picture up there--the one
+with the blue sash and diamint crown and the lace curting on her head.
+Can any of yez tell me this--is Queen Victory a married woman?"
+
+"Oh, yes, but her husband is dead," answered the Story Girl.
+
+"Well, I s'pose they couldn't have called her an old maid, seeing she
+was a queen, even if she'd never got married. Sometimes I sez to myself,
+'Peg, would you like to be Queen Victory?' But I never know what
+to answer. In summer, when I can roam anywhere in the woods and the
+sunshine--I wouldn't be Queen Victory for anything. But when it's winter
+and cold and I can't git nowheres--I feel as if I wouldn't mind changing
+places with her."
+
+Peg put her pipe back in her mouth and began to smoke fiercely. The
+candle wick burned long, and was topped by a little cap of fiery red
+that seemed to wink at us like an impish gnome. The most grotesque
+shadow of Peg flickered over the wall behind her. The one-eyed cat
+remitted his grim watch and went to sleep. Outside the wind screamed
+like a ravening beast at the window. Suddenly Peg removed her pipe from
+her mouth, bent forward, gripped my wrist with her sinewy fingers until
+I almost cried out with pain, and gazed straight into my face. I felt
+horribly frightened of her. She seemed an entirely different creature. A
+wild light was in her eyes, a furtive, animal-like expression was on
+her face. When she spoke it was in a different voice and in different
+language.
+
+"Do you hear the wind?" she asked in a thrilling whisper. "What IS the
+wind? What IS the wind?"
+
+"I--I--don't know," I stammered.
+
+"No more do I," said Peg, "and nobody knows. Nobody knows what the wind
+is. I wish I could find out. I mightn't be so afraid of the wind if I
+knew what it was. I am afraid of it. When the blasts come like that I
+want to crouch down and hide me. But I can tell you one thing about the
+wind--it's the only free thing in the world--THE--ONLY--FREE--THING.
+Everything else is subject to some law, but the wind is FREE. It bloweth
+where it listeth and no man can tame it. It's free--that's why I
+love it, though I'm afraid of it. It's a grand thing to be free--free
+free--free!"
+
+Peg's voice rose almost to a shriek. We were dreadfully frightened, for
+we knew there were times when she was quite crazy and we feared one of
+her "spells" was coming on her. But with a swift movement she turned
+the man's coat she wore up over her shoulders and head like a hood,
+completely hiding her face. Then she crouched forward, elbows on knees,
+and relapsed into silence. None of us dared speak or move. We sat thus
+for half an hour. Then Peg jumped up and said briskly in her usual tone,
+
+"Well, I guess yez are all sleepy and ready for bed. You girls can sleep
+in my bed over there, and I'll take the sofy. Yez can put the cat off if
+yez like, though he won't hurt yez. You boys can go downstairs. There's
+a big pile of straw there that'll do yez for a bed, if yez put your
+coats on. I'll light yez down, but I ain't going to leave yez a light
+for fear yez'd set fire to the place."
+
+Saying good-night to the girls, who looked as if they thought their last
+hour was come, we went to the lower room. It was quite empty, save for a
+pile of fire wood and another of clean straw. Casting a stealthy glance
+around, ere Peg withdrew the light, I was relieved to see that there
+were no skulls in sight. We four boys snuggled down in the straw. We did
+not expect to sleep, but we were very tired and before we knew it our
+eyes were shut, to open no more till morning. The poor girls were not
+so fortunate. They always averred they never closed an eye. Four things
+prevented them from sleeping. In the first place Peg snored loudly; in
+the second place the fitful gleams of firelight kept flickering over the
+skull for half the night and making gruesome effects on it; in the third
+place Peg's pillows and bedclothes smelled rankly of tobacco smoke; and
+in the fourth place they were afraid the rat Peg had spoken of might
+come out to make their acquaintance. Indeed, they were sure they heard
+him skirmishing about several times.
+
+When we wakened in the morning the storm was over and a young morning
+was looking through rosy eyelids across a white world. The little
+clearing around Peg's cabin was heaped with dazzling drifts, and we
+boys fell to and shovelled out a road to her well. She gave us
+breakfast--stiff oatmeal porridge without milk, and a boiled egg apiece.
+Cecily could NOT eat her porridge; she declared she had such a bad
+cold that she had no appetite; a cold she certainly had; the rest of us
+choked our messes down and after we had done so Peg asked us if we had
+noticed a soapy taste.
+
+"The soap fell into the porridge while I was making it," she said.
+"But,"--smacking her lips,--"I'm going to make yez an Irish stew for
+dinner. It'll be fine."
+
+An Irish stew concocted by Peg! No wonder Dan said hastily,
+
+"You are very kind but we'll have to go right home."
+
+"Yez can't walk," said Peg.
+
+"Oh, yes, we can. The drifts are so hard they'll carry, and the snow
+will be pretty well blown off the middle of the fields. It's only
+three-quarters of a mile. We boys will go home and get a pung and come
+back for you girls."
+
+But the girls wouldn't listen to this. They must go with us, even
+Cecily.
+
+"Seems to me yez weren't in such a hurry to leave last night," observed
+Peg sarcastically.
+
+"Oh, it's only because they'll be so anxious about us at home, and it's
+Sunday and we don't want to miss Sunday School," explained Felicity.
+
+"Well, I hope your Sunday School will do yez good," said Peg, rather
+grumpily. But she relented again at the last and gave Cecily a wishbone.
+
+"Whatever you wish on that will come true," she said. "But you only have
+the one wish, so don't waste it."
+
+"We're so much obliged to you for all your trouble," said the Story Girl
+politely.
+
+"Never mind the trouble. The expense is the thing," retorted Peg grimly.
+
+"Oh!" Felicity hesitated. "If you would let us pay you--give you
+something--"
+
+"No, thank yez," responded Peg loftily. "There is people who take money
+for their hospitality, I've heerd, but I'm thankful to say I don't
+associate with that class. Yez are welcome to all yez have had here, if
+yez ARE in a big hurry to get away."
+
+She shut the door behind us with something of a slam, and her black
+cat followed us so far, with stealthy, furtive footsteps, that we were
+frightened of it. Eventually it turned back; then, and not till then,
+did we feel free to discuss our adventure.
+
+"Well, I'm thankful we're out of THAT," said Felicity, drawing a long
+breath. "Hasn't it just been an awful experience?"
+
+"We might all have been found frozen stark and stiff this morning,"
+remarked the Story Girl with apparent relish.
+
+"I tell you, it was a lucky thing we got to Peg Bowen's," said Dan.
+
+"Miss Marwood says there is no such thing as luck," protested Cecily.
+"We ought to say it was Providence instead."
+
+"Well, Peg and Providence don't seem to go together very well, somehow,"
+retorted Dan. "If Peg is a witch it must be the Other One she's in co.
+with."
+
+"Dan, it's getting to be simply scandalous the way you talk," said
+Felicity. "I just wish ma could hear you."
+
+"Is soap in porridge any worse than tooth-powder in rusks, lovely
+creature?" asked Dan.
+
+"Dan, Dan," admonished Cecily, between her coughs, "remember it's
+Sunday."
+
+"It seems hard to remember that," said Peter. "It doesn't seem a mite
+like Sunday and it seems awful long since yesterday."
+
+"Cecily, you've got a dreadful cold," said the Story Girl anxiously.
+
+"In spite of Peg's ginger tea," added Felix.
+
+"Oh, that ginger tea was AWFUL," exclaimed poor Cecily. "I thought I'd
+never get it down--it was so hot with ginger--and there was so much of
+it! But I was so frightened of offending Peg I'd have tried to drink it
+all if there had been a bucketful. Oh, yes, it's very easy for you all
+to laugh! You didn't have to drink it."
+
+"We had to eat two meals, though," said Felicity with a shiver. "And I
+don't know when those dishes of hers were washed. I just shut my eyes
+and took gulps."
+
+"Did you notice the soapy taste in the porridge?" asked the Story Girl.
+
+"Oh, there were so many queer tastes about it I didn't notice one more
+than another," answered Felicity wearily.
+
+"What bothers me," remarked Peter absently, "is that skull. Do you
+suppose Peg really finds things out by it?"
+
+"Nonsense! How could she?" scoffed Felix, bold as a lion in daylight.
+
+"She didn't SAY she did, you know," I said cautiously.
+
+"Well, we'll know in time if the things she said were going to happen
+do," mused Peter.
+
+"Do you suppose your father is really coming home?" queried Felicity.
+
+"I hope not," answered Peter decidedly.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Felicity severely.
+
+"No, I oughtn't. Father got drunk all the time he was home, and wouldn't
+work and was bad to mother," said Peter defiantly. "She had to support
+him as well as herself and me. I don't want to see any father coming
+home, and you'd better believe it. Of course, if he was the right sort
+of a father it'd be different."
+
+"What I would like to know is if Aunt Olivia is going to be married,"
+said the Story Girl absently. "I can hardly believe it. But now that
+I think of it--Uncle Roger has been teasing her ever since she was in
+Halifax last summer."
+
+"If she does get married you'll have to come and live with us," said
+Cecily delightedly.
+
+Felicity did not betray so much delight and the Story Girl remarked with
+a weary little sigh that she hoped Aunt Olivia wouldn't. We all felt
+rather weary, somehow. Peg's predictions had been unsettling, and our
+nerves had all been more or less strained during our sojourn under her
+roof. We were glad when we found ourselves at home.
+
+The folks had not been at all troubled about us, but it was because they
+were sure the storm had come up before we would think of leaving Cousin
+Mattie's and not because they had received any mysterious message from
+Peg's skull. We were relieved at this, but on the whole, our adventure
+had not done much towards clearing up the vexed question of Peg's
+witchcraft.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. EXTRACTS FROM THE FEBRUARY AND MARCH NUMBERS OF "OUR
+MAGAZINE"
+
+
+RESOLUTION HONOUR ROLL
+
+Miss Felicity King.
+
+
+HONOURABLE MENTION
+
+Mr. Felix King. Mr. Peter Craig. Miss Sara Ray.
+
+
+EDITORIAL
+
+The editor wishes to make a few remarks about the Resolution Honour
+Roll. As will be seen, only one name figures on it. Felicity says she
+has thought a beautiful thought every morning before breakfast without
+missing one morning, not even the one we were at Peg Bowen's. Some of
+our number think it not fair that Felicity should be on the honour
+roll (FELICITY, ASIDE: "That's Dan, of course.") when she only made one
+resolution and won't tell us what any of the thoughts were. So we
+have decided to give honourable mention to everybody who has kept one
+resolution perfect. Felix has worked all his arithmetic problems by
+himself. He complains that he never got more than a third of them
+right and the teacher has marked him away down; but one cannot keep
+resolutions without some inconvenience. Peter has never played tit-tat-x
+in church or got drunk and says it wasn't as bad as he expected. (PETER,
+INDIGNANTLY: "I never said it." CECILY, SOOTHINGLY: "Now, Peter, Bev
+only meant that as a joke.") Sara Ray has never talked any mean gossip,
+but does not find conversation as interesting as it used to be. (SARA
+RAY, WONDERINGLY: "I don't remember of saying that.")
+
+Felix did not eat any apples until March, but forgot and ate seven the
+day we were at Cousin Mattie's. (FELIX: "I only ate five!") He soon gave
+up trying to say what he thought always. He got into too much trouble.
+We think Felix ought to change to old Grandfather King's rule. It was,
+"Hold your tongue when you can, and when you can't tell the truth."
+Cecily feels she has not read all the good books she might, because some
+she tried to read were very dull and the Pansy books were so much more
+interesting. And it is no use trying not to feel bad because her hair
+isn't curly and she has marked that resolution out. The Story Girl came
+very near to keeping her resolution to have all the good times possible,
+but she says she missed two, if not three, she might have had. Dan
+refuses to say anything about his resolutions and so does the editor.
+
+
+PERSONALS
+
+We regret that Miss Cecily King is suffering from a severe cold.
+
+Mr. Alexander Marr of Markdale died very suddenly last week. We never
+heard of his death till he was dead.
+
+Miss Cecily King wishes to state that she did not ask the question about
+"Holy Moses" and the other word in the January number. Dan put it in for
+a mean joke.
+
+The weather has been cold and fine. We have only had one bad storm. The
+coasting on Uncle Roger's hill continues good.
+
+Aunt Eliza did not favour us with a visit after all. She took cold and
+had to go home. We were sorry that she had a cold but glad that she had
+to go home. Cecily said she thought it wicked of us to be glad. But when
+we asked her "cross her heart" if she wasn't glad herself she had to say
+she was.
+
+Miss Cecily King has got three very distinguished names on her quilt
+square. They are the Governor and his wife and a witch's.
+
+The King family had the honour of entertaining the Governor's wife to
+tea on February the seventeenth. We are all invited to visit Government
+House but some of us think we won't go.
+
+A tragic event occurred last Tuesday. Mrs. James Frewen came to tea and
+there was no pie in the house. Felicity has not yet fully recovered.
+
+A new boy is coming to school. His name is Cyrus Brisk and his folks
+moved up from Markdale. He says he is going to punch Willy Fraser's head
+if Willy keeps on thinking he is Miss Cecily King's beau.
+
+(CECILY: "I haven't ANY beau! I don't mean to think of such a thing for
+at least eight years yet!")
+
+Miss Alice Reade of Charlottetown Royalty has come to Carlisle to teach
+music. She boards at Mr. Peter Armstrong's. The girls are all going to
+take music lessons from her. Two descriptions of her will be found in
+another column. Felix wrote one, but the girls thought he did not do her
+justice, so Cecily wrote another one. She admits she copied most of the
+description out of Valeria H. Montague's story Lord Marmaduke's First,
+Last, and Only Love; or the Bride of the Castle by the Sea, but says
+they fit Miss Reade better than anything she could make up.
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENT
+
+Always keep the kitchen tidy and then you needn't mind if company comes
+unexpectedly.
+
+ANXIOUS INQUIRER: We don't know anything that will take the stain out
+of a silk dress when a soft-boiled egg is dropped on it. Better not wear
+your silk dress so often, especially when boiling eggs.
+
+Ginger tea is good for colds.
+
+OLD HOUSEKEEPER: Yes, when the baking-powder gives out you can use
+tooth-powder instead.
+
+(FELICITY: "I never wrote that! I don't care, I don't think it's fair
+for other people to be putting things in my department!")
+
+Our apples are not keeping well this year. They are rotting; and besides
+father says we eat an awful lot of them.
+
+PERSEVERANCE: I will give you the recipe for dumplings you ask for.
+But remember it is not everyone who can make dumplings, even from the
+recipe. There's a knack in it.
+
+If the soap falls into the porridge do not tell your guests about it
+until they have finished eating it because it might take away their
+appetite.
+
+                              FELICITY KING.
+
+
+ETIQUETTE DEPARTMENT
+
+P-r C-g:--Do not criticize people's noses unless you are sure they can't
+hear you, and don't criticize your best girl's great-aunt's nose in any
+case.
+
+(FELICITY, TOSSING HER HEAD: "Oh, my! I s'pose Dan thought that was
+extra smart.")
+
+C-y K-g:--When my most intimate friend walks with another girl and
+exchanges lace patterns with her, what ought I to do? Ans. Adopt a
+dignified attitude.
+
+F-y K-g:--It is better not to wear your second best hat to church, but
+if your mother says you must it is not for me to question her decision.
+
+(FELICITY: "Dan just copied that word for word out of the Family Guide,
+except about the hat part.")
+
+P-r C-g:--Yes, it would be quite proper to say good evening to the
+family ghost if you met it.
+
+F-x K-g:--No, it is not polite to sleep with your mouth open. What's
+more, it isn't safe. Something might fall into it.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+FASHION NOTES
+
+Crocheted watch pockets are all the rage now. If you haven't a watch
+they do to carry your pencil in or a piece of gum.
+
+It is stylish to have hair ribbons to match your dress. But it is hard
+to match gray drugget. I like scarlet for that.
+
+It is stylish to pin a piece of ribbon on your coat the same colour as
+your chum wears in her hair. Mary Martha Cowan saw them doing it in town
+and started us doing it here. I always wear Kitty's ribbon and Kitty
+wears mine, but the Story Girl thinks it is silly.
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+AN ACCOUNT OF OUR VISIT TO COUSIN MATTIE'S
+
+We all walked over to Cousin Mattie's last week. They were all well
+there and we had a fine dinner. On our way back a snow-storm came up and
+we got lost in the woods. We didn't know where we were or nothing. If we
+hadn't seen a light I guess we'd all have been frozen and snowed over,
+and they would never have found us till spring and that would be very
+sad. But we saw a light and made for it and it was Peg Bowen's. Some
+people think she is a witch and it's hard to tell, but she was real
+hospitable and took us all in. Her house was very untidy but it was
+warm. She has a skull. I mean a loose skull, not her own. She lets on it
+tells her things, but Uncle Alec says it couldn't because it was only an
+Indian skull that old Dr. Beecham had and Peg stole it when he died,
+but Uncle Roger says he wouldn't trust himself with Peg's skull for
+anything. She gave us supper. It was a horrid meal. The Story Girl says
+I must not tell what I found in the bread and butter because it would
+be too disgusting to read in Our Magazine but it don't matter because
+we were all there, except Sara Ray, and know what it was. We stayed all
+night and us boys slept in straw. None of us had ever slept on straw
+before. We got home in the morning. That is all I can write about our
+visit to Cousin Mattie's.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+MY WORST ADVENTURE
+
+It's my turn to write it so I suppose I must. I guess my worst adventure
+was two years ago when a whole lot of us were coasting on Uncle Rogers
+hill. Charlie Cowan and Fred Marr had started, but half-way down their
+sled got stuck and I run down to shove them off again. Then I stood
+there just a moment to watch them with my back to the top of the hill.
+While I was standing there Rob Marr started Kitty and Em Frewen off on
+his sled. His sled had a wooden tongue in it and it slanted back over
+the girls' heads. I was right in the way and they yelled to me to get
+out, but just as I heard them it struck me. The sled took me between the
+legs and I was histed back over the tongue and dropped in a heap behind
+before I knew what had happened to me. I thought a tornado had struck
+me. The girls couldn't stop though they thought I was killed, but Rob
+came tearing down and helped me up. He was awful scared but I wasn't
+killed nor my back wasn't broken but my nose bled something awful and
+kept on bleeding for three days. Not all the time but by spells.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+THE STORY OF HOW CARLISLE GOT ITS NAME
+
+This is a true story to. Long ago there was a girl lived in charlotte
+town. I dont know her name so I cant right it and maybe it is just as
+well for Felicity might think it wasnt romantik like Miss Jemima Parrs.
+She was awful pretty and a young englishman who had come out to make his
+fortune fell in love with her and they were engaged to be married the
+next spring. His name was Mr. Carlisle. In the winter he started off to
+hunt cariboo for a spell. Cariboos lived on the island then. There aint
+any here now. He got to where it is Carlisle now. It wasn't anything
+then only woods and a few indians. He got awful sick and was sick for
+ever so long in a indian camp and only an old micmac squaw to wait on
+him. Back in town they all thought he was dead and his girl felt bad for
+a little while and then got over it and took up with another beau. The
+girls say that wasnt romantik but I think it was sensible but if it had
+been me that died I'd have felt bad if she forgot me so soon. But he
+hadnt died and when he got back to town he went right to her house
+and walked in and there she was standing up to be married to the other
+fellow. Poor Mr. Carlisle felt awful. He was sick and week and it went
+to his head. He just turned and run and run till he got back to the old
+micmac's camp and fell in front of it. But the indians had gone because
+it was spring and it didnt matter because he really was dead this time
+and people come looking for him from town and found him and buryed him
+there and called the place after him. They say the girl was never happy
+again and that was hard lines on her but maybe she deserved it.
+
+                                       PETER CRAIG.
+
+
+MISS ALICE READE
+
+Miss Alice Reade is a very pretty girl. She has kind of curly blackish
+hair and big gray eyes and a pale face. She is tall and thin but her
+figure is pretty fair and she has a nice mouth and a sweet way of
+speaking. The girls are crazy about her and talk about her all the time.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+BEAUTIFUL ALICE
+
+That is what we girls call Miss Reade among ourselves. She is divinely
+beautiful. Her magnificent wealth of raven hair flows back in glistening
+waves from her sun-kissed brow. (DAN: "If Felix had said she was
+sunburned you'd have all jumped on him." (CECILY, COLDLY: "Sun-kissed
+doesn't mean sunburned." DAN: "What does it mean then?" CECILY,
+EMBARRASSED: "I--I don't know. But Miss Montague says the Lady
+Geraldine's brow was sun-kissed and of course an earl's daughter
+wouldn't be sunburned. "THE STORY GIRL: "Oh, don't interrupt the reading
+like this. It spoils it.") Her eyes are gloriously dark and deep, like
+midnight lakes mirroring the stars of heaven. Her features are like
+sculptured marble and her mouth is a trembling, curving Cupid's bow.
+(PETER, ASIDE: "What kind of a thing is that?") Her creamy skin is as
+fair and flawless as the petals of a white lily. Her voice is like the
+ripple of a woodland brook and her slender form is matchless in its
+symmetry. (DAN: "That's Valeria's way of putting it, but Uncle Roger
+says she don't show her feed much." FELICITY: "Dan! if Uncle Roger is
+vulgar you needn't be!") Her hands are like a poet's dreams. She dresses
+so nicely and looks so stylish in her clothes. Her favourite colour is
+blue. Some people think she is stiff and some say she is stuck-up, but
+she isn't a bit. It's just that she is different from them and they
+don't like it. She is just lovely and we adore her.)
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. DISAPPEARANCE OF PADDY
+
+
+As I remember, the spring came late that year in Carlisle. It was May
+before the weather began to satisfy the grown-ups. But we children were
+more easily pleased, and we thought April a splendid month because the
+snow all went early and left gray, firm, frozen ground for our rambles
+and games. As the days slipped by they grew more gracious; the hillsides
+began to look as if they were thinking of mayflowers; the old orchard
+was washed in a bath of tingling sunshine and the sap stirred in the
+big trees; by day the sky was veiled with delicate cloud drift, fine and
+filmy as woven mist; in the evenings a full, low moon looked over the
+valleys, as pallid and holy as some aureoled saint; a sound of laughter
+and dream was on the wind and the world grew young with the mirth of
+April breezes.
+
+"It's so nice to be alive in the spring," said the Story Girl one
+twilight as we swung on the boughs of Uncle Stephen's walk.
+
+"It's nice to be alive any time," said Felicity, complacently.
+
+"But it's nicer in the spring," insisted the Story Girl. "When I'm dead
+I think I'll FEEL dead all the rest of the year, but when spring comes
+I'm sure I'll feel like getting up and being alive again."
+
+"You do say such queer things," complained Felicity. "You won't be
+really dead any time. You'll be in the next world. And I think it's
+horrid to talk about people being dead anyhow."
+
+"We've all got to die," said Sara Ray solemnly, but with a certain
+relish. It was as if she enjoyed looking forward to something in which
+nothing, neither an unsympathetic mother, nor the cruel fate which had
+made her a colourless little nonentity, could prevent her from being the
+chief performer.
+
+"I sometimes think," said Cecily, rather wearily, "that it isn't so
+dreadful to die young as I used to suppose."
+
+She prefaced her remark with a slight cough, as she had been all too apt
+to do of late, for the remnants of the cold she had caught the night we
+were lost in the storm still clung to her.
+
+"Don't talk such nonsense, Cecily," cried the Story Girl with unwonted
+sharpness, a sharpness we all understood. All of us, in our hearts,
+though we never spoke of it to each other, thought Cecily was not as
+well as she ought to be that spring, and we hated to hear anything said
+which seemed in any way to touch or acknowledge the tiny, faint shadow
+which now and again showed itself dimly athwart our sunshine.
+
+"Well, it was you began talking of being dead," said Felicity angrily.
+"I don't think it's right to talk of such things. Cecily, are you sure
+your feet ain't damp? We ought to go in anyhow--it's too chilly out here
+for you."
+
+"You girls had better go," said Dan, "but I ain't going in till old
+Isaac Frewen goes. I've no use for him."
+
+"I hate him, too," said Felicity, agreeing with Dan for once in her
+life. "He chews tobacco all the time and spits on the floor--the horrid
+pig!"
+
+"And yet his brother is an elder in the church," said Sara Ray
+wonderingly.
+
+"I know a story about Isaac Frewen," said the Story Girl. "When he was
+young he went by the name of Oatmeal Frewen and he got it this way. He
+was noted for doing outlandish things. He lived at Markdale then and he
+was a great, overgrown, awkward fellow, six feet tall. He drove over to
+Baywater one Saturday to visit his uncle there and came home the next
+afternoon, and although it was Sunday he brought a big bag of oatmeal in
+the wagon with him. When he came to Carlisle church he saw that service
+was going on there, and he concluded to stop and go in. But he didn't
+like to leave his oatmeal outside for fear something would happen to it,
+because there were always mischievous boys around, so he hoisted the bag
+on his back and walked into church with it and right to the top of the
+aisle to Grandfather King's pew. Grandfather King used to say he
+would never forget it to his dying day. The minister was preaching and
+everything was quiet and solemn when he heard a snicker behind him.
+Grandfather King turned around with a terrible frown--for you know in
+those days it was thought a dreadful thing to laugh in church--to rebuke
+the offender; and what did he see but that great, hulking young Isaac
+stalking up the aisle, bending a little forward under the weight of a
+big bag of oatmeal? Grandfather King was so amazed he couldn't laugh,
+but almost everyone else in the church was laughing, and grandfather
+said he never blamed them, for no funnier sight was ever seen. Young
+Isaac turned into grandfather's pew and thumped the bag of oatmeal down
+on the seat with a thud that cracked it. Then he plumped down beside
+it, took off his hat, wiped his face, and settled back to listen to the
+sermon, just as if it was all a matter of course. When the service was
+over he hoisted his bag up again, marched out of church, and drove home.
+He could never understand why it made so much talk; but he was known by
+the name of Oatmeal Frewen for years."
+
+Our laughter, as we separated, rang sweetly through the old orchard and
+across the far, dim meadows. Felicity and Cecily went into the house
+and Sara Ray and the Story Girl went home, but Peter decoyed me into the
+granary to ask advice.
+
+"You know Felicity has a birthday next week," he said, "and I want to
+write her an ode."
+
+"A--a what?" I gasped.
+
+"An ode," repeated Peter, gravely. "It's poetry, you know. I'll put it
+in Our Magazine."
+
+"But you can't write poetry, Peter," I protested.
+
+"I'm going to try," said Peter stoutly. "That is, if you think she won't
+be offended at me."
+
+"She ought to feel flattered," I replied.
+
+"You never can tell how she'll take things," said Peter gloomily. "Of
+course I ain't going to sign my name, and if she ain't pleased I won't
+tell her I wrote it. Don't you let on."
+
+I promised I wouldn't and Peter went off with a light heart. He said he
+meant to write two lines every day till he got it done.
+
+Cupid was playing his world-old tricks with others than poor Peter that
+spring. Allusion has been made in these chronicles to one, Cyrus Brisk,
+and to the fact that our brown-haired, soft-voiced Cecily had found
+favour in the eyes of the said Cyrus. Cecily did not regard her conquest
+with any pride. On the contrary, it annoyed her terribly to be teased
+about Cyrus. She declared she hated both him and his name. She was as
+uncivil to him as sweet Cecily could be to anyone, but the gallant Cyrus
+was nothing daunted. He laid determined siege to Cecily's young heart by
+all the methods known to love-lorn swains. He placed delicate tributes
+of spruce gum, molasses taffy, "conversation" candies and decorated
+slate pencils on her desk; he persistently "chose" her in all school
+games calling for a partner; he entreated to be allowed to carry her
+basket from school; he offered to work her sums for her; and rumour had
+it that he had made a wild statement to the effect that he meant to
+ask if he might see her home some night from prayer meeting. Cecily was
+quite frightened that he would; she confided to me that she would rather
+die than walk home with him, but that if he asked her she would be too
+bashful to say no. So far, however, Cyrus had not molested her out of
+school, nor had he as yet thumped Willy Fraser--who was reported to be
+very low in his spirits over the whole affair.
+
+And now Cyrus had written Cecily a letter--a love letter, mark you.
+Moreover, he had sent it through the post-office, with a real stamp
+on it. Its arrival made a sensation among us. Dan brought it from the
+office and, recognizing the handwriting of Cyrus, gave Cecily no peace
+until she showed us the letter. It was a very sentimental and rather
+ill-spelled epistle in which the inflammable Cyrus reproached her in
+heart-rending words for her coldness, and begged her to answer his
+letter, saying that if she did he would keep the secret "in violets."
+Cyrus probably meant "inviolate" but Cecily thought it was intended for
+a poetical touch. He signed himself "your troo lover, Cyrus Brisk" and
+added in a postcript that he couldn't eat or sleep for thinking of her.
+
+"Are you going to answer it?" asked Dan.
+
+"Certainly not," said Cecily with dignity.
+
+"Cyrus Brisk wants to be kicked," growled Felix, who never seemed to be
+any particular friend of Willy Fraser's either. "He'd better learn how
+to spell before he takes to writing love letters."
+
+"Maybe Cyrus will starve to death if you don't," suggested Sara Ray.
+
+"I hope he will," said Cecily cruelly. She was truly vexed over the
+letter; and yet, so contradictory a thing is the feminine heart, even at
+twelve years old, I think she was a little flattered by it also. It was
+her first love letter and she confided to me that it gives you a very
+queer feeling to get it. At all events--the letter, though unanswered,
+was not torn up. I feel sure Cecily preserved it. But she walked past
+Cyrus next morning at school with a frozen countenance, evincing not the
+slightest pity for his pangs of unrequited affection. Cecily winced when
+Pat caught a mouse, visited a school chum the day the pigs were killed
+that she might not hear their squealing, and would not have stepped on a
+caterpillar for anything; yet she did not care at all how much she made
+the brisk Cyrus suffer.
+
+Then, suddenly, all our spring gladness and Maytime hopes were blighted
+as by a killing frost. Sorrow and anxiety pervaded our days and
+embittered our dreams by night. Grim tragedy held sway in our lives for
+the next fortnight.
+
+Paddy disappeared. One night he lapped his new milk as usual at Uncle
+Roger's dairy door and then sat blandly on the flat stone before it,
+giving the world assurance of a cat, sleek sides glistening, plumy tail
+gracefully folded around his paws, brilliant eyes watching the stir and
+flicker of bare willow boughs in the twilight air above him. That was
+the last seen of him. In the morning he was not.
+
+At first we were not seriously alarmed. Paddy was no roving Thomas,
+but occasionally he vanished for a day or so. But when two days passed
+without his return we became anxious, the third day worried us greatly,
+and the fourth found us distracted.
+
+"Something has happened to Pat," the Story Girl declared miserably. "He
+never stayed away from home more than two days in his life."
+
+"What could have happened to him?" asked Felix.
+
+"He's been poisoned--or a dog has killed him," answered the Story Girl
+in tragic tones.
+
+Cecily began to cry at this; but tears were of no avail. Neither was
+anything else, apparently. We searched every nook and cranny of barns
+and out-buildings and woods on both the King farms; we inquired far and
+wide; we roved over Carlisle meadows calling Paddy's name, until Aunt
+Janet grew exasperated and declared we must stop making such exhibitions
+of ourselves. But we found and heard no trace of our lost pet. The Story
+Girl moped and refused to be comforted; Cecily declared she could not
+sleep at night for thinking of poor Paddy dying miserably in some corner
+to which he had dragged his failing body, or lying somewhere mangled and
+torn by a dog. We hated every dog we saw on the ground that he might be
+the guilty one.
+
+"It's the suspense that's so hard," sobbed the Story Girl. "If I just
+knew what had happened to him it wouldn't be QUITE so hard. But I don't
+know whether he's dead or alive. He may be living and suffering, and
+every night I dream that he has come home and when I wake up and find
+it's only a dream it just breaks my heart."
+
+"It's ever so much worse than when he was so sick last fall," said
+Cecily drearily. "Then we knew that everything was done for him that
+could be done."
+
+We could not appeal to Peg Bowen this time. In our desperation we would
+have done it, but Peg was far away. With the first breath of spring she
+was up and off, answering to the lure of the long road. She had not
+been seen in her accustomed haunts for many a day. Her pets were gaining
+their own living in the woods and her house was locked up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE WITCH'S WISHBONE
+
+
+When a fortnight had elapsed we gave up all hope.
+
+"Pat is dead," said the Story Girl hopelessly, as we returned one
+evening from a bootless quest to Andrew Cowan's where a strange gray
+cat had been reported--a cat which turned out to be a yellowish brown
+nondescript, with no tail to speak of.
+
+"I'm afraid so," I acknowledged at last.
+
+"If only Peg Bowen had been at home she could have found him for us,"
+asserted Peter. "Her skull would have told her where he was."
+
+"I wonder if the wishbone she gave me would have done any good," cried
+Cecily suddenly. "I'd forgotten all about it. Oh, do you suppose it's
+too late yet?"
+
+"There's nothing in a wishbone," said Dan impatiently.
+
+"You can't be sure. She TOLD me I'd get the wish I made on it. I'm going
+to try whenever I get home."
+
+"It can't do any harm, anyhow," said Peter, "but I'm afraid you've left
+it too late. If Pat is dead even a witch's wishbone can't bring him back
+to life."
+
+"I'll never forgive myself for not thinking about it before," mourned
+Cecily.
+
+As soon as we got home she flew to the little box upstairs where she
+kept her treasures, and brought therefrom the dry and brittle wishbone.
+
+"Peg told me how it must be done. I'm to hold the wishbone with both
+hands, like this, and walk backward, repeating the wish nine times. And
+when I've finished the ninth time I'm to turn around nine times, from
+right to left, and then the wish will come true right away."
+
+"Do you expect to see Pat when you finish turning?" said Dan
+skeptically.
+
+None of us had any faith in the incantation except Peter, and, by
+infection, Cecily. You never could tell what might happen. Cecily
+took the wishbone in her trembling little hands and began her backward
+pacing, repeating solemnly, "I wish that we may find Paddy alive, or
+else his body, so that we can bury him decently." By the time Cecily
+had repeated this nine times we were all slightly infected with the
+desperate hope that something might come of it; and when she had
+made her nine gyrations we looked eagerly down the sunset lane, half
+expecting to see our lost pet. But we saw only the Awkward Man turning
+in at the gate. This was almost as surprising as the sight of Pat
+himself would have been; but there was no sign of Pat and hope flickered
+out in every breast but Peter's.
+
+"You've got to give the spell time to work," he expostulated. "If Pat
+was miles away when it was wished it wouldn't be reasonable to expect to
+see him right off."
+
+But we of little faith had already lost that little, and it was a very
+disconsolate group which the Awkward Man presently joined.
+
+He was smiling--his rare, beautiful smile which only children ever
+saw--and he lifted his hat to the girls with no trace of the shyness and
+awkwardness for which he was notorious.
+
+"Good evening," he said. "Have you little people lost a cat lately?"
+
+We stared. Peter said "I knew it!" in a triumphant pig's whisper. The
+Story Girl started eagerly forward.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Dale, can you tell us anything of Paddy?" she cried.
+
+"A silver gray cat with black points and very fine marking?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"Alive?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, doesn't that beat the Dutch!" muttered Dan.
+
+But we were all crowding about the Awkward Man, demanding where and when
+he had found Paddy.
+
+"You'd better come over to my place and make sure that it really is your
+cat," suggested the Awkward Man, "and I'll tell you all about finding
+him on the way. I must warn you that he is pretty thin--but I think
+he'll pull through."
+
+We obtained permission to go without much difficulty, although the
+spring evening was wearing late, for Aunt Janet said she supposed none
+of us would sleep a wink that night if we didn't. A joyful procession
+followed the Awkward Man and the Story Girl across the gray, star-litten
+meadows to his home and through his pine-guarded gate.
+
+"You know that old barn of mine back in the woods?" said the Awkward
+Man. "I go to it only about once in a blue moon. There was an old barrel
+there, upside down, one side resting on a block of wood. This morning
+I went to the barn to see about having some hay hauled home, and I had
+occasion to move the barrel. I noticed that it seemed to have been
+moved slightly since my last visit, and it was now resting wholly on the
+floor. I lifted it up--and there was a cat lying on the floor under it.
+I had heard you had lost yours and I took it this was your pet. I was
+afraid he was dead at first. He was lying there with his eyes closed;
+but when I bent over him he opened them and gave a pitiful little mew;
+or rather his mouth made the motion of a mew, for he was too weak to
+utter a sound."
+
+"Oh, poor, poor Paddy," said tender-hearted Cecily tearfully.
+
+"He couldn't stand, so I carried him home and gave him just a little
+milk. Fortunately he was able to lap it. I gave him a little more at
+intervals all day, and when I left he was able to crawl around. I think
+he'll be all right, but you'll have to be careful how you feed him for a
+few days. Don't let your hearts run away with your judgment and kill him
+with kindness."
+
+"Do you suppose any one put him under that barrel?" asked the Story
+Girl.
+
+"No. The barn was locked. Nothing but a cat could get in. I suppose
+he went under the barrel, perhaps in pursuit of a mouse, and somehow
+knocked it off the block and so imprisoned himself."
+
+Paddy was sitting before the fire in the Awkward Man's clean, bare
+kitchen. Thin! Why, he was literally skin and bone, and his fur was dull
+and lustreless. It almost broke our hearts to see our beautiful Paddy
+brought so low.
+
+"Oh, how he must have suffered!" moaned Cecily.
+
+"He'll be as prosperous as ever in a week or two," said the Awkward Man
+kindly.
+
+The Story Girl gathered Paddy up in her arms. Most mellifluously did he
+purr as we crowded around to stroke him; with friendly joy he licked our
+hands with his little red tongue; poor Paddy was a thankful cat; he was
+no longer lost, starving, imprisoned, helpless; he was with his comrades
+once more and he was going home--home to his old familiar haunts of
+orchard and dairy and granary, to his daily rations of new milk and
+cream, to the cosy corner of his own fireside. We trooped home joyfully,
+the Story Girl in our midst carrying Paddy hugged against her shoulder.
+Never did April stars look down on a happier band of travellers on the
+golden road. There was a little gray wind out in the meadows that
+night, and it danced along beside us on viewless, fairy feet, and sang
+a delicate song of the lovely, waiting years, while the night laid her
+beautiful hands of blessing over the world.
+
+"You see what Peg's wishbone did," said Peter triumphantly.
+
+"Now, look here, Peter, don't talk nonsense," expostulated Dan. "The
+Awkward Man found Paddy this morning and had started to bring us word
+before Cecily ever thought of the wishbone. Do you mean to say you
+believe he wouldn't have come walking up our lane just when he did if
+she had never thought of it?"
+
+"I mean to say that I wouldn't mind if I had several wishbones of the
+same kind," retorted Peter stubbornly.
+
+"Of course I don't think the wishbone had really anything to do with
+our getting Paddy back, but I'm glad I tried it, for all that," remarked
+Cecily in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+"Well, anyhow, we've got Pat and that's the main thing," said Felix.
+
+"And I hope it will be a lesson to him to stay home after this,"
+commented Felicity.
+
+"They say the barrens are full of mayflowers," said the Story Girl. "Let
+us have a mayflower picnic tomorrow to celebrate Paddy's safe return."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. FLOWERS O' MAY
+
+
+Accordingly we went a-maying, following the lure of dancing winds to a
+certain westward sloping hill lying under the spirit-like blue of spring
+skies, feathered over with lisping young pines and firs, which cupped
+little hollows and corners where the sunshine got in and never got out
+again, but stayed there and grew mellow, coaxing dear things to bloom
+long before they would dream of waking up elsewhere.
+
+'Twas there we found our mayflowers, after faithful seeking. Mayflowers,
+you must know, never flaunt themselves; they must be sought as
+becomes them, and then they will yield up their treasures to the
+seeker--clusters of star-white and dawn-pink that have in them the very
+soul of all the springs that ever were, re-incarnated in something it
+seems gross to call perfume, so exquisite and spiritual is it.
+
+We wandered gaily over the hill, calling to each other with laughter
+and jest, getting parted and delightfully lost in that little pathless
+wilderness, and finding each other unexpectedly in nooks and dips and
+sunny silences, where the wind purred and gentled and went softly. When
+the sun began to hang low, sending great fan-like streamers of radiance
+up to the zenith, we foregathered in a tiny, sequestered valley, full
+of young green fern, lying in the shadow of a wooded hill. In it was a
+shallow pool--a glimmering green sheet of water on whose banks nymphs
+might dance as blithely as ever they did on Argive hill or in Cretan
+dale. There we sat and stripped the faded leaves and stems from our
+spoil, making up the blossoms into bouquets to fill our baskets with
+sweetness. The Story Girl twisted a spray of divinest pink in her brown
+curls, and told us an old legend of a beautiful Indian maiden who died
+of a broken heart when the first snows of winter were falling, because
+she believed her long-absent lover was false. But he came back in the
+spring time from his long captivity; and when he heard that she was dead
+he sought her grave to mourn her, and lo, under the dead leaves of the
+old year he found sweet sprays of a blossom never seen before, and
+knew that it was a message of love and remembrance from his dark-eyed
+sweet-heart.
+
+"Except in stories Indian girls are called squaws," remarked practical
+Dan, tying his mayflowers together in one huge, solid, cabbage-like
+bunch. Not for Dan the bother of filling his basket with the loose
+sprays, mingled with feathery elephant's-ears and trails of creeping
+spruce, as the rest of us, following the Story Girl's example, did. Nor
+would he admit that ours looked any better than his.
+
+"I like things of one kind together. I don't like them mixed," he said.
+
+"You have no taste," said Felicity.
+
+"Except in my mouth, best beloved," responded Dan.
+
+"You do think you are so smart," retorted Felicity, flushing with anger.
+
+"Don't quarrel this lovely day," implored Cecily.
+
+"Nobody's quarrelling, Sis. I ain't a bit mad. It's Felicity. What on
+earth is that at the bottom of your basket, Cecily?"
+
+"It's a History of the Reformation in France," confessed poor Cecily,
+"by a man named D-a-u-b-i-g-n-y. I can't pronounce it. I heard Mr.
+Marwood saying it was a book everyone ought to read, so I began it
+last Sunday. I brought it along today to read when I got tired picking
+flowers. I'd ever so much rather have brought Ester Reid. There's so
+much in the history I can't understand, and it is so dreadful to read of
+people being burned to death. But I felt I OUGHT to read it."
+
+"Do you really think your mind has improved any?" asked Sara Ray
+seriously, wreathing the handle of her basket with creeping spruce.
+
+"No, I'm afraid it hasn't one bit," answered Cecily sadly. "I feel that
+I haven't succeeded very well in keeping my resolutions."
+
+"I've kept mine," said Felicity complacently.
+
+"It's easy to keep just one," retorted Cecily, rather resentfully.
+
+"It's not so easy to think beautiful thoughts," answered Felicity.
+
+"It's the easiest thing in the world," said the Story Girl, tiptoeing to
+the edge of the pool to peep at her own arch reflection, as some nymph
+left over from the golden age might do. "Beautiful thoughts just crowd
+into your mind at times."
+
+"Oh, yes, AT TIMES. But that's different from thinking one REGULARLY at
+a given hour. And mother is always calling up the stairs for me to hurry
+up and get dressed, and it's VERY hard sometimes."
+
+"That's so," conceded the Story Girl. "There ARE times when I can't
+think anything but gray thoughts. Then, other days, I think pink and
+blue and gold and purple and rainbow thoughts all the time."
+
+"The idea! As if thoughts were coloured," giggled Felicity.
+
+"Oh, they are!" cried the Story Girl. "Why, I can always SEE the colour
+of any thought I think. Can't you?"
+
+"I never heard of such a thing," declared Felicity, "and I don't believe
+it. I believe you are just making that up."
+
+"Indeed I'm not. Why, I always supposed everyone thought in colours. It
+must be very tiresome if you don't."
+
+"When you think of me what colour is it?" asked Peter curiously.
+
+"Yellow," answered the Story Girl promptly. "And Cecily is a sweet pink,
+like those mayflowers, and Sara Ray is very pale blue, and Dan is red
+and Felix is yellow, like Peter, and Bev is striped."
+
+"What colour am I?" asked Felicity, amid the laughter at my expense.
+
+"You're--you're like a rainbow," answered the Story Girl rather
+reluctantly. She had to be honest, but she would rather not have
+complimented Felicity. "And you needn't laugh at Bev. His stripes are
+beautiful. It isn't HE that is striped. It's just the THOUGHT of him.
+Peg Bowen is a queer sort of yellowish green and the Awkward Man is
+lilac. Aunt Olivia is pansy-purple mixed with gold, and Uncle Roger is
+navy blue."
+
+"I never heard such nonsense," declared Felicity. The rest of us were
+rather inclined to agree with her for once. We thought the Story Girl
+was making fun of us. But I believe she really had a strange gift of
+thinking in colours. In later years, when we were grown up, she told
+me of it again. She said that everything had colour in her thought; the
+months of the year ran through all the tints of the spectrum, the days
+of the week were arrayed as Solomon in his glory, morning was golden,
+noon orange, evening crystal blue, and night violet. Every idea came to
+her mind robed in its own especial hue. Perhaps that was why her voice
+and words had such a charm, conveying to the listeners' perception such
+fine shadings of meaning and tint and music.
+
+"Well, let's go and have something to eat," suggested Dan. "What colour
+is eating, Sara?"
+
+"Golden brown, just the colour of a molasses cooky," laughed the Story
+Girl.
+
+We sat on the ferny bank of the pool and ate of the generous basket Aunt
+Janet had provided, with appetites sharpened by the keen spring air and
+our wilderness rovings. Felicity had made some very nice sandwiches of
+ham which we all appreciated except Dan, who declared he didn't like
+things minced up and dug out of the basket a chunk of boiled pork which
+he proceeded to saw up with a jack-knife and devour with gusto.
+
+"I told ma to put this in for me. There's some CHEW to it," he said.
+
+"You are not a bit refined," commented Felicity.
+
+"Not a morsel, my love," grinned Dan.
+
+"You make me think of a story I heard Uncle Roger telling about Cousin
+Annetta King," said the Story Girl. "Great-uncle Jeremiah King used to
+live where Uncle Roger lives now, when Grandfather King was alive and
+Uncle Roger was a boy. In those days it was thought rather coarse for a
+young lady to have too hearty an appetite, and she was more admired if
+she was delicate about what she ate. Cousin Annetta set out to be very
+refined indeed. She pretended to have no appetite at all. One afternoon
+she was invited to tea at Grandfather King's when they had some special
+company--people from Charlottetown. Cousin Annetta said she could hardly
+eat anything. 'You know, Uncle Abraham,' she said, in a very affected,
+fine-young-lady voice, 'I really hardly eat enough to keep a bird alive.
+Mother says she wonders how I continue to exist.' And she picked and
+pecked until Grandfather King declared he would like to throw something
+at her. After tea Cousin Annetta went home, and just about dark
+Grandfather King went over to Uncle Jeremiah's on an errand. As he
+passed the open, lighted pantry window he happened to glance in, and
+what do you think he saw? Delicate Cousin Annetta standing at the
+dresser, with a big loaf of bread beside her and a big platterful of
+cold, boiled pork in front of her; and Annetta was hacking off great
+chunks, like Dan there, and gobbling them down as if she was starving.
+Grandfather King couldn't resist the temptation. He stepped up to the
+window and said, 'I'm glad your appetite has come back to you, Annetta.
+Your mother needn't worry about your continuing to exist as long as you
+can tuck away fat, salt pork in that fashion.'
+
+"Cousin Annetta never forgave him, but she never pretended to be
+delicate again."
+
+"The Jews don't believe in eating pork," said Peter.
+
+"I'm glad I'm not a Jew and I guess Cousin Annetta was too," said Dan.
+
+"I like bacon, but I can never look at a pig without wondering if they
+were ever intended to be eaten," remarked Cecily naively.
+
+When we finished our lunch the barrens were already wrapping themselves
+in a dim, blue dusk and falling upon rest in dell and dingle. But out
+in the open there was still much light of a fine emerald-golden sort and
+the robins whistled us home in it. "Horns of Elfland" never sounded more
+sweetly around hoary castle and ruined fane than those vesper calls
+of the robins from the twilight spruce woods and across green pastures
+lying under the pale radiance of a young moon.
+
+When we reached home we found that Miss Reade had been up to the hill
+farm on an errand and was just leaving. The Story Girl went for a walk
+with her and came back with an important expression on her face.
+
+"You look as if you had a story to tell," said Felix.
+
+"One is growing. It isn't a whole story yet," answered the Story Girl
+mysteriously.
+
+"What is it?" asked Cecily.
+
+"I can't tell you till it's fully grown," said the Story Girl. "But
+I'll tell you a pretty little story the Awkward Man told us--told
+me--tonight. He was walking in his garden as we went by, looking at his
+tulip beds. His tulips are up ever so much higher than ours, and I asked
+him how he managed to coax them along so early. And he said HE didn't do
+it--it was all the work of the pixies who lived in the woods across
+the brook. There were more pixy babies than usual this spring, and the
+mothers were in a hurry for the cradles. The tulips are the pixy babies'
+cradles, it seems. The mother pixies come out of the woods at twilight
+and rock their tiny little brown babies to sleep in the tulip cups. That
+is the reason why tulip blooms last so much longer than other blossoms.
+The pixy babies must have a cradle until they are grown up. They grow
+very fast, you see, and the Awkward Man says on a spring evening, when
+the tulips are out, you can hear the sweetest, softest, clearest, fairy
+music in his garden, and it is the pixy folk singing as they rock the
+pixy babies to sleep."
+
+"Then the Awkward Man says what isn't true," said Felicity severely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. A SURPRISING ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+
+"Nothing exciting has happened for ever so long," said the Story Girl
+discontentedly, one late May evening, as we lingered under the wonderful
+white bloom of the cherry trees. There was a long row of them in the
+orchard, with a Lombardy poplar at either end, and a hedge of lilacs
+behind. When the wind blew over them all the spicy breezes of Ceylon's
+isle were never sweeter.
+
+It was a time of wonder and marvel, of the soft touch of silver rain on
+greening fields, of the incredible delicacy of young leaves, of blossom
+in field and garden and wood. The whole world bloomed in a flush and
+tremor of maiden loveliness, instinct with all the evasive, fleeting
+charm of spring and girlhood and young morning. We felt and enjoyed it
+all without understanding or analyzing it. It was enough to be glad and
+young with spring on the golden road.
+
+"I don't like excitement very much," said Cecily. "It makes one so
+tired. I'm sure it was exciting enough when Paddy was missing, but we
+didn't find that very pleasant."
+
+"No, but it was interesting," returned the Story Girl thoughtfully.
+"After all, I believe I'd rather be miserable than dull."
+
+"I wouldn't then," said Felicity decidedly. "And you need never be dull
+when you have work to do. 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle
+hands to do!'"
+
+"Well, mischief is interesting," laughed the Story Girl. "And I thought
+you didn't think it lady-like to speak of that person, Felicity?"
+
+"It's all right if you call him by his polite name," said Felicity
+stiffly.
+
+"Why does the Lombardy poplar hold its branches straight up in the
+air like that, when all the other poplars hold theirs out or hang them
+down?" interjected Peter, who had been gazing intently at the slender
+spire showing darkly against the fine blue eastern sky.
+
+"Because it grows that way," said Felicity.
+
+"Oh I know a story about that," cried the Story Girl. "Once upon a time
+an old man found the pot of gold at the rainbow's end. There IS a pot
+there, it is said, but it is very hard to find because you can never get
+to the rainbow's end before it vanishes from your sight. But this old
+man found it, just at sunset, when Iris, the guardian of the rainbow
+gold, happened to be absent. As he was a long way from home, and the pot
+was very big and heavy, he decided to hide it until morning and then get
+one of his sons to go with him and help him carry it. So he hid it under
+the boughs of the sleeping poplar tree.
+
+"When Iris came back she missed the pot of gold and of course she was in
+a sad way about it. She sent Mercury, the messenger of the gods, to
+look for it, for she didn't dare leave the rainbow again, lest somebody
+should run off with that too. Mercury asked all the trees if they had
+seen the pot of gold, and the elm, oak and pine pointed to the poplar
+and said,
+
+"'The poplar can tell you where it is.'
+
+"'How can I tell you where it is?' cried the poplar, and she held up all
+her branches in surprise, just as we hold up our hands--and down tumbled
+the pot of gold. The poplar was amazed and indignant, for she was a very
+honest tree. She stretched her boughs high above her head and declared
+that she would always hold them like that, so that nobody could hide
+stolen gold under them again. And she taught all the little poplars she
+knew to stand the same way, and that is why Lombardy poplars always do.
+But the aspen poplar leaves are always shaking, even on the very calmest
+day. And do you know why?"
+
+And then she told us the old legend that the cross on which the Saviour
+of the world suffered was made of aspen poplar wood and so never again
+could its poor, shaken, shivering leaves know rest or peace. There was
+an aspen in the orchard, the very embodiment of youth and spring in its
+litheness and symmetry. Its little leaves were hanging tremulously, not
+yet so fully blown as to hide its development of bough and twig, making
+poetry against the spiritual tints of a spring sunset.
+
+"It does look sad," said Peter, "but it is a pretty tree, and it wasn't
+its fault."
+
+"There's a heavy dew and it's time we stopped talking nonsense and went
+in," decreed Felicity. "If we don't we'll all have a cold, and then
+we'll be miserable enough, but it won't be very exciting."
+
+"All the same, I wish something exciting would happen," finished the
+Story Girl, as we walked up through the orchard, peopled with its
+nun-like shadows.
+
+"There's a new moon tonight, so may be you'll get your wish," said
+Peter. "My Aunt Jane didn't believe there was anything in the moon
+business, but you never can tell."
+
+The Story Girl did get her wish. Something happened the very next day.
+She joined us in the afternoon with a quite indescribable expression
+on her face, compounded of triumph, anticipation, and regret. Her
+eyes betrayed that she had been crying, but in them shone a chastened
+exultation. Whatever the Story Girl mourned over it was evident she was
+not without hope.
+
+"I have some news to tell you," she said importantly. "Can you guess
+what it is?"
+
+We couldn't and wouldn't try.
+
+"Tell us right off," implored Felix. "You look as if it was something
+tremendous."
+
+"So it is. Listen--Aunt Olivia is going to be married."
+
+We stared in blank amazement. Peg Bowen's hint had faded from our minds
+and we had never put much faith in it.
+
+"Aunt Olivia! I don't believe it," cried Felicity flatly. "Who told
+you?"
+
+"Aunt Olivia herself. So it is perfectly true. I'm awfully sorry in one
+way--but oh, won't it be splendid to have a real wedding in the family?
+She's going to have a big wedding--and I am to be bridesmaid."
+
+"I shouldn't think you were old enough to be a bridesmaid," said
+Felicity sharply.
+
+"I'm nearly fifteen. Anyway, Aunt Olivia says I have to be."
+
+"Who's she going to marry?" asked Cecily, gathering herself together
+after the shock, and finding that the world was going on just the same.
+
+"His name is Dr. Seton and he is a Halifax man. She met him when she
+was at Uncle Edward's last summer. They've been engaged ever since. The
+wedding is to be the third week in June."
+
+"And our school concert comes off the next week," complained Felicity.
+"Why do things always come together like that? And what are you going to
+do if Aunt Olivia is going away?"
+
+"I'm coming to live at your house," answered the Story Girl rather
+timidly. She did not know how Felicity might like that. But Felicity
+took it rather well.
+
+"You've been here most of the time anyhow, so it'll just be that you'll
+sleep and eat here, too. But what's to become of Uncle Roger?"
+
+"Aunt Olivia says he'll have to get married, too. But Uncle Roger says
+he'd rather hire a housekeeper than marry one, because in the first case
+he could turn her off if he didn't like her, but in the second case he
+couldn't."
+
+"There'll be a lot of cooking to do for the wedding," reflected Felicity
+in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+"I s'pose Aunt Olivia will want some rusks made. I hope she has plenty
+of tooth-powder laid in," said Dan.
+
+"It's a pity you don't use some of that tooth-powder you're so fond of
+talking about yourself," retorted Felicity. "When anyone has a mouth the
+size of yours the teeth show so plain."
+
+"I brush my teeth every Sunday," asseverated Dan.
+
+"Every Sunday! You ought to brush them every DAY."
+
+"Did anyone ever hear such nonsense?" demanded Dan sincerely.
+
+"Well, you know, it really does say so in the Family Guide," said Cecily
+quietly.
+
+"Then the Family Guide people must have lots more spare time than I
+have," retorted Dan contemptuously.
+
+"Just think, the Story Girl will have her name in the papers if she's
+bridesmaid," marvelled Sara Ray.
+
+"In the Halifax papers, too," added Felix, "since Dr. Seton is a Halifax
+man. What is his first name?"
+
+"Robert."
+
+"And will we have to call him Uncle Robert?"
+
+"Not until he's married to her. Then we will, of course."
+
+"I hope your Aunt Olivia won't disappear before the ceremony," remarked
+Sara Ray, who was surreptitiously reading "The Vanquished Bride," by
+Valeria H. Montague in the Family Guide.
+
+"I hope Dr. Seton won't fail to show up, like your cousin Rachel Ward's
+beau," said Peter.
+
+"That makes me think of another story I read the other day about
+Great-uncle Andrew King and Aunt Georgina," laughed the Story Girl. "It
+happened eighty years ago. It was a very stormy winter and the roads
+were bad. Uncle Andrew lived in Carlisle, and Aunt Georgina--she was
+Miss Georgina Matheson then--lived away up west, so he couldn't get to
+see her very often. They agreed to be married that winter, but Georgina
+couldn't set the day exactly because her brother, who lived in Ontario,
+was coming home for a visit, and she wanted to be married while he was
+home. So it was arranged that she was to write Uncle Andrew and tell him
+what day to come. She did, and she told him to come on a Tuesday. But
+her writing wasn't very good and poor Uncle Andrew thought she wrote
+Thursday. So on Thursday he drove all the way to Georgina's home to be
+married. It was forty miles and a bitter cold day. But it wasn't any
+colder than the reception he got from Georgina. She was out in the
+porch, with her head tied up in a towel, picking geese. She had been
+all ready Tuesday, and her friends and the minister were there, and the
+wedding supper prepared. But there was no bridegroom and Georgina was
+furious. Nothing Uncle Andrew could say would appease her. She wouldn't
+listen to a word of explanation, but told him to go, and never show his
+nose there again. So poor Uncle Andrew had to go ruefully home, hoping
+that she would relent later on, because he was really very much in love
+with her."
+
+"And did she?" queried Felicity.
+
+"She did. Thirteen years exactly from that day they were married. It
+took her just that long to forgive him."
+
+"It took her just that long to find out she couldn't get anybody else,"
+said Dan, cynically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A PRODIGAL RETURNS
+
+
+Aunt Olivia and the Story Girl lived in a whirlwind of dressmaking after
+that, and enjoyed it hugely. Cecily and Felicity also had to have
+new dresses for the great event, and they talked of little else for a
+fortnight. Cecily declared that she hated to go to sleep because she
+was sure to dream that she was at Aunt Olivia's wedding in her old faded
+gingham dress and a ragged apron.
+
+"And no shoes or stockings," she added, "and I can't move, and everyone
+walks past and looks at my feet."
+
+"That's only in a dream," mourned Sara Ray, "but I may have to wear my
+last summer's white dress to the wedding. It's too short, but ma says
+it's plenty good for this summer. I'll be so mortified if I have to wear
+it."
+
+"I'd rather not go at all than wear a dress that wasn't nice," said
+Felicity pleasantly.
+
+"I'd go to the wedding if I had to go in my school dress," cried Sara
+Ray. "I've never been to anything. I wouldn't miss it for the world."
+
+"My Aunt Jane always said that if you were neat and tidy it didn't
+matter whether you were dressed fine or not," said Peter.
+
+"I'm sick and tired of hearing about your Aunt Jane," said Felicity
+crossly.
+
+Peter looked grieved but held his peace. Felicity was very hard on him
+that spring, but his loyalty never wavered. Everything she said or did
+was right in Peter's eyes.
+
+"It's all very well to be neat and tidy," said Sara Ray, "but I like a
+little style too."
+
+"I think you'll find your mother will get you a new dress after all,"
+comforted Cecily. "Anyway, nobody will notice you because everyone will
+be looking at the bride. Aunt Olivia will make a lovely bride. Just
+think how sweet she'll look in a white silk dress and a floating veil."
+
+"She says she is going to have the ceremony performed out here in
+the orchard under her own tree," said the Story Girl. "Won't that be
+romantic? It almost makes me feel like getting married myself."
+
+"What a way to talk," rebuked Felicity, "and you only fifteen."
+
+"Lots of people have been married at fifteen," laughed the Story Girl.
+"Lady Jane Gray was."
+
+"But you are always saying that Valeria H. Montague's stories are silly
+and not true to life, so that is no argument," retorted Felicity, who
+knew more about cooking than about history, and evidently imagined that
+the Lady Jane Gray was one of Valeria's titled heroines.
+
+The wedding was a perennial source of conversation among us in those
+days; but presently its interest palled for a time in the light of
+another quite tremendous happening. One Saturday night Peter's mother
+called to take him home with her for Sunday. She had been working at Mr.
+James Frewen's, and Mr. Frewen was driving her home. We had never seen
+Peter's mother before, and we looked at her with discreet curiosity. She
+was a plump, black-eyed little woman, neat as a pin, but with a rather
+tired and care-worn face that looked as if it should have been rosy and
+jolly. Life had been a hard battle for her, and I rather think that her
+curly-headed little lad was all that had kept heart and spirit in her.
+Peter went home with her and returned Sunday evening. We were in the
+orchard sitting around the Pulpit Stone, where we had, according to the
+custom of the households of King, been learning our golden texts and
+memory verses for the next Sunday School lesson. Paddy, grown sleek and
+handsome again, was sitting on the stone itself, washing his jowls.
+
+Peter joined us with a very queer expression on his face. He seemed
+bursting with some news which he wanted to tell and yet hardly liked to.
+
+"Why are you looking so mysterious, Peter?" demanded the Story Girl.
+
+"What do you think has happened?" asked Peter solemnly.
+
+"What has?"
+
+"My father has come home," answered Peter.
+
+The announcement produced all the sensation he could have wished. We
+crowded around him in excitement.
+
+"Peter! When did he come back?"
+
+"Saturday night. He was there when ma and I got home. It give her an
+awful turn. I didn't know him at first, of course."
+
+"Peter Craig, I believe you are glad your father has come back," cried
+the Story Girl.
+
+"'Course I'm glad," retorted Peter.
+
+"And after you saying you didn't want ever to see him again," said
+Felicity.
+
+"You just wait. You haven't heard my story yet. I wouldn't have been
+glad to see father if he'd come back the same as he went away. But he is
+a changed man. He happened to go into a revival meeting one night this
+spring and he got converted. And he's come home to stay, and he says
+he's never going to drink another drop, but he's going to look after his
+family. Ma isn't to do any more washing for nobody but him and me, and
+I'm not to be a hired boy any longer. He says I can stay with your Uncle
+Roger till the fall 'cause I promised I would, but after that I'm to
+stay home and go to school right along and learn to be whatever I'd like
+to be. I tell you it made me feel queer. Everything seemed to be upset.
+But he gave ma forty dollars--every cent he had--so I guess he really is
+converted."
+
+"I hope it will last, I'm sure," said Felicity. She did not say it
+nastily, however. We were all glad for Peter's sake, though a little
+dizzy over the unexpectedness of it all.
+
+"This is what I'D like to know," said Peter. "How did Peg Bowen know my
+father was coming home? Don't you tell me she isn't a witch after that."
+
+"And she knew about your Aunt Olivia's wedding, too," added Sara Ray.
+
+"Oh, well, she likely heard that from some one. Grown up folks talk
+things over long before they tell them to children," said Cecily.
+
+"Well, she couldn't have heard father was coming home from any one,"
+answered Peter. "He was converted up in Maine, where nobody knew him,
+and he never told a soul he was coming till he got here. No, you can
+believe what you like, but I'm satisfied at last that Peg is a witch and
+that skull of hers does tell her things. She told me father was coming
+home and he come!"
+
+"How happy you must be," sighed Sara Ray romantically. "It's just like
+that story in the Family Guide, where the missing earl comes home to his
+family just as the Countess and Lady Violetta are going to be turned out
+by the cruel heir."
+
+Felicity sniffed.
+
+"There's some difference, I guess. The earl had been imprisoned for
+years in a loathsome dungeon."
+
+Perhaps Peter's father had too, if we but realized it--imprisoned in the
+dungeon of his own evil appetites and habits, than which none could
+be more loathsome. But a Power, mightier than the forces of evil, had
+struck off his fetters and led him back to his long-forfeited liberty
+and light. And no countess or lady of high degree could have welcomed a
+long-lost earl home more joyfully than the tired little washerwoman had
+welcomed the erring husband of her youth.
+
+But in Peter's ointment of joy there was a fly or two. So very, very few
+things are flawless in this world, even on the golden road.
+
+"Of course I'm awful glad that father has come back and that ma won't
+have to wash any more," he said with a sigh, "but there are two things
+that kind of worry me. My Aunt Jane always said that it didn't do any
+good to worry, and I s'pose it don't, but it's kind of a relief."
+
+"What's worrying you?" asked Felix.
+
+"Well, for one thing I'll feel awful bad to go away from you all. I'll
+miss you just dreadful, and I won't even be able to go to the same
+school. I'll have to go to Markdale school."
+
+"But you must come and see us often," said Felicity graciously.
+"Markdale isn't so far away, and you could spend every other Saturday
+afternoon with us anyway."
+
+Peter's black eyes filled with adoring gratitude.
+
+"That's so kind of you, Felicity. I'll come as often as I can, of
+course; but it won't be the same as being around with you all the time.
+The other thing is even worse. You see, it was a Methodist revival
+father got converted in, and so of course he joined the Methodist
+church. He wasn't anything before. He used to say he was a Nothingarian
+and lived up to it--kind of bragging like. But he's a strong Methodist
+now, and is going to go to Markdale Methodist church and pay to the
+salary. Now what'll he say when I tell him I'm a Presbyterian?"
+
+"You haven't told him, yet?" asked the Story Girl.
+
+"No, I didn't dare. I was scared he'd say I'd have to be a Methodist."
+
+"Well, Methodists are pretty near as good as Presbyterians," said
+Felicity, with the air of one making a great concession.
+
+"I guess they're every bit as good," retorted Peter. "But that ain't the
+point. I've got to be a Presbyterian, 'cause I stick to a thing when I
+once decide it. But I expect father will be mad when he finds out."
+
+"If he's converted he oughtn't to get mad," said Dan.
+
+"Well, lots o' people do. But if he isn't mad he'll be sorry, and
+that'll be even worse, for a Presbyterian I'm bound to be. But I expect
+it will make things unpleasant."
+
+"You needn't tell him anything about it," advised Felicity. "Just keep
+quiet and go to the Methodist church until you get big, and then you can
+go where you please."
+
+"No, that wouldn't be honest," said Peter sturdily. "My Aunt Jane
+always said it was best to be open and above board in everything, and
+especially in religion. So I'll tell father right out, but I'll wait a
+few weeks so as not to spoil things for ma too soon if he acts up."
+
+Peter was not the only one who had secret cares. Sara Ray was beginning
+to feel worried over her looks. I heard her and Cecily talking over
+their troubles one evening while I was weeding the onion bed and they
+were behind the hedge knitting lace. I did not mean to eavesdrop.
+I supposed they knew I was there until Cecily overwhelmed me with
+indignation later on.
+
+"I'm so afraid, Cecily, that I'm going to be homely all my life," said
+poor Sara with a tremble in her voice. "You can stand being ugly when
+you are young if you have any hope of being better looking when you grow
+up. But I'm getting worse. Aunt Mary says I'm going to be the very
+image of Aunt Matilda. And Aunt Matilda is as homely as she can be. It
+isn't"--and poor Sara sighed--"a very cheerful prospect. If I am ugly
+nobody will ever want to marry me, and," concluded Sara candidly, "I
+don't want to be an old maid."
+
+"But plenty of girls get married who aren't a bit pretty," comforted
+Cecily. "Besides, you are real nice looking at times, Sara. I think you
+are going to have a nice figure."
+
+"But just look at my hands," moaned Sara. "They're simply covered with
+warts."
+
+"Oh, the warts will all disappear before you grow up," said Cecily.
+
+"But they won't disappear before the school concert. How am I to get
+up there and recite? You know there is one line in my recitation, 'She
+waved her lily-white hand,' and I have to wave mine when I say it. Fancy
+waving a lily-white hand all covered with warts. I've tried every remedy
+I ever heard of, but nothing does any good. Judy Pineau said if I rubbed
+them with toad-spit it would take them away for sure. But how am I to
+get any toad-spit?"
+
+"It doesn't sound like a very nice remedy, anyhow," shuddered Cecily.
+"I'd rather have the warts. But do you know, I believe if you didn't cry
+so much over every little thing, you'd be ever so much better looking.
+Crying spoils your eyes and makes the end of your nose red."
+
+"I can't help crying," protested Sara. "My feelings are so very
+sensitive. I've given up trying to keep THAT resolution."
+
+"Well, men don't like cry-babies," said Cecily sagely. Cecily had a good
+deal of Mother Eve's wisdom tucked away in that smooth, brown head of
+hers.
+
+"Cecily, do you ever intend to be married?" asked Sara in a confidential
+tone.
+
+"Goodness!" cried Cecily, quite shocked. "It will be time enough when I
+grow up to think of that, Sara."
+
+"I should think you'd have to think of it now, with Cyrus Brisk as crazy
+after you as he is."
+
+"I wish Cyrus Brisk was at the bottom of the Red Sea," exclaimed Cecily,
+goaded into a spurt of temper by mention of the detested name.
+
+"What has Cyrus been doing now?" asked Felicity, coming around the
+corner of the hedge.
+
+"Doing NOW! It's ALL the time. He just worries me to death," returned
+Cecily angrily. "He keeps writing me letters and putting them in my desk
+or in my reader. I never answer one of them, but he keeps on. And in the
+last one, mind you, he said he'd do something desperate right off if I
+wouldn't promise to marry him when we grew up."
+
+"Just think, Cecily, you've had a proposal already," said Sara Ray in an
+awe-struck tone.
+
+"But he hasn't done anything desperate yet, and that was last week,"
+commented Felicity, with a toss of her head.
+
+"He sent me a lock of his hair and wanted one of mine in exchange,"
+continued Cecily indignantly. "I tell you I sent his back to him pretty
+quick."
+
+"Did you never answer any of his letters?" asked Sara Ray.
+
+"No, indeed! I guess not!"
+
+"Do you know," said Felicity, "I believe if you wrote him just once and
+told him your exact opinion of him in good plain English it would cure
+him of his nonsense."
+
+"I couldn't do that. I haven't enough spunk," confessed Cecily with a
+blush. "But I'll tell you what I did do once. He wrote me a long letter
+last week. It was just awfully SOFT, and every other word was spelled
+wrong. He even spelled baking soda, 'bacon soda!'"
+
+"What on earth had he to say about baking soda in a love-letter?" asked
+Felicity.
+
+"Oh, he said his mother sent him to the store for some and he forgot it
+because he was thinking about me. Well, I just took his letter and wrote
+in all the words, spelled right, above the wrong ones, in red ink, just
+as Mr. Perkins makes us do with our dictation exercises, and sent it
+back to him. I thought maybe he'd feel insulted and stop writing to me."
+
+"And did he?"
+
+"No, he didn't. It is my opinion you can't insult Cyrus Brisk. He is too
+thick-skinned. He wrote another letter, and thanked me for correcting
+his mistakes, and said it made him feel glad because it showed I was
+beginning to take an interest in him when I wanted him to spell better.
+Did you ever? Miss Marwood says it is wrong to hate anyone, but I don't
+care, I hate Cyrus Brisk."
+
+"Mrs. Cyrus Brisk WOULD be an awful name," giggled Felicity.
+
+"Flossie Brisk says Cyrus is ruining all the trees on his father's place
+cutting your name on them," said Sara Ray. "His father told him he would
+whip him if he didn't stop, but Cyrus keeps right on. He told Flossie it
+relieved his feelings. Flossie says he cut yours and his together on the
+birch tree in front of the parlour window, and a row of hearts around
+them."
+
+"Just where every visitor can see them, I suppose," lamented Cecily. "He
+just worries my life out. And what I mind most of all is, he sits and
+looks at me in school with such melancholy, reproachful eyes when he
+ought to be working sums. I won't look at him, but I FEEL him staring at
+me, and it makes me so nervous."
+
+"They say his mother was out of her mind at one time," said Felicity.
+
+I do not think Felicity was quite well pleased that Cyrus should have
+passed over her rose-red prettiness to set his affections on that demure
+elf of a Cecily. She did not want the allegiance of Cyrus in the least,
+but it was something of a slight that he had not wanted her to want it.
+
+"And he sends me pieces of poetry he cuts out of the papers," Cecily
+went on, "with lots of the lines marked with a lead pencil. Yesterday he
+put one in his letter, and this is what he marked:
+
+
+    "'If you will not relent to me
+     Then must I learn to know
+     Darkness alone till life be flown.
+
+Here--I have the piece in my sewing-bag--I'll read it all to you."
+
+Those three graceless girls read the sentimental rhyme and giggled over
+it. Poor Cyrus! His young affections were sadly misplaced. But after
+all, though Cecily never relented towards him, he did not condemn
+himself to darkness alone till life was flown. Quite early in life he
+wedded a stout, rosy, buxom lass, the very antithesis of his first love;
+he prospered in his undertakings, raised a large and respectable family,
+and was eventually appointed a Justice of the Peace. Which was all very
+sensible of Cyrus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK
+
+
+June was crowded full of interest that year. We gathered in with
+its sheaf of fragrant days the choicest harvest of childhood. Things
+happened right along. Cecily declared she hated to go to sleep for fear
+she might miss something. There were so many dear delights along the
+golden road to give us pleasure--the earth dappled with new blossom,
+the dance of shadows in the fields, the rustling, rain-wet ways of the
+woods, the faint fragrance in meadow lanes, liltings of birds and croon
+of bees in the old orchard, windy pipings on the hills, sunset behind
+the pines, limpid dews filling primrose cups, crescent moons through
+darklings boughs, soft nights alight with blinking stars. We enjoyed
+all these boons, unthinkingly and light-heartedly, as children do. And
+besides these, there was the absorbing little drama of human life
+which was being enacted all around us, and in which each of us played
+a satisfying part--the gay preparations for Aunt Olivia's mid-June
+wedding, the excitement of practising for the concert with which our
+school-teacher, Mr. Perkins, had elected to close the school year, and
+Cecily's troubles with Cyrus Brisk, which furnished unholy mirth for the
+rest of us, though Cecily could not see the funny side of it at all.
+
+Matters went from bad to worse in the case of the irrepressible Cyrus.
+He continued to shower Cecily with notes, the spelling of which showed
+no improvement; he worried the life out of her by constantly threatening
+to fight Willy Fraser--although, as Felicity sarcastically pointed out,
+he never did it.
+
+"But I'm always afraid he will," said Cecily, "and it would be such a
+DISGRACE to have two boys fighting over me in school."
+
+"You must have encouraged Cyrus a little in the beginning or he'd never
+have been so persevering," said Felicity unjustly.
+
+"I never did!" cried outraged Cecily. "You know very well, Felicity
+King, that I hated Cyrus Brisk ever since the very first time I saw his
+big, fat, red face. So there!"
+
+"Felicity is just jealous because Cyrus didn't take a notion to her
+instead of you, Sis," said Dan.
+
+"Talk sense!" snapped Felicity.
+
+"If I did you wouldn't understand me, sweet little sister," rejoined
+aggravating Dan.
+
+Finally Cyrus crowned his iniquities by stealing the denied lock of
+Cecily's hair. One sunny afternoon in school, Cecily and Kitty Marr
+asked and received permission to sit out on the side bench before
+the open window, where the cool breeze swept in from the green fields
+beyond. To sit on this bench was always considered a treat, and was only
+allowed as a reward of merit; but Cecily and Kitty had another reason
+for wishing to sit there. Kitty had read in a magazine that sun-baths
+were good for the hair; so both she and Cecily tossed their long braids
+over the window-sill and let them hang there in the broiling sun-shine.
+And while Cecily sat thus, diligently working a fraction sum on her
+slate, that base Cyrus asked permission to go out, having previously
+borrowed a pair of scissors from one of the big girls who did fancy work
+at the noon recess. Outside, Cyrus sneaked up close to the window and
+cut off a piece of Cecily's hair.
+
+This rape of the lock did not produce quite such terrible consequences
+as the more famous one in Pope's poem, but Cecily's soul was no less
+agitated than Belinda's. She cried all the way home from school about
+it, and only checked her tears when Dan declared he'd fight Cyrus and
+make him give it up.
+
+"Oh, no, You mustn't." said Cecily, struggling with her sobs. "I won't
+have you fighting on my account for anything. And besides, he'd likely
+lick you--he's so big and rough. And the folks at home might find out
+all about it, and Uncle Roger would never give me any peace, and mother
+would be cross, for she'd never believe it wasn't my fault. It wouldn't
+be so bad if he'd only taken a little, but he cut a great big chunk
+right off the end of one of the braids. Just look at it. I'll have to
+cut the other to make them fair--and they'll look so awful stubby."
+
+But Cyrus' acquirement of the chunk of hair was his last triumph.
+His downfall was near; and, although it involved Cecily in a most
+humiliating experience, over which she cried half the following night,
+in the end she confessed it was worth undergoing just to get rid of
+Cyrus.
+
+Mr. Perkins was an exceedingly strict disciplinarian. No communication
+of any sort was permitted between his pupils during school hours. Anyone
+caught violating this rule was promptly punished by the infliction of
+one of the weird penances for which Mr. Perkins was famous, and which
+were generally far worse than ordinary whipping.
+
+One day in school Cyrus sent a letter across to Cecily. Usually he left
+his effusions in her desk, or between the leaves of her books; but this
+time it was passed over to her under cover of the desk through the hands
+of two or three scholars. Just as Em Frewen held it over the aisle Mr.
+Perkins wheeled around from his station before the blackboard and caught
+her in the act.
+
+"Bring that here, Emmeline," he commanded.
+
+Cyrus turned quite pale. Em carried the note to Mr. Perkins. He took it,
+held it up, and scrutinized the address.
+
+"Did you write this to Cecily, Emmeline?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Who wrote it then?"
+
+Em said quite shamelessly that she didn't know--it had just been passed
+over from the next row.
+
+"And I suppose you have no idea where it came from?" said Mr. Perkins,
+with his frightful, sardonic grin. "Well, perhaps Cecily can tell us.
+You may take your seat, Emmeline, and you will remain at the foot of
+your spelling class for a week as punishment for passing the note.
+Cecily, come here."
+
+Indignant Em sat down and poor, innocent Cecily was haled forth to
+public ignominy. She went with a crimson face.
+
+"Cecily," said her tormentor, "do you know who wrote this letter to
+you?"
+
+Cecily, like a certain renowned personage, could not tell a lie.
+
+"I--I think so, sir," she murmured faintly.
+
+"Who was it?"
+
+"I can't tell you that," stammered Cecily, on the verge of tears.
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Perkins politely. "Well, I suppose I could easily find
+out by opening it. But it is very impolite to open other people's
+letters. I think I have a better plan. Since you refuse to tell me who
+wrote it, open it yourself, take this chalk, and copy the contents on
+the blackboard that we may all enjoy them. And sign the writer's name at
+the bottom."
+
+"Oh," gasped Cecily, choosing the lesser of two evils, "I'll tell you
+who wrote it--it was--
+
+"Hush!" Mr. Perkins checked her with a gentle motion of his hand. He
+was always most gentle when most inexorable. "You did not obey me when
+I first ordered you to tell me the writer. You cannot have the privilege
+of doing so now. Open the note, take the chalk, and do as I command
+you."
+
+Worms will turn, and even meek, mild, obedient little souls like Cecily
+may be goaded to the point of wild, sheer rebellion.
+
+"I--I won't!" she cried passionately.
+
+Mr. Perkins, martinet though he was, would hardly, I think, have
+inflicted such a punishment on Cecily, who was a favourite of his, had
+he known the real nature of that luckless missive. But, as he afterwards
+admitted, he thought it was merely a note from some other girl, of such
+trifling sort as school-girls are wont to write; and moreover, he had
+already committed himself to the decree, which, like those of Mede and
+Persian, must not alter. To let Cecily off, after her mad defiance,
+would be to establish a revolutionary precedent.
+
+"So you really think you won't?" he queried smilingly. "Well, on second
+thoughts, you may take your choice. Either you will do as I have bidden
+you, or you will sit for three days with"--Mr. Perkins' eye skimmed over
+the school-room to find a boy who was sitting alone--"with Cyrus Brisk."
+
+This choice of Mr. Perkins, who knew nothing of the little drama of
+emotions that went on under the routine of lessons and exercises in his
+domain, was purely accidental, but we took it at the time as a stroke of
+diabolical genius. It left Cecily no choice. She would have done almost
+anything before she would have sat with Cyrus Brisk. With flashing
+eyes she tore open the letter, snatched up the chalk, and dashed at the
+blackboard.
+
+In a few minutes the contents of that letter graced the expanse usually
+sacred to more prosaic compositions. I cannot reproduce it verbatim, for
+I had no after opportunity of refreshing my memory. But I remember that
+it was exceedingly sentimental and exceedingly ill-spelled--for Cecily
+mercilessly copied down poor Cyrus' mistakes. He wrote her that he wore
+her hare over his hart--"and he stole it," Cecily threw passionately
+over her shoulder at Mr. Perkins--that her eyes were so sweet and lovely
+that he couldn't find words nice enuf to describ them, that he could
+never forget how butiful she had looked in prar meeting the evening
+before, and that some meels he couldn't eat for thinking of her, with
+more to the same effect and he signed it "yours till deth us do part,
+Cyrus Brisk."
+
+As the writing proceeded we scholars exploded into smothered laughter,
+despite our awe of Mr. Perkins. Mr. Perkins himself could not keep a
+straight face. He turned abruptly away and looked out of the window,
+but we could see his shoulders shaking. When Cecily had finished and
+had thrown down the chalk with bitter vehemence, he turned around with a
+very red face.
+
+"That will do. You may sit down. Cyrus, since it seems you are the
+guilty person, take the eraser and wipe that off the board. Then go
+stand in the corner, facing the room, and hold your arms straight above
+your head until I tell you to take them down."
+
+Cyrus obeyed and Cecily fled to her seat and wept, nor did Mr. Perkins
+meddle with her more that day. She bore her burden of humiliation
+bitterly for several days, until she was suddenly comforted by a
+realization that Cyrus had ceased to persecute her. He wrote no more
+letters, he gazed no longer in rapt adoration, he brought no more votive
+offerings of gum and pencils to her shrine. At first we thought he had
+been cured by the unmerciful chaffing he had to undergo from his mates,
+but eventually his sister told Cecily the true reason. Cyrus had at last
+been driven to believe that Cecily's aversion to him was real, and not
+merely the defence of maiden coyness. If she hated him so intensely that
+she would rather write that note on the blackboard than sit with him,
+what use was it to sigh like a furnace longer for her? Mr. Perkins had
+blighted love's young dream for Cyrus with a killing frost. Thenceforth
+sweet Cecily kept the noiseless tenor of her way unvexed by the
+attentions of enamoured swains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. AUNT UNA'S STORY
+
+
+Felicity, and Cecily, Dan, Felix, Sara Ray and I were sitting one
+evening on the mossy stones in Uncle Roger's hill pasture, where we had
+sat the morning the Story Girl told us the tale of the Wedding Veil of
+the Proud Princess. But it was evening now and the valley beneath us was
+brimmed up with the glow of the afterlight. Behind us, two tall, shapely
+spruce trees rose up against the sunset, and through the dark oriel of
+their sundered branches an evening star looked down. We sat on a little
+strip of emerald grassland and before us was a sloping meadow all white
+with daisies.
+
+We were waiting for Peter and the Story Girl. Peter had gone to Markdale
+after dinner to spend the afternoon with his reunited parents because
+it was his birthday. He had left us grimly determined to confess to his
+father the dark secret of his Presbyterianism, and we were anxious to
+know what the result had been. The Story Girl had gone that morning
+with Miss Reade to visit the latter's home near Charlottetown, and we
+expected soon to see her coming gaily along over the fields from the
+Armstrong place.
+
+Presently Peter came jauntily stepping along the field path up the hill.
+
+"Hasn't Peter got tall?" said Cecily.
+
+"Peter is growing to be a very fine looking boy," decreed Felicity.
+
+"I notice he's got ever so much handsomer since his father came home,"
+said Dan, with a killing sarcasm that was wholly lost on Felicity, who
+gravely responded that she supposed it was because Peter felt so much
+freer from care and responsibility.
+
+"What luck, Peter?" yelled Dan, as soon as Peter was within earshot.
+
+"Everything's all right," he shouted jubilantly. "I told father right
+off, licketty-split, as soon as I got home," he added when he reached
+us. "I was anxious to have it over with. I says, solemn-like, 'Dad,
+there's something I've got to tell you, and I don't know how you'll take
+it, but it can't be helped,' I says. Dad looked pretty sober, and he
+says, says he, 'What have you been up to, Peter? Don't be afraid to tell
+me. I've been forgiven to seventy times seven, so surely I can forgive a
+little, too?' 'Well,' I says, desperate-like, 'the truth is, father, I'm
+a Presbyterian. I made up my mind last summer, the time of the Judgment
+Day, that I'd be a Presbyterian, and I've got to stick to it. I'm sorry
+I can't be a Methodist, like you and mother and Aunt Jane, but I can't
+and that's all there is to it,' I says. Then I waited, scared-like. But
+father, he just looked relieved and he says, says he, 'Goodness, boy,
+you can be a Presbyterian or anything else you like, so long as it's
+Protestant. I'm not caring,' he says. 'The main thing is that you must
+be good and do what's right.' I tell you," concluded Peter emphatically,
+"father is a Christian all right."
+
+"Well, I suppose your mind will be at rest now," said Felicity. "What's
+that you have in your buttonhole?"
+
+"That's a four-leaved clover," answered Peter exultantly. "That means
+good luck for the summer. I found it in Markdale. There ain't much
+clover in Carlisle this year of any kind of leaf. The crop is going to
+be a failure. Your Uncle Roger says it's because there ain't enough
+old maids in Carlisle. There's lots of them in Markdale, and that's the
+reason, he says, why they always have such good clover crops there."
+
+"What on earth have old maids to do with it?" cried Cecily.
+
+"I don't believe they've a single thing to do with it, but Mr. Roger
+says they have, and he says a man called Darwin proved it. This is the
+rigmarole he got off to me the other day. The clover crop depends on
+there being plenty of bumble-bees, because they are the only insects
+with tongues long enough to--to--fer--fertilize--I think he called it
+the blossoms. But mice eat bumble-bees and cats eat mice and old maids
+keep cats. So your Uncle Roger says the more old maids the more cats,
+and the more cats the fewer field-mice, and the fewer field-mice the
+more bumble-bees, and the more bumble-bees the better clover crops."
+
+"So don't worry if you do get to be old maids, girls," said Dan.
+"Remember, you'll be helping the clover crops."
+
+"I never heard such stuff as you boys talk," said Felicity, "and Uncle
+Roger is no better."
+
+"There comes the Story Girl," cried Cecily eagerly. "Now we'll hear all
+about Beautiful Alice's home."
+
+The Story Girl was bombarded with eager questions as soon as she
+arrived. Miss Reade's home was a dream of a place, it appeared. The
+house was just covered with ivy and there was a most delightful old
+garden--"and," added the Story Girl, with the joy of a connoisseur who
+has found a rare gem, "the sweetest little story connected with it. And
+I saw the hero of the story too."
+
+"Where was the heroine?" queried Cecily.
+
+"She is dead."
+
+"Oh, of course she'd have to die," exclaimed Dan in disgust. "I'd like a
+story where somebody lived once in awhile."
+
+"I've told you heaps of stories where people lived," retorted the Story
+Girl. "If this heroine hadn't died there wouldn't have been any story.
+She was Miss Reade's aunt and her name was Una, and I believe she must
+have been just like Miss Reade herself. Miss Reade told me all about
+her. When we went into the garden I saw in one corner of it an old stone
+bench arched over by a couple of pear trees and all grown about with
+grass and violets. And an old man was sitting on it--a bent old man with
+long, snow-white hair and beautiful sad blue eyes. He seemed very lonely
+and sorrowful and I wondered that Miss Reade didn't speak to him. But
+she never let on she saw him and took me away to another part of the
+garden. After awhile he got up and went away and then Miss Reade said,
+'Come over to Aunt Una's seat and I will tell you about her and her
+lover--that man who has just gone out.'
+
+"'Oh, isn't he too old for a lover?' I said.
+
+"Beautiful Alice laughed and said it was forty years since he had been
+her Aunt Una's lover. He had been a tall, handsome young man then, and
+her Aunt Una was a beautiful girl of nineteen.
+
+"We went over and sat down and Miss Reade told me all about her. She
+said that when she was a child she had heard much of her Aunt Una--that
+she seemed to have been one of those people who are not soon forgotten,
+whose personality seems to linger about the scenes of their lives long
+after they have passed away."
+
+"What is a personality? Is it another word for ghost?" asked Peter.
+
+"No," said the Story Girl shortly. "I can't stop in a story to explain
+words."
+
+"I don't believe you know what it is yourself," said Felicity.
+
+The Story Girl picked up her hat, which she had thrown down on the
+grass, and placed it defiantly on her brown curls.
+
+"I'm going in," she announced. "I have to help Aunt Olivia ice a cake
+tonight, and you all seem more interested in dictionaries than stories."
+
+"That's not fair," I exclaimed. "Dan and Felix and Sara Ray and Cecily
+and I have never said a word. It's mean to punish us for what Peter and
+Felicity did. We want to hear the rest of the story. Never mind what a
+personality is but go on--and, Peter, you young ass, keep still."
+
+"I only wanted to know," muttered Peter sulkily.
+
+"I DO know what personality is, but it's hard to explain," said the
+Story Girl, relenting. "It's what makes you different from Dan, Peter,
+and me different from Felicity or Cecily. Miss Reade's Aunt Una had a
+personality that was very uncommon. And she was beautiful, too, with
+white skin and night-black eyes and hair--a 'moonlight beauty,' Miss
+Reade called it. She used to keep a kind of a diary, and Miss Reade's
+mother used to read parts of it to her. She wrote verses in it and they
+were lovely; and she wrote descriptions of the old garden which she
+loved very much. Miss Reade said that everything in the garden, plot
+or shrub or tree, recalled to her mind some phrase or verse of her
+Aunt Una's, so that the whole place seemed full of her, and her memory
+haunted the walks like a faint, sweet perfume.
+
+"Una had, as I've told you, a lover; and they were to have been married
+on her twentieth birthday. Her wedding dress was to have been a gown of
+white brocade with purple violets in it. But a little while before it
+she took ill with fever and died; and she was buried on her birthday
+instead of being married. It was just in the time of opening roses. Her
+lover has been faithful to her ever since; he has never married, and
+every June, on her birthday, he makes a pilgrimage to the old garden and
+sits for a long time in silence on the bench where he used to woo her
+on crimson eves and moonlight nights of long ago. Miss Reade says she
+always loves to see him sitting there because it gives her such a deep
+and lasting sense of the beauty and strength of love which can thus
+outlive time and death. And sometimes, she says, it gives her a little
+eerie feeling, too, as if her Aunt Una were really sitting there beside
+him, keeping tryst, although she has been in her grave for forty years."
+
+"It would be real romantic to die young and have your lover make a
+pilgrimage to your garden every year," reflected Sara Ray.
+
+"It would be more comfortable to go on living and get married to him,"
+said Felicity. "Mother says all those sentimental ideas are bosh and I
+expect they are. It's a wonder Beautiful Alice hasn't a beau herself.
+She is so pretty and lady-like."
+
+"The Carlisle fellows all say she is too stuck up," said Dan.
+
+"There's nobody in Carlisle half good enough for her," cried the Story
+Girl, "except--ex-cept--"
+
+"Except who?" asked Felix.
+
+"Never mind," said the Story Girl mysteriously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. AUNT OLIVIA'S WEDDING
+
+
+What a delightful, old-fashioned, wholesome excitement there was about
+Aunt Olivia's wedding! The Monday and Tuesday preceding it we did not go
+to school at all, but were all kept home to do chores and run errands.
+The cooking and decorating and arranging that went on those two days
+was amazing, and Felicity was so happy over it all that she did not even
+quarrel with Dan--though she narrowly escaped it when he told her that
+the Governor's wife was coming to the wedding.
+
+"Mind you have some of her favourite rusks for her," he said.
+
+"I guess," said Felicity with dignity, "that Aunt Olivia's wedding
+supper will be good enough for even a Governor's wife."
+
+"I s'pose none of us except the Story Girl will get to the first table,"
+said Felix, rather gloomily.
+
+"Never mind," comforted Felicity. "There's a whole turkey to be kept for
+us, and a freezerful of ice cream. Cecily and I are going to wait on the
+tables, and we'll put away a little of everything that's extra nice for
+our suppers."
+
+"I do so want to have my supper with you," sighed Sara Ray, "but I
+s'pose ma will drag me with her wherever she goes. She won't trust me
+out of her sight a minute the whole evening--I know she won't."
+
+"I'll get Aunt Olivia to ask her to let you have your supper with us,"
+said Cecily. "She can't refuse the bride's request."
+
+"You don't know all ma can do," returned Sara darkly. "No, I feel that
+I'll have to eat my supper with her. But I suppose I ought to be very
+thankful I'm to get to the wedding at all, and that ma did get me a
+new white dress for it. Even yet I'm so scared something will happen to
+prevent me from getting to it."
+
+Monday evening shrouded itself in clouds, and all night long the voice
+of the wind answered to the voice of the rain. Tuesday the downpour
+continued. We were quite frantic about it. Suppose it kept on raining
+over Wednesday! Aunt Olivia couldn't be married in the orchard then.
+That would be too bad, especially when the late apple tree had most
+obligingly kept its store of blossom until after all the other trees had
+faded and then burst lavishly into bloom for Aunt Olivia's wedding. That
+apple tree was always very late in blooming, and this year it was a week
+later than usual. It was a sight to see--a great tree-pyramid with high,
+far-spreading boughs, over which a wealth of rosy snow seemed to have
+been flung. Never had bride a more magnificent canopy.
+
+To our rapture, however, it cleared up beautifully Tuesday evening,
+and the sun, before setting in purple pomp, poured a flood of wonderful
+radiance over the whole great, green, diamond-dripping world, promising
+a fair morrow. Uncle Alec drove off to the station through it to bring
+home the bridegroom and his best man. Dan was full of a wild idea that
+we should all meet them at the gate, armed with cowbells and tin-pans,
+and "charivari" them up the lane. Peter sided with him, but the rest of
+us voted down the suggestion.
+
+"Do you want Dr. Seton to think we are a pack of wild Indians?" asked
+Felicity severely. "A nice opinion he'd have of our manners!"
+
+"Well, it's the only chance we'll have to chivaree them," grumbled Dan.
+"Aunt Olivia wouldn't mind. SHE can take a joke."
+
+"Ma would kill you if you did such a thing," warned Felicity. "Dr. Seton
+lives in Halifax and they NEVER chivaree people there. He would think it
+very vulgar."
+
+"Then he should have stayed in Halifax and got married there," retorted
+Dan, sulkily.
+
+We were very curious to see our uncle-elect. When he came and Uncle
+Alec took him into the parlour, we were all crowded into the dark corner
+behind the stairs to peep at him. Then we fled to the moonlight world
+outside and discussed him at the dairy.
+
+"He's bald," said Cecily disappointedly.
+
+"And RATHER short and stout," said Felicity.
+
+"He's forty, if he's a day," said Dan.
+
+"Never you mind," cried the Story Girl loyally, "Aunt Olivia loves him
+with all her heart."
+
+"And more than that, he's got lots of money," added Felicity.
+
+"Well, he may be all right," said Peter, "but it's my opinion that your
+Aunt Olivia could have done just as well on the Island."
+
+"YOUR opinion doesn't matter very much to our family," said Felicity
+crushingly.
+
+But when we made the acquaintance of Dr. Seton next morning we liked him
+enormously, and voted him a jolly good fellow. Even Peter remarked aside
+to me that he guessed Miss Olivia hadn't made much of a mistake after
+all, though it was plain he thought she was running a risk in not
+sticking to the Island. The girls had not much time to discuss him with
+us. They were all exceedingly busy and whisked about at such a rate
+that they seemed to possess the power of being in half a dozen places
+at once. The importance of Felicity was quite terrible. But after dinner
+came a lull.
+
+"Thank goodness, everything is ready at last," breathed Felicity
+devoutly, as we foregathered for a brief space in the fir wood. "We've
+nothing more to do now but get dressed. It's really a serious thing to
+have a wedding in the family."
+
+"I have a note from Sara Ray," said Cecily. "Judy Pineau brought it up
+when she brought Mrs. Ray's spoons. Just let me read it to you:--
+
+
+  DEAREST CECILY:--A DREADFUL MISFORTUNE has happened to me.  Last
+  night I went with Judy to water the cows and in the spruce bush we
+  found a WASPS' NEST and Judy thought it was AN OLD ONE and she
+  POKED IT WITH A STICK.  And it was a NEW ONE, full of wasps, and
+  they all flew out and STUNG US TERRIBLY, on the face and hands.
+  My face is all swelled up and I can HARDLY SEE out of one eye.
+  The SUFFERING was awful but I didn't mind that as much as being
+  scared ma wouldn't take me to the wedding.  But she says I can go
+  and I'm going.  I know that I am a HARD-LOOKING SIGHT, but it
+  isn't anything catching.  I am writing this so that you won't get
+  a shock when you see me.  Isn't it SO STRANGE to think your dear
+  Aunt Olivia is going away?  How you will miss her!  But your loss
+  will be her gain.
+
+                    "'Au revoir,
+                         "'Your loving chum,
+                                     SARA RAY.'"
+
+
+"That poor child," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Well, all I hope is that strangers won't take her for one of the
+family," remarked Felicity in a disgusted tone.
+
+Aunt Olivia was married at five o'clock in the orchard under the late
+apple tree. It was a pretty scene. The air was full of the perfume of
+apple bloom, and the bees blundered foolishly and delightfully from one
+blossom to another, half drunken with perfume. The old orchard was full
+of smiling guests in wedding garments. Aunt Olivia was most beautiful
+amid the frost of her bridal veil, and the Story Girl, in an unusually
+long white dress, with her brown curls clubbed up behind, looked so tall
+and grown-up that we hardly recognized her. After the ceremony--during
+which Sara Ray cried all the time--there was a royal wedding supper, and
+Sara Ray was permitted to eat her share of the feast with us.
+
+"I'm glad I was stung by the wasps after all," she said delightedly.
+"If I hadn't been ma would never have let me eat with you. She just got
+tired explaining to people what was the matter with my face, and so
+she was glad to get rid of me. I know I look awful, but, oh, wasn't the
+bride a dream?"
+
+We missed the Story Girl, who, of course, had to have her supper at
+the bridal table; but we were a hilarious little crew and the girls had
+nobly kept their promise to save tid-bits for us. By the time the last
+table was cleared away Aunt Olivia and our new uncle were ready to go.
+There was an orgy of tears and leavetakings, and then they drove away
+into the odorous moonlight night. Dan and Peter pursued them down the
+lane with a fiendish din of bells and pans, much to Felicity's wrath.
+But Aunt Olivia and Uncle Robert took it in good part and waved their
+hands back to us with peals of laughter.
+
+"They're just that pleased with themselves that they wouldn't mind if
+there was an earthquake," said Felix, grinning.
+
+"It's been splendid and exciting, and everything went off well," sighed
+Cecily, "but, oh dear, it's going to be so queer and lonesome without
+Aunt Olivia. I just believe I'll cry all night."
+
+"You're tired to death, that's what's the matter with you," said Dan,
+returning. "You girls have worked like slaves today."
+
+"Tomorrow will be even harder," said Felicity comfortingly. "Everything
+will have to be cleaned up and put away."
+
+Peg Bowen paid us a call the next day and was regaled with a feast of
+fat things left over from the supper.
+
+"Well, I've had all I can eat," she said, when she had finished and
+brought out her pipe. "And that doesn't happen to me every day. There
+ain't been as much marrying as there used to be, and half the time they
+just sneak off to the minister, as if they were ashamed of it, and get
+married without any wedding or supper. That ain't the King way, though.
+And so Olivia's gone off at last. She weren't in any hurry but they tell
+me she's done well. Time'll show."
+
+"Why don't you get married yourself, Peg?" queried Uncle Roger
+teasingly. We held our breath over his temerity.
+
+"Because I'm not so easy to please as your wife will be," retorted Peg.
+
+She departed in high good humour over her repartee. Meeting Sara Ray
+on the doorstep she stopped and asked her what was the matter with her
+face.
+
+"Wasps," stammered Sara Ray, laconic from terror.
+
+"Humph! And your hands?"
+
+"Warts."
+
+"I'll tell you what'll take them away. You get a pertater and go out
+under the full moon, cut the pertater in two, rub your warts with one
+half and say, 'One, two, three, warts, go away from me.' Then rub
+them with the other half and say, 'One, two, three, four, warts, never
+trouble me more.' Then bury the pertater and never tell a living soul
+where you buried it. You won't have no more warts. Mind you bury the
+pertater, though. If you don't, and anyone picks it up, she'll get your
+warts."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. SARA RAY HELPS OUT
+
+
+We all missed Aunt Olivia greatly; she had been so merry and
+companionable, and had possessed such a knack of understanding small
+fry. But youth quickly adapts itself to changed conditions; in a few
+weeks it seemed as if the Story Girl had always been living at Uncle
+Alec's, and as if Uncle Roger had always had a fat, jolly housekeeper
+with a double chin and little, twinkling blue eyes. I don't think Aunt
+Janet ever quite got over missing Aunt Olivia, or looked upon Mrs.
+Hawkins as anything but a necessary evil; but life resumed its even
+tenor on the King farm, broken only by the ripples of excitement over
+the school concert and letters from Aunt Olivia describing her trip
+through the land of Evangeline. We incorporated the letters in Our
+Magazine under the heading "From Our Special Correspondent" and were
+very proud of them.
+
+At the end of June our school concert came off and was a great event
+in our young lives. It was the first appearance of most of us on any
+platform, and some of us were very nervous. We all had recitations,
+except Dan, who had refused flatly to take any part and was consequently
+care-free.
+
+"I'm sure I shall die when I find myself up on that platform, facing
+people," sighed Sara Ray, as we talked the affair over in Uncle
+Stephen's Walk the night before the concert.
+
+"I'm afraid I'll faint," was Cecily's more moderate foreboding.
+
+"I'm not one single bit nervous," said Felicity complacently.
+
+"I'm not nervous this time," said the Story Girl, "but the first time I
+recited I was."
+
+"My Aunt Jane," remarked Peter, "used to say that an old teacher of hers
+told her that when she was going to recite or speak in public she must
+just get it firmly into her mind that it was only a lot of cabbage heads
+she had before her, and she wouldn't be nervous."
+
+"One mightn't be nervous, but I don't think there would be much
+inspiration in reciting to cabbage heads," said the Story Girl
+decidedly. "I want to recite to PEOPLE, and see them looking interested
+and thrilled."
+
+"If I can only get through my piece without breaking down I don't care
+whether I thrill people or not," said Sara Ray.
+
+"I'm afraid I'll forget mine and get stuck," foreboded Felix. "Some of
+you fellows be sure and prompt me if I do--and do it quick, so's I won't
+get worse rattled."
+
+"I know one thing," said Cecily resolutely, "and that is, I'm going
+to curl my hair for to-morrow night. I've never curled it since Peter
+almost died, but I simply must tomorrow night, for all the other girls
+are going to have theirs in curls."
+
+"The dew and heat will take all the curl out of yours and then you'll
+look like a scarecrow," warned Felicity.
+
+"No, I won't. I'm going to put my hair up in paper tonight and wet it
+with a curling-fluid that Judy Pineau uses. Sara brought me up a bottle
+of it. Judy says it is great stuff--your hair will keep in curl for
+days, no matter how damp the weather is. I'll leave my hair in the
+papers till tomorrow evening, and then I'll have beautiful curls."
+
+"You'd better leave your hair alone," said Dan gruffly. "Smooth hair is
+better than a lot of fly-away curls."
+
+But Cecily was not to be persuaded. Curls she craved and curls she meant
+to have.
+
+"I'm thankful my warts have all gone, any-way," said Sara Ray.
+
+"So they have," exclaimed Felicity. "Did you try Peg's recipe?"
+
+"Yes. I didn't believe in it but I tried it. For the first few days
+afterwards I kept watching my warts, but they didn't go away, and then
+I gave up and forgot them. But one day last week I just happened to look
+at my hands and there wasn't a wart to be seen. It was the most amazing
+thing."
+
+"And yet you'll say Peg Bowen isn't a witch," said Peter.
+
+"Pshaw, it was just the potato juice," scoffed Dan.
+
+"It was a dry old potato I had, and there wasn't much juice in it,"
+said Sara Ray. "One hardly knows what to believe. But one thing is
+certain--my warts are gone."
+
+Cecily put her hair up in curl-papers that night, thoroughly soaked in
+Judy Pineau's curling-fluid. It was a nasty job, for the fluid was very
+sticky, but Cecily persevered and got it done. Then she went to bed with
+a towel tied over her head to protect the pillow. She did not sleep
+well and had uncanny dreams, but she came down to breakfast with an
+expression of triumph. The Story Girl examined her head critically and
+said,
+
+"Cecily, if I were you I'd take those papers out this morning."
+
+"Oh, no; if I do my hair will be straight again by night. I mean to
+leave them in till the last minute."
+
+"I wouldn't do that--I really wouldn't," persisted the Story Girl. "If
+you do your hair will be too curly and all bushy and fuzzy."
+
+Cecily finally yielded and went upstairs with the Story Girl. Presently
+we heard a little shriek--then two little shrieks--then three. Then
+Felicity came flying down and called her mother. Aunt Janet went up and
+presently came down again with a grim mouth. She filled a large pan with
+warm water and carried it upstairs. We dared ask her no questions, but
+when Felicity came down to wash the dishes we bombarded her.
+
+"What on earth is the matter with Cecily?" demanded Dan. "Is she sick?"
+
+"No, she isn't. I warned her not to put her hair in curls but she
+wouldn't listen to me. I guess she wishes she had now. When people
+haven't natural curly hair they shouldn't try to make it curly. They get
+punished if they do."
+
+"Look here, Felicity, never mind all that. Just tell us what has
+happened Sis."
+
+"Well, this is what has happened her. That ninny of a Sara Ray brought
+up a bottle of mucilage instead of Judy's curling-fluid, and Cecily put
+her hair up with THAT. It's in an awful state."
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Dan. "Look here, will she ever get it out?"
+
+"Goodness knows. She's got her head in soak now. Her hair is just matted
+together hard as a board. That's what comes of vanity," said Felicity,
+than whom no vainer girl existed.
+
+Poor Cecily paid dearly enough for HER vanity. She spent a bad forenoon,
+made no easier by her mother's severe rebukes. For an hour she "soaked"
+her head; that is, she stood over a panful of warm water and kept
+dipping her head in with tightly shut eyes. Finally her hair softened
+sufficiently to be disentangled from the curl papers; and then Aunt
+Janet subjected it to a merciless shampoo. Eventually they got all the
+mucilage washed out of it and Cecily spent the remainder of the forenoon
+sitting before the open oven door in the hot kitchen drying her ill-used
+tresses. She felt very down-hearted; her hair was of that order which,
+glossy and smooth normally, is dry and harsh and lustreless for several
+days after being shampooed.
+
+"I'll look like a fright tonight," said the poor child to me with
+trembling voice. "The ends will be sticking out all over my head."
+
+"Sara Ray is a perfect idiot," I said wrathfully
+
+"Oh, don't be hard on poor Sara. She didn't mean to bring me mucilage.
+It's really all my own fault, I know. I made a solemn vow when Peter was
+dying that I would never curl my hair again, and I should have kept it.
+It isn't right to break solemn vows. But my hair will look like dried
+hay tonight."
+
+Poor Sara Ray was quite overwhelmed when she came up and found what
+she had done. Felicity was very hard on her, and Aunt Janet was coldly
+disapproving, but sweet Cecily forgave her unreservedly, and they walked
+to the school that night with their arms about each other's waists as
+usual.
+
+The school-room was crowded with friends and neighbours. Mr. Perkins was
+flying about, getting things into readiness, and Miss Reade, who was
+the organist of the evening, was sitting on the platform, looking her
+sweetest and prettiest. She wore a delightful white lace hat with a
+fetching little wreath of tiny forget-me-nots around the brim, a white
+muslin dress with sprays of blue violets scattered over it, and a black
+lace scarf.
+
+"Doesn't she look angelic?" said Cecily rapturously.
+
+"Mind you," said Sara Ray, "the Awkward Man is here--in the corner
+behind the door. I never remember seeing him at a concert before."
+
+"I suppose he came to hear the Story Girl recite," said Felicity. "He is
+such a friend of hers."
+
+The concert went off very well. Dialogues, choruses and recitations
+followed each other in rapid succession. Felix got through his without
+"getting stuck," and Peter did excellently, though he stuffed his hands
+in his trousers pockets--a habit of which Mr. Perkins had vainly tried
+to break him. Peter's recitation was one greatly in vogue at that time,
+beginning,
+
+
+     "My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
+      My father feeds his flocks."
+
+
+At our first practice Peter had started gaily in, rushing through the
+first line with no thought whatever of punctuation--"My name is Norval
+on the Grampian Hills."
+
+"Stop, stop, Peter," quoth Mr. Perkins, sarcastically, "your name might
+be Norval if you were never on the Grampian Hills. There's a semi-colon
+in that line, I wish you to remember."
+
+Peter did remember it. Cecily neither fainted nor failed when it came
+her turn. She recited her little piece very well, though somewhat
+mechanically. I think she really did much better than if she had had her
+desired curls. The miserable conviction that her hair, alone among
+that glossy-tressed bevy, was looking badly, quite blotted out all
+nervousness and self-consciousness from her mind. Her hair apart, she
+looked very pretty. The prevailing excitement had made bright her eye
+and flushed her cheeks rosily--too rosily, perhaps. I heard a Carlisle
+woman behind me whisper that Cecily King looked consumptive, just like
+her Aunt Felicity; and I hated her fiercely for it.
+
+Sara Ray also managed to get through respectably, although she was
+pitiably nervous. Her bow was naught but a short nod--"as if her head
+worked on wires," whispered Felicity uncharitably--and the wave of her
+lily-white hand more nearly resembled an agonized jerk than a wave. We
+all felt relieved when she finished. She was, in a sense, one of "our
+crowd," and we had been afraid she would disgrace us by breaking down.
+
+Felicity followed her and recited her selection without haste, without
+rest, and absolutely without any expression whatever. But what mattered
+it how she recited? To look at her was sufficient. What with her
+splendid fleece of golden curls, her great, brilliant blue eyes, her
+exquisitely tinted face, her dimpled hands and arms, every member of the
+audience must have felt it was worth the ten cents he had paid merely to
+see her.
+
+The Story Girl followed. An expectant silence fell over the room, and
+Mr. Perkins' face lost the look of tense anxiety it had worn all the
+evening. Here was a performer who could be depended on. No need to
+fear stage fright or forgetfulness on her part. The Story Girl was not
+looking her best that night. White never became her, and her face
+was pale, though her eyes were splendid. But nobody thought about her
+appearance when the power and magic of her voice caught and held her
+listeners spellbound.
+
+Her recitation was an old one, figuring in one of the School Readers,
+and we scholars all knew it off by heart. Sara Ray alone had not heard
+the Story Girl recite it. The latter had not been drilled at practices
+as had the other pupils, Mr. Perkins choosing not to waste time teaching
+her what she already knew far better than he did. The only time she had
+recited it had been at the "dress rehearsal" two nights before, at which
+Sara Ray had not been present.
+
+In the poem a Florentine lady of old time, wedded to a cold and cruel
+husband, had died, or was supposed to have died, and had been carried to
+"the rich, the beautiful, the dreadful tomb" of her proud family. In
+the night she wakened from her trance and made her escape. Chilled and
+terrified, she had made her way to her husband's door, only to be driven
+away brutally as a restless ghost by the horror-stricken inmates. A
+similar reception awaited her at her father's. Then she had wandered
+blindly through the streets of Florence until she had fallen exhausted
+at the door of the lover of her girlhood. He, unafraid, had taken her
+in and cared for her. On the morrow, the husband and father, having
+discovered the empty tomb, came to claim her. She refused to return to
+them and the case was carried to the court of law. The verdict given was
+that a woman who had been "to burial borne" and left for dead, who had
+been driven from her husband's door and from her childhood home, "must
+be adjudged as dead in law and fact," was no more daughter or wife, but
+was set free to form what new ties she would. The climax of the whole
+selection came in the line,
+
+"The court pronounces the defendant--DEAD!" and the Story Girl was wont
+to render it with such dramatic intensity and power that the veriest
+dullard among her listeners could not have missed its force and
+significance.
+
+She swept along through the poem royally, playing on the emotions of her
+audience as she had so often played on ours in the old orchard. Pity,
+terror, indignation, suspense, possessed her hearers in turn. In
+the court scene she surpassed herself. She was, in very truth, the
+Florentine judge, stern, stately, impassive. Her voice dropped into the
+solemnity of the all-important line,
+
+"'The court pronounces the defendant--'"
+
+She paused for a breathless moment, the better to bring out the tragic
+import of the last word.
+
+"DEAD," piped up Sara Ray in her shrill, plaintive little voice.
+
+The effect, to use a hackneyed but convenient phrase, can better be
+imagined than described. Instead of the sigh of relieved tension that
+should have swept over the audience at the conclusion of the line,
+a burst of laughter greeted it. The Story Girl's performance was
+completely spoiled. She dealt the luckless Sara a glance that would have
+slain her on the spot could glances kill, stumbled lamely and impotently
+through the few remaining lines of her recitation, and fled with crimson
+cheeks to hide her mortification in the little corner that had been
+curtained off for a dressing-room. Mr. Perkins looked things not lawful
+to be uttered, and the audience tittered at intervals for the rest of
+the performance.
+
+Sara Ray alone remained serenely satisfied until the close of the
+concert, when we surrounded her with a whirlwind of reproaches.
+
+"Why," she stammered aghast, "what did I do? I--I thought she was stuck
+and that I ought to prompt her quick."
+
+"You little fool, she just paused for effect," cried Felicity angrily.
+Felicity might be rather jealous of the Story Girl's gift, but she
+was furious at beholding "one of our family" made ridiculous in such a
+fashion. "You have less sense than anyone I ever heard of, Sara Ray."
+
+Poor Sara dissolved in tears.
+
+"I didn't know. I thought she was stuck," she wailed again.
+
+She cried all the way home, but we did not try to comfort her. We felt
+quite out of patience with her. Even Cecily was seriously annoyed. This
+second blunder of Sara's was too much even for her loyalty. We saw her
+turn in at her own gate and go sobbing up her lane with no relenting.
+
+The Story Girl was home before us, having fled from the schoolhouse as
+soon as the programme was over. We tried to sympathize with her but she
+would not be sympathized with.
+
+"Please don't ever mention it to me again," she said, with compressed
+lips. "I never want to be reminded of it. Oh, that little IDIOT!"
+
+"She spoiled Peter's sermon last summer and now she's spoiled your
+recitation," said Felicity. "I think it's time we gave up associating
+with Sara Ray."
+
+"Oh, don't be quite so hard on her," pleaded Cecily. "Think of the life
+the poor child has to live at home. I know she'll cry all night."
+
+"Oh, let's go to bed," growled Dan. "I'm good and ready for it. I've had
+enough of school concerts."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. BY WAY OF THE STARS
+
+
+But for two of us the adventures of the night were not yet over. Silence
+settled down over the old house--the eerie, whisperful, creeping silence
+of night. Felix and Dan were already sound asleep; I was drifting near
+the coast o' dreams when I was aroused by a light tap on the door.
+
+"Bev, are you asleep?" came in the Story Girl's whisper.
+
+"No, what is it?"
+
+"S-s-h. Get up and dress and come out. I want you."
+
+With a good deal of curiosity and some misgiving I obeyed. What was in
+the wind now? Outside in the hall I found the Story Girl, with a candle
+in her hand, and her hat and jacket.
+
+"Where are you going?" I whispered in amazement.
+
+"Hush. I've got to go to the school and you must come with me. I left my
+coral necklace there. The clasp came loose and I was so afraid I'd lose
+it that I took it off and put it in the bookcase. I was feeling so upset
+when the concert was over that I forgot all about it."
+
+The coral necklace was a very handsome one which had belonged to the
+Story Girl's mother. She had never been permitted to wear it before, and
+it had only been by dint of much coaxing that she had induced Aunt Janet
+to let her wear it to the concert.
+
+"But there's no sense in going for it in the dead of night," I objected.
+"It will be quite safe. You can go for it in the morning."
+
+"Lizzie Paxton and her daughter are going to clean the school tomorrow,
+and I heard Lizzie say tonight she meant to be at it by five o'clock to
+get through before the heat of the day. You know perfectly well what
+Liz Paxton's reputation is. If she finds that necklace I'll never see it
+again. Besides, if I wait till the morning, Aunt Janet may find out that
+I left it there and she'd never let me wear it again. No, I'm going for
+it now. If you're afraid," added the Story Girl with delicate scorn, "of
+course you needn't come."
+
+Afraid! I'd show her!
+
+"Come on," I said.
+
+We slipped out of the house noiselessly and found ourselves in the
+unutterable solemnity and strangeness of a dark night. It was a new
+experience, and our hearts thrilled and our nerves tingled to the charm
+of it. Never had we been abroad before at such an hour. The world around
+us was not the world of daylight. 'Twas an alien place, full of weird,
+evasive enchantment and magicry.
+
+Only in the country can one become truly acquainted with the night.
+There it has the solemn calm of the infinite. The dim wide fields lie in
+silence, wrapped in the holy mystery of darkness. A wind, loosened from
+wild places far away, steals out to blow over dewy, star-lit, immemorial
+hills. The air in the pastures is sweet with the hush of dreams, and one
+may rest here like a child on its mother's breast.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful?" breathed the Story Girl as we went down the long
+hill. "Do you know, I can forgive Sara Ray now. I thought tonight I
+never could--but now it doesn't matter any more. I can even see how
+funny it was. Oh, wasn't it funny? 'DEAD' in that squeaky little voice
+of Sara's! I'll just behave to her tomorrow as if nothing had happened.
+It seems so long ago now, here in the night."
+
+Neither of us ever forgot the subtle delight of that stolen walk. A
+spell of glamour was over us. The breezes whispered strange secrets of
+elf-haunted glens, and the hollows where the ferns grew were brimmed
+with mystery and romance. Ghostlike scents crept out of the meadows
+to meet us, and the fir wood before we came to the church was a living
+sweetness of Junebells growing in abundance.
+
+Junebells have another and more scientific name, of course. But who
+could desire a better name than Junebells? They are so perfect in their
+way that they seem to epitomize the very scent and charm of the forest,
+as if the old wood's daintiest thoughts had materialized in blossom;
+and not all the roses by Bendameer's stream are as fragrant as a shallow
+sheet of Junebells under the boughs of fir.
+
+There were fireflies abroad that night, too, increasing the gramarye of
+it. There is certainly something a little supernatural about fireflies.
+Nobody pretends to understand them. They are akin to the tribes of
+fairy, survivals of the elder time when the woods and hills swarmed with
+the little green folk. It is still very easy to believe in fairies when
+you see those goblin lanterns glimmering among the fir tassels.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" said the Story Girl in rapture. "I wouldn't have
+missed it for anything. I'm glad I left my necklace. And I am glad you
+are with me, Bev. The others wouldn't understand so well. I like you
+because I don't have to talk to you all the time. It's so nice to walk
+with someone you don't have to talk to. Here is the graveyard. Are you
+frightened to pass it, Bev?"
+
+"No, I don't think I'm frightened," I answered slowly, "but I have a
+queer feeling."
+
+"So have I. But it isn't fear. I don't know what it is. I feel as if
+something was reaching out of the graveyard to hold me--something that
+wanted life--I don't like it--let's hurry. But isn't it strange to think
+of all the dead people in there who were once alive like you and me. I
+don't feel as if I could EVER die. Do you?"
+
+"No, but everybody must. Of course we go on living afterwards, just the
+same. Don't let's talk of such things here," I said hurriedly.
+
+When we reached the school I contrived to open a window. We scrambled
+in, lighted a lamp and found the missing necklace. The Story Girl stood
+on the platform and gave an imitation of the catastrophe of the evening
+that made me shout with laughter. We prowled around for sheer delight
+over being there at an unearthly hour when everybody supposed we were
+sound asleep in our beds. It was with regret that we left, and we walked
+home as slowly as we could to prolong the adventure.
+
+"Let's never tell anyone," said the Story Girl, as we reached home.
+"Let's just have it as a secret between us for ever and ever--something
+that nobody else knows a thing about but you and me."
+
+"We'd better keep it a secret from Aunt Janet anyhow," I whispered,
+laughing. "She'd think we were both crazy."
+
+"It's real jolly to be crazy once in a while," said the Story Girl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. EXTRACTS FROM "OUR MAGAZINE"
+
+
+EDITORIAL
+
+As will be seen there is no Honour Roll in this number. Even Felicity
+has thought all the beautiful thoughts that can be thought and
+cannot think any more. Peter has never got drunk but, under existing
+circumstances, that is not greatly to his credit. As for our written
+resolutions they have silently disappeared from our chamber walls and
+the place that once knew them knows them no more for ever. (PETER,
+PERPLEXEDLY: "Seems to me I've heard something like that before.") It is
+very sad but we will all make some new resolutions next year and maybe
+it will be easier to keep those.
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE LOCKET THAT WAS BAKED
+
+This was a story my Aunt Jane told me about her granma when she was a
+little girl. Its funny to think of baking a locket, but it wasn't to
+eat. She was my great granma but Ill call her granma for short. It
+happened when she was ten years old. Of course she wasent anybodys
+granma then. Her father and mother and her were living in a new
+settlement called Brinsley. Their nearest naybor was a mile away. One
+day her Aunt Hannah from Charlottetown came and wanted her ma to go
+visiting with her. At first granma's ma thought she couldent go because
+it was baking day and granma's pa was away. But granma wasent afraid to
+stay alone and she knew how to bake the bread so she made her ma go
+and her Aunt Hannah took off the handsome gold locket and chain she was
+waring round her neck and hung it on granmas and told her she could ware
+it all day. Granma was awful pleased for she had never had any jewelry.
+She did all the chores and then was needing the loaves when she looked
+up and saw a tramp coming in and he was an awful villenus looking tramp.
+He dident even pass the time of day but just set down on a chair. Poor
+granma was awful fritened and she turned her back on him and went on
+needing the loaf cold and trembling--that is, granma was trembling not
+the loaf. She was worried about the locket. She didn't know how she
+could hide it for to get anywhere she would have to turn round and pass
+him.
+
+All of a suddent she thought she would hide it in the bread. She put her
+hand up and pulled it hard and quick and broke the fastening and needed
+it right into the loaf. Then she put the loaf in the pan and set it in
+the oven.
+
+The tramp hadent seen her do it and then he asked for something to eat.
+Granma got him up a meal and when hed et it he began prowling about the
+kitchen looking into everything and opening the cubbord doors. Then he
+went into granma's mas room and turned the buro drawers and trunk inside
+out and threw the things in them all about. All he found was a purse
+with a dollar in it and he swore about it and took it and went away.
+When granma was sure he was really gone she broke down and cried. She
+forgot all about the bread and it burned as black as coal. When she
+smelled it burning granma run and pulled it out. She was awful scared
+the locket was spoiled but she sawed open the loaf and it was there safe
+and sound. When her Aunt Hannah came back she said granma deserved the
+locket because she had saved it so clever and she gave it to her and
+grandma always wore it and was very proud of it. And granma used to say
+that was the only loaf of bread she ever spoiled in her life.
+
+                                       PETER CRAIG.
+
+
+(FELICITY: "Those stories are all very well but they are only true
+stories. It's easy enough to write true stories. I thought Peter was
+appointed fiction editor, but he has never written any fiction since the
+paper started. That's not MY idea of a fiction editor. He ought to make
+up stories out of his own head." PETER, SPUNKILY: "I can do it, too,
+and I will next time. And it ain't easier to write true stories. It's
+harder, 'cause you have to stick to facts." FELICITY: "I don't believe
+you could make up a story." PETER: "I'll show you!")
+
+
+MY MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE
+
+It's my turn to write it but I'm SO NERVOUS. My worst adventure happened
+TWO YEARS AGO. It was an awful one. I had a striped ribbon, striped
+brown and yellow and I LOST IT. I was very sorry for it was a handsome
+ribbon and all the girls in school were jealous of it. (FELICITY: "I
+wasn't. I didn't think it one bit pretty." CECILY: "Hush!") I hunted
+everywhere but I couldn't find it. Next day was Sunday and I was running
+into the house by the front door and I saw SOMETHING LYING ON THE STEP
+and I thought it was my ribbon and I made a grab at it as I passed. But,
+oh, it was A SNAKE! Oh, I can never describe how I felt when I felt that
+awful thing WRIGGLING IN MY HAND. I let it go and SCREAMED AND SCREAMED,
+and ma was cross at me for yelling on Sunday and made me read seven
+chapters in the Bible but I didn't mind that much after what I had come
+through. I would rather DIE than have SUCH AN EXPERIENCE again.
+
+                                         SARA RAY.
+
+
+         TO FELICITY ON HER BERTHDAY
+
+         Oh maiden fair with golden hair
+         And brow of purest white,
+         Id fight for you I'd die for you
+         Let me be your faithful knite.
+
+         This is your berthday blessed day
+         You are thirteen years old today
+         May you be happy and fair as you are now
+         Until your hair is gray.
+
+         I gaze into your shining eyes,
+         They are so blue and bright.
+         Id fight for you Id die for you
+         Let me be your faithful knite.
+
+                                     A FRIEND.
+
+
+(DAN: "Great snakes, who got that up? I'll bet it was Peter." FELICITY,
+WITH DIGNITY: "Well, it's more than YOU could do. YOU couldn't write
+poetry to save your life." PETER, ASIDE TO BEVERLEY: "She seems quite
+pleased. I'm glad I wrote it, but it was awful hard work.")
+
+
+PERSONALS
+
+Patrick Grayfur, Esq., caused his friends great anxiety recently by a
+prolonged absence from home. When found he was very thin but is now as
+fat and conceited as ever.
+
+On Wednesday, June 20th, Miss Olivia King was united in the bonds of
+holy matrimony to Dr. Robert Seton of Halifax. Miss Sara Stanley was
+bridesmaid, and Mr. Andrew Seton attended the groom. The young couple
+received many handsome presents. Rev. Mr. Marwood tied the nuptial knot.
+After the ceremony a substantial repast was served in Mrs. Alex King's
+well-known style and the happy couple left for their new home in
+Nova Scotia. Their many friends join in wishing them a very happy and
+prosperous journey through life.
+
+
+        A precious one from us is gone,
+        A voice we loved is stilled.
+        A place is vacant in our home
+        That never can be filled.
+
+
+(THE STORY GIRL: "Goodness, that sounds as if somebody had died. I've
+seen that verse on a tombstone. WHO wrote that notice?" FELICITY,
+WHO WROTE IT: "I think it is just as appropriate to a wedding as to a
+funeral!")
+
+Our school concert came off on the evening of June 29th and was a great
+success. We made ten dollars for the library.
+
+We regret to chronicle that Miss Sara Ray met with a misfortune while
+taking some violent exercise with a wasps' nest recently. The moral is
+that it is better not to monkey with a wasps' nest, new or old.
+
+Mrs. C. B. Hawkins of Baywater is keeping house for Uncle Roger. She
+is a very large woman. Uncle Roger says he has to spend too much time
+walking round her, but otherwise she is an excellent housekeeper.
+
+It is reported that the school is haunted. A mysterious light was seen
+there at two o'clock one night recently.
+
+(THE STORY GIRL AND I EXCHANGE KNOWING SMILES BEHIND THE OTHERS' BACKS.)
+
+Dan and Felicity had a fight last Tuesday--not with fists but with
+tongues. Dan came off best--as usual. (FELICITY LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY.)
+
+Mr. Newton Craig of Markdale returned home recently after a somewhat
+prolonged visit in foreign parts. We are glad to welcome Mr. Craig back
+to our midst.
+
+Billy Robinson was hurt last week. A cow kicked him. I suppose it is
+wicked of us to feel glad but we all do feel glad because of the way he
+cheated us with the magic seed last summer.
+
+On April 1st Uncle Roger sent Mr. Peter Craig to the manse to borrow the
+biography of Adam's grandfather. Mr. Marwood told Peter he didn't think
+Adam had any grandfather and advised him to go home and look at the
+almanac. (PETER, SOURLY: "Your Uncle Roger thought he was pretty smart."
+FELICITY, SEVERELY: "Uncle Roger IS smart. It was so easy to fool you.")
+
+A pair of blue birds have built a nest in a hole in the sides of the
+well, just under the ferns. We can see the eggs when we look down. They
+are so cunning.
+
+Felix sat down on a tack one day in May. Felix thinks house-cleaning is
+great foolishness.
+
+
+ADS.
+
+LOST--STOLEN--OR STRAYED--A HEART. Finder will be rewarded by returning
+same to Cyrus E. Brisk, Desk 7, Carlisle School.
+
+LOST OR STOLEN. A piece of brown hair about three inches long and one
+inch thick. Finder will kindly return to Miss Cecily King, Desk 15,
+Carlisle School.
+
+(CECILY: "Cyrus keeps my hair in his Bible for a bookmark, so Flossie
+tells me. He says he means to keep it always for a remembrance though
+he has given up hope." DAN: "I'll steal it out of his Bible in Sunday
+School." CECILY, BLUSHING: "Oh, let him keep it if it is any comfort to
+him. Besides, it isn't right to steal." DAN: "He stole it." CECILY: "But
+Mr. Marwood says two wrongs never make a right.")
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENT
+
+Aunt Olivia's wedding cake was said to be the best one of its kind ever
+tasted in Carlisle. Me and mother made it.
+
+ANXIOUS INQUIRER:--It is not advisable to curl your hair with mucilage
+if you can get anything else. Quince juice is better. (CECILY, BITTERLY:
+"I suppose I'll never hear the last of that mucilage." DAN: "Ask her who
+used tooth-powder to raise biscuits?")
+
+We had rhubarb pies for the first time this spring last week. They were
+fine but hard on the cream.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+ETIQUETTE DEPARTMENT
+
+PATIENT SUFFERER:--What will I do when a young man steals a lock of my
+hair? Ans.:--Grow some more.
+
+No, F-l-x, a little caterpillar is not called a kittenpillar. (FELIX,
+ENRAGED: "I never asked that! Dan just makes that etiquette column
+up from beginning to end!" FELICITY: "I don't see what that kind of a
+question has to do with etiquette anyhow.")
+
+Yes, P-t-r, it is quite proper to treat a lady friend to ice cream twice
+if you can afford it.
+
+No, F-l-c-t-y, it is not ladylike to chew tobacco. Better stick to
+spruce gum.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+FASHION NOTES
+
+Frilled muslin aprons will be much worn this summer. It is no longer
+fashionable to trim them with knitted lace. One pocket is considered
+smart.
+
+Clam-shells are fashionable keepsakes. You write your name and the date
+inside one and your friend writes hers in the other and you exchange.
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+FUNNY PARAGRAPHS
+
+MR. PERKINS:--"Peter, name the large islands of the world."
+
+PETER:--"The Island, the British Isles and Australia." (PETER,
+DEFIANTLY: "Well, Mr. Perkins said he guessed I was right, so you
+needn't laugh.")
+
+This is a true joke and really happened. It's about Mr. Samuel Clask
+again. He was once leading a prayer meeting and he looked through the
+window and saw the constable driving up and guessed he was after him
+because he was always in debt. So in a great hurry he called on Brother
+Casey to lead in prayer and while Brother Casey was praying with his
+eyes shut and everybody else had their heads bowed Mr. Clask got out of
+the window and got away before the constable got in because he didn't
+like to come in till the prayer was finished.
+
+Uncle Roger says it was a smart trick on Mr. Clask's part, but I don't
+think there was much religion about it.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. PEG BOWEN COMES TO CHURCH
+
+
+When those of us who are still left of that band of children who played
+long years ago in the old orchard and walked the golden road together
+in joyous companionship, foregather now and again in our busy lives and
+talk over the events of those many merry moons--there are some of our
+adventures that gleam out more vividly in memory than the others, and
+are oftener discussed. The time we bought God's picture from Jerry
+Cowan--the time Dan ate the poison berries--the time we heard the
+ghostly bell ring--the bewitchment of Paddy--the visit of the Governor's
+wife--and the night we were lost in the storm--all awaken reminiscent
+jest and laughter; but none more than the recollection of the Sunday
+Peg Bowen came to church and sat in our pew. Though goodness knows, as
+Felicity would say, we did not think it any matter for laughter at the
+time--far from it.
+
+It was one Sunday evening in July. Uncle Alec and Aunt Janet, having
+been out to the morning service, did not attend in the evening, and we
+small fry walked together down the long hill road, wearing Sunday attire
+and trying, more or less successfully, to wear Sunday faces also. Those
+walks to church, through the golden completeness of the summer evenings,
+were always very pleasant to us, and we never hurried, though, on the
+other hand, we were very careful not to be late.
+
+This particular evening was particularly beautiful. It was cool after a
+hot day, and wheat fields all about us were ripening to their harvestry.
+The wind gossiped with the grasses along our way, and over them the
+buttercups danced, goldenly-glad. Waves of sinuous shadow went over the
+ripe hayfields, and plundering bees sang a freebooting lilt in wayside
+gardens.
+
+"The world is so lovely tonight," said the Story Girl. "I just hate the
+thought of going into the church and shutting all the sunlight and music
+outside. I wish we could have the service outside in summer."
+
+"I don't think that would be very religious," said Felicity.
+
+"I'd feel ever so much more religious outside than in," retorted the
+Story Girl.
+
+"If the service was outside we'd have to sit in the graveyard and that
+wouldn't be very cheerful," said Felix.
+
+"Besides, the music isn't shut out," added Felicity. "The choir is
+inside."
+
+"'Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,'" quoted Peter, who was
+getting into the habit of adorning his conversation with similar gems.
+"That's in one of Shakespeare's plays. I'm reading them now, since I got
+through with the Bible. They're great."
+
+"I don't see when you get time to read them," said Felicity.
+
+"Oh, I read them Sunday afternoons when I'm home."
+
+"I don't believe they're fit to read on Sundays," exclaimed Felicity.
+"Mother says Valeria Montague's stories ain't."
+
+"But Shakespeare's different from Valeria," protested Peter.
+
+"I don't see in what way. He wrote a lot of things that weren't true,
+just like Valeria, and he wrote swear words too. Valeria never does
+that. Her characters all talk in a very refined fashion."
+
+"Well, I always skip the swear words," said Peter. "And Mr. Marwood said
+once that the Bible and Shakespeare would furnish any library well. So
+you see he put them together, but I'm sure that he would never say that
+the Bible and Valeria would make a library."
+
+"Well, all I know is, I shall never read Shakespeare on Sunday," said
+Felicity loftily.
+
+"I wonder what kind of a preacher young Mr. Davidson is," speculated
+Cecily.
+
+"Well, we'll know when we hear him tonight," said the Story Girl. "He
+ought to be good, for his uncle before him was a fine preacher, though a
+very absent-minded man. But Uncle Roger says the supply in Mr. Marwood's
+vacation never amounts to much. I know an awfully funny story about old
+Mr. Davidson. He used to be the minister in Baywater, you know, and he
+had a large family and his children were very mischievous. One day his
+wife was ironing and she ironed a great big nightcap with a frill round
+it. One of the children took it when she wasn't looking and hid it
+in his father's best beaver hat--the one he wore on Sundays. When Mr.
+Davidson went to church next Sunday he put the hat on without ever
+looking into the crown. He walked to church in a brown study and at the
+door he took off his hat. The nightcap just slipped down on his head, as
+if it had been put on, and the frill stood out around his face and the
+string hung down his back. But he never noticed it, because his thoughts
+were far away, and he walked up the church aisle and into the pulpit,
+like that. One of his elders had to tiptoe up and tell him what he
+had on his head. He plucked it off in a dazed fashion, held it up, and
+looked at it. 'Bless me, it is Sally's nightcap!' he exclaimed mildly.
+'I do not know how I could have got it on.' Then he just stuffed it into
+his pocket calmly and went on with the service, and the long strings of
+the nightcap hung down out of his pocket all the time."
+
+"It seems to me," said Peter, amid the laughter with which we greeted
+the tale, "that a funny story is funnier when it is about a minister
+than it is about any other man. I wonder why."
+
+"Sometimes I don't think it is right to tell funny stories about
+ministers," said Felicity. "It certainly isn't respectful."
+
+"A good story is a good story--no matter who it's about," said the Story
+Girl with ungrammatical relish.
+
+There was as yet no one in the church when we reached it, so we took our
+accustomed ramble through the graveyard surrounding it. The Story Girl
+had brought flowers for her mother's grave as usual, and while she
+arranged them on it the rest of us read for the hundredth time the
+epitaph on Great-Grandfather King's tombstone, which had been composed
+by Great-Grandmother King. That epitaph was quite famous among the
+little family traditions that entwine every household with mingled mirth
+and sorrow, smiles and tears. It had a perennial fascination for us
+and we read it over every Sunday. Cut deeply in the upright slab of red
+Island sandstone, the epitaph ran as follows:--
+
+
+SWEET DEPARTED SPIRIT
+
+     Do receive the vows a grateful widow pays,
+     Each future day and night shall hear her speak her Isaac's praise.
+     Though thy beloved form must in the grave decay
+     Yet from her heart thy memory no time, no change shall steal away.
+     Do thou from mansions of eternal bliss
+     Remember thy distressed relict.
+     Look on her with an angel's love--
+     Soothe her sad life and cheer her end
+     Through this world's dangers and its griefs.
+     Then meet her with thy well-known smiles and welcome
+     At the last great day.
+
+
+"Well, I can't make out what the old lady was driving at," said Dan.
+
+"That's a nice way to speak of your great-grandmother," said Felicity
+severely.
+
+"How does The Family Guide say you ought to speak of your great-grandma,
+sweet one?" asked Dan.
+
+"There is one thing about it that puzzles me," remarked Cecily. "She
+calls herself a GRATEFUL widow. Now, what was she grateful for?"
+
+"Because she was rid of him at last," said graceless Dan.
+
+"Oh, it couldn't have been that," protested Cecily seriously. "I've
+always heard that Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother were very much
+attached to each other."
+
+"Maybe, then, it means she was grateful that she'd had him as long as
+she did," suggested Peter.
+
+"She was grateful to him because he had been so kind to her in life, I
+think," said Felicity.
+
+"What is a 'distressed relict'?" asked Felix.
+
+"'Relict' is a word I hate," said the Story Girl. "It sounds so much
+like relic. Relict means just the same as widow, only a man can be a
+relict, too."
+
+"Great-Grandmother seemed to run short of rhymes at the last of the
+epitaph," commented Dan.
+
+"Finding rhymes isn't as easy as you might think," avowed Peter, out of
+his own experience.
+
+"I think Grandmother King intended the last of the epitaph to be in
+blank verse," said Felicity with dignity.
+
+There was still only a sprinkling of people in the church when we went
+in and took our places in the old-fashioned, square King pew. We had
+just got comfortably settled when Felicity said in an agitated whisper,
+"Here is Peg Bowen!"
+
+We all stared at Peg, who was pacing composedly up the aisle. We might
+be excused for so doing, for seldom were the decorous aisles of Carlisle
+church invaded by such a figure. Peg was dressed in her usual short
+drugget skirt, rather worn and frayed around the bottom, and a waist
+of brilliant turkey red calico. She wore no hat, and her grizzled black
+hair streamed in elf locks over her shoulders. Face, arms and feet
+were bare--and face, arms and feet were liberally powdered with
+FLOUR. Certainly no one who saw Peg that night could ever forget the
+apparition.
+
+Peg's black eyes, in which shone a more than usually wild and fitful
+light, roved scrutinizingly over the church, then settled on our pew.
+
+"She's coming here," whispered Felicity in horror. "Can't we spread out
+and make her think the pew is full?"
+
+But the manoeuvre was too late. The only result was that Felicity and
+the Story Girl in moving over left a vacant space between them and Peg
+promptly plumped down in it.
+
+"Well, I'm here," she remarked aloud. "I did say once I'd never darken
+the door of Carlisle church again, but what that boy there"--nodding
+at Peter--"said last winter set me thinking, and I concluded maybe I'd
+better come once in a while, to be on the safe side."
+
+Those poor girls were in an agony. Everybody in the church was looking
+at our pew and smiling. We all felt that we were terribly disgraced; but
+we could do nothing. Peg was enjoying herself hugely, beyond all doubt.
+From where she sat she could see the whole church, including pulpit and
+gallery, and her black eyes darted over it with restless glances.
+
+"Bless me, there's Sam Kinnaird," she exclaimed, still aloud. "He's
+the man that dunned Jacob Marr for four cents on the church steps one
+Sunday. I heard him. 'I think, Jacob, you owe me four cents on that cow
+you bought last fall. Rec'llect you couldn't make the change?' Well, you
+know, 'twould a-made a cat laugh. The Kinnairds were all mighty close, I
+can tell you. That's how they got rich."
+
+What Sam Kinnaird felt or thought during this speech, which everyone in
+the church must have heard, I know not. Gossip had it that he changed
+colour. We wretched occupants of the King pew were concerned only with
+our own outraged feelings.
+
+"And there's Melita Ross," went on Peg. "She's got the same bonnet on
+she had last time I was in Carlisle church six years ago. Some folks has
+the knack of making things last. But look at the style Mrs. Elmer Brewer
+wears, will yez? Yez wouldn't think her mother died in the poor-house,
+would yez, now?"
+
+Poor Mrs. Brewer! From the tip of her smart kid shoes to the dainty
+cluster of ostrich tips in her bonnet--she was most immaculately and
+handsomely arrayed; but I venture to think she could have taken
+small pleasure in her fashionable attire that evening. Some of the
+unregenerate, including Dan, were shaking with suppressed laughter, but
+most of the people looked as if they were afraid to smile, lest their
+turn should come next.
+
+"There's old Stephen Grant coming in," exclaimed Peg viciously, shaking
+her floury fist at him, "and looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his
+mouth. He may be an elder, but he's a scoundrel just the same. He set
+fire to his house to get the insurance and then blamed ME for doing it.
+But I got even with him for it. Oh, yes! He knows that, and so do I! He,
+he!"
+
+Peg chuckled quite fiendishly and Stephen Grant tried to look as if
+nothing had been said.
+
+"Oh, will the minister never come?" moaned Felicity in my ear. "Surely
+she'll have to stop then."
+
+But the minister did not come and Peg had no intention of stopping.
+
+"There's Maria Dean." she resumed. "I haven't seen Maria for years.
+I never call there for she never seems to have anything to eat in the
+house. She was a Clayton and the Claytons never could cook. Maria
+sorter looks as if she'd shrunk in the wash, now, don't she? And there's
+Douglas Nicholson. His brother put rat poison in the family pancakes.
+Nice little trick that, wasn't it? They say it was by mistake. I hope it
+WAS a mistake. His wife is all rigged out in silk. Yez wouldn't think
+to look at her she was married in cotton--and mighty thankful to get
+married in anything, it's my opinion. There's Timothy Patterson. He's
+the meanest man alive--meaner'n Sam Kinnaird even. Timothy pays his
+children five cents apiece to go without their suppers, and then steals
+the cents out of their pockets after they've gone to bed. It's a fact.
+And when his old father died he wouldn't let his wife put his best shirt
+on him. He said his second best was plenty good to be buried in. That's
+another fact."
+
+"I can't stand much more of this," wailed Felicity.
+
+"See here, Miss Bowen, you really oughtn't to talk like that about
+people," expostulated Peter in a low tone, goaded thereto, despite his
+awe of Peg, by Felicity's anguish.
+
+"Bless you, boy," said Peg good-humouredly, "the only difference between
+me and other folks is that I say these things out loud and they just
+think them. If I told yez all the things I know about the people in this
+congregation you'd be amazed. Have a peppermint?"
+
+To our horror Peg produced a handful of peppermint lozenges from the
+pocket of her skirt and offered us one each. We did not dare refuse but
+we each held our lozenge very gingerly in our hands.
+
+"Eat them," commanded Peg rather fiercely.
+
+"Mother doesn't allow us to eat candy in church," faltered Felicity.
+
+"Well, I've seen just as fine ladies as your ma give their children
+lozenges in church," said Peg loftily. She put a peppermint in her own
+mouth and sucked it with gusto. We were relieved, for she did not talk
+during the process; but our relief was of short duration. A bevy of
+three very smartly dressed young ladies, sweeping past our pew, started
+Peg off again.
+
+"Yez needn't be so stuck up," she said, loudly and derisively. "Yez was
+all of yez rocked in a flour barrel. And there's old Henry Frewen, still
+above ground. I called my parrot after him because their noses were
+exactly alike. Look at Caroline Marr, will yez? That's a woman who'd
+like pretty well to get married, And there's Alexander Marr. He's a real
+Christian, anyhow, and so's his dog. I can always size up what a man's
+religion amounts to by the kind of dog he keeps. Alexander Marr is a
+good man."
+
+It was a relief to hear Peg speak well of somebody; but that was the
+only exception she made.
+
+"Look at Dave Fraser strutting in," she went on. "That man has thanked
+God so often that he isn't like other people that it's come to be true.
+He isn't! And there's Susan Frewen. She's jealous of everybody. She's
+even jealous of Old Man Rogers because he's buried in the best spot in
+the graveyard. Seth Erskine has the same look he was born with. They say
+the Lord made everybody but I believe the devil made all the Erskines."
+
+"She's getting worse all the time. What WILL she say next?" whispered
+poor Felicity.
+
+But her martyrdom was over at last. The minister appeared in the pulpit
+and Peg subsided into silence. She folded her bare, floury arms over her
+breast and fastened her black eyes on the young preacher. Her behaviour
+for the next half-hour was decorum itself, save that when the minister
+prayed that we might all be charitable in judgment Peg ejaculated "Amen"
+several times, loudly and forcibly, somewhat to the discomfiture of the
+Young man, to whom Peg was a stranger. He opened his eyes, glanced at
+our pew in a startled way, then collected himself and went on.
+
+Peg listened to the sermon, silently and motionlessly, until Mr.
+Davidson was half through. Then she suddenly got on her feet.
+
+"This is too dull for me," she exclaimed. "I want something more
+exciting."
+
+Mr. Davidson stopped short and Peg marched down the aisle in the midst
+of complete silence. Half way down the aisle she turned around and faced
+the minister.
+
+"There are so many hypocrites in this church that it isn't fit for
+decent people to come to," she said. "Rather than be such hypocrites as
+most of you are it would be better for you to go miles into the woods
+and commit suicide."
+
+Wheeling about, she strode to the door. Then she turned for a Parthian
+shot.
+
+"I've felt kind of worried for God sometimes, seeing He has so much to
+attend to," she said, "but I see I needn't be, so long's there's plenty
+of ministers to tell Him what to do."
+
+With that Peg shook the dust of Carlisle church from her feet. Poor Mr.
+Davidson resumed his discourse. Old Elder Bayley, whose attention
+an earthquake could not have distracted from the sermon, afterwards
+declared that it was an excellent and edifying exhortation, but I doubt
+if anyone else in Carlisle church tasted it much or gained much good
+therefrom. Certainly we of the King household did not. We could not even
+remember the text when we reached home. Felicity was comfortless.
+
+"Mr. Davidson would be sure to think she belonged to our family when she
+was in our pew," she said bitterly. "Oh, I feel as if I could never
+get over such a mortification! Peter, I do wish you wouldn't go telling
+people they ought to go to church. It's all your fault that this
+happened."
+
+"Never mind, it will be a good story to tell sometime," remarked the
+Story Girl with relish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE YANKEE STORM
+
+
+In an August orchard six children and a grown-up were sitting around the
+pulpit stone. The grown-up was Miss Reade, who had been up to give the
+girls their music lesson and had consented to stay to tea, much to the
+rapture of the said girls, who continued to worship her with unabated
+and romantic ardour. To us, over the golden grasses, came the Story
+Girl, carrying in her hand a single large poppy, like a blood-red
+chalice filled with the wine of August wizardry. She proffered it to
+Miss Reade and, as the latter took it into her singularly slender,
+beautiful hand, I saw a ring on her third finger. I noticed it, because
+I had heard the girls say that Miss Reade never wore rings, not liking
+them. It was not a new ring; it was handsome, but of an old-fashioned
+design and setting, with a glint of diamonds about a central sapphire.
+Later on, when Miss Reade had gone, I asked the Story Girl if she had
+noticed the ring. She nodded, but seemed disinclined to say more about
+it.
+
+"Look here, Sara," I said, "there's something about that ring--something
+you know."
+
+"I told you once there was a story growing but you would have to wait
+until it was fully grown," she answered.
+
+"Is Miss Reade going to marry anybody--anybody we know?" I persisted.
+
+"Curiosity killed a cat," observed the Story Girl coolly. "Miss Reade
+hasn't told me that she was going to marry anybody. You will find out
+all that is good for you to know in due time."
+
+When the Story Girl put on grown-up airs I did not like her so well, and
+I dropped the subject with a dignity that seemed to amuse her mightily.
+
+She had been away for a week, visiting cousins in Markdale, and she had
+come home with a new treasure-trove of stories, most of which she had
+heard from the old sailors of Markdale Harbour. She had promised that
+morning to tell us of "the most tragic event that had ever been known on
+the north shore," and we now reminded her of her promise.
+
+"Some call it the 'Yankee Storm,' and others the 'American Gale,'" she
+began, sitting down by Miss Reade and beaming, because the latter
+put her arm around her waist. "It happened nearly forty years ago, in
+October of 1851. Old Mr. Coles at the Harbour told me all about it. He
+was a young man then and he says he can never forget that dreadful time.
+You know in those days hundreds of American fishing schooners used to
+come down to the Gulf every summer to fish mackerel. On one beautiful
+Saturday night in this October of 1851, more than one hundred of these
+vessels could be counted from Markdale Capes. By Monday night more than
+seventy of them had been destroyed. Those which had escaped were mostly
+those which went into harbour Saturday night, to keep Sunday. Mr. Coles
+says the rest stayed outside and fished all day Sunday, same as through
+the week, and HE says the storm was a judgment on them for doing it. But
+he admits that even some of them got into harbour later on and escaped,
+so it's hard to know what to think. But it is certain that on Sunday
+night there came up a sudden and terrible storm--the worst, Mr. Coles
+says, that has ever been known on the north shore. It lasted for two
+days and scores of vessels were driven ashore and completely wrecked.
+The crews of most of the vessels that went ashore on the sand beaches
+were saved, but those that struck on the rocks went to pieces and all
+hands were lost. For weeks after the storm the north shore was strewn
+with the bodies of drowned men. Think of it! Many of them were unknown
+and unrecognizable, and they were buried in Markdale graveyard. Mr.
+Coles says the schoolmaster who was in Markdale then wrote a poem on the
+storm and Mr. Coles recited the first two verses to me.
+
+
+    "'Here are the fishers' hillside graves,
+      The church beside, the woods around,
+      Below, the hollow moaning waves
+      Where the poor fishermen were drowned.
+
+    "'A sudden tempest the blue welkin tore,
+      The seamen tossed and torn apart
+      Rolled with the seaweed to the shore
+      While landsmen gazed with aching heart.'
+
+
+"Mr. Coles couldn't remember any more of it. But the saddest of all the
+stories of the Yankee Storm was the one about the Franklin Dexter.
+The Franklin Dexter went ashore on the Markdale Capes and all on board
+perished, the Captain and three of his brothers among them. These four
+young men were the sons of an old man who lived in Portland, Maine, and
+when he heard what had happened he came right down to the Island to see
+if he could find their bodies. They had all come ashore and had been
+buried in Markdale graveyard; but he was determined to take them up and
+carry them home for burial. He said he had promised their mother to take
+her boys home to her and he must do it. So they were taken up and put
+on board a sailing vessel at Markdale Harbour to be taken back to Maine,
+while the father himself went home on a passenger steamer. The name of
+the sailing vessel was the Seth Hall, and the captain's name was Seth
+Hall, too. Captain Hall was a dreadfully profane man and used to swear
+blood-curdling oaths. On the night he sailed out of Markdale Harbour the
+old sailors warned him that a storm was brewing and that it would catch
+him if he did not wait until it was over. The captain had become very
+impatient because of several delays he had already met with, and he was
+in a furious temper. He swore a wicked oath that he would sail out of
+Markdale Harbour that night and 'God Almighty Himself shouldn't catch
+him.' He did sail out of the harbour; and the storm did catch him, and
+the Seth Hall went down with all hands, the dead and the living finding
+a watery grave together. So the poor old mother up in Maine never had
+her boys brought back to her after all. Mr. Coles says it seems as if it
+were foreordained that they should not rest in a grave, but should lie
+beneath the waves until the day when the sea gives up its dead."
+
+
+    "'They sleep as well beneath that purple tide
+      As others under turf,'"
+
+
+quoted Miss Reade softly. "I am very thankful," she added, "that I am
+not one of those whose dear ones 'go down to the sea in ships.' It seems
+to me that they have treble their share of this world's heartache."
+
+"Uncle Stephen was a sailor and he was drowned," said Felicity, "and
+they say it broke Grandmother King's heart. I don't see why people can't
+be contented on dry land."
+
+Cecily's tears had been dropping on the autograph quilt square she was
+faithfully embroidering. She had been diligently collecting names for it
+ever since the preceding autumn and had a goodly number; but Kitty Marr
+had one more and this was certainly a fly in Cecily's ointment.
+
+"Besides, one I've got isn't paid for--Peg Bowen's," she lamented, "and
+I don't suppose it ever will be, for I'll never dare to ask her for it."
+
+"I wouldn't put it on at all," said Felicity.
+
+"Oh, I don't dare not to. She'd be sure to find out I didn't and then
+she'd be very angry. I wish I could get just one more name and then I'd
+be contented. But I don't know of a single person who hasn't been asked
+already."
+
+"Except Mr. Campbell," said Dan.
+
+"Oh, of course nobody would ask Mr. Campbell. We all know it would be
+of no use. He doesn't believe in missions at all--in fact, he says he
+detests the very mention of missions--and he never gives one cent to
+them."
+
+"All the same, I think he ought to be asked, so that he wouldn't have
+the excuse that nobody DID ask him," declared Dan.
+
+"Do you really think so, Dan?" asked Cecily earnestly.
+
+"Sure," said Dan, solemnly. Dan liked to tease even Cecily a wee bit now
+and then.
+
+Cecily relapsed into anxious thought, and care sat visibly on her brow
+for the rest of the day. Next morning she came to me and said:
+
+"Bev, would you like to go for a walk with me this afternoon?"
+
+"Of course," I replied. "Any particular where?"
+
+"I'm going to see Mr. Campbell and ask him for his name for my square,"
+said Cecily resolutely. "I don't suppose it will do any good. He
+wouldn't give anything to the library last summer, you remember, till
+the Story Girl told him that story about his grandmother. She won't
+go with me this time--I don't know why. I can't tell a story and I'm
+frightened to death just to think of going to him. But I believe it is
+my duty; and besides I would love to get as many names on my square
+as Kitty Marr has. So if you'll go with me we'll go this afternoon. I
+simply COULDN'T go alone."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. A MISSIONARY HEROINE
+
+
+Accordingly, that afternoon we bearded the lion in his den. The road we
+took was a beautiful one, for we went "cross lots," and we enjoyed
+it, in spite of the fact that we did not expect the interview with Mr.
+Campbell to be a very pleasant one. To be sure, he had been quite civil
+on the occasion of our last call upon him, but the Story Girl had been
+with us then and had beguiled him into good-humour and generosity by
+the magic of her voice and personality. We had no such ally now, and Mr.
+Campbell was known to be virulently opposed to missions in any shape or
+form.
+
+"I don't know whether it would have been any better if I could have
+put on my good clothes," said Cecily, with a rueful glance at her print
+dress, which, though neat and clean, was undeniably faded and RATHER
+short and tight. "The Story Girl said it would, and I wanted to, but
+mother wouldn't let me. She said it was all nonsense, and Mr. Campbell
+would never notice what I had on."
+
+"It's my opinion that Mr. Campbell notices a good deal more than you'd
+think for," I said sagely.
+
+"Well, I wish our call was over," sighed Cecily. "I can't tell you how I
+dread it."
+
+"Now, see here, Sis," I said cheerfully, "let's not think about it
+till we get there. It'll only spoil our walk and do no good. Let's just
+forget it and enjoy ourselves."
+
+"I'll try," agreed Cecily, "but it's ever so much easier to preach than
+to practise."
+
+Our way lay first over a hill top, gallantly plumed with golden rod,
+where cloud shadows drifted over us like a gypsying crew. Carlisle, in
+all its ripely tinted length and breadth, lay below us, basking in the
+August sunshine, that spilled over the brim of the valley to the far-off
+Markdale Harbour, cupped in its harvest-golden hills.
+
+Then came a little valley overgrown with the pale purple bloom of
+thistles and elusively haunted with their perfume. You say that thistles
+have no perfume? Go you to a brook hollow where they grow some late
+summer twilight at dewfall; and on the still air that rises suddenly to
+meet you will come a waft of faint, aromatic fragrance, wondrously sweet
+and evasive, the distillation of that despised thistle bloom.
+
+Beyond this the path wound through a forest of fir, where a wood wind
+wove its murmurous spell and a wood brook dimpled pellucidly among the
+shadows--the dear, companionable, elfin shadows--that lurked under the
+low growing boughs. Along the edges of that winding path grew banks
+of velvet green moss, starred with clusters of pigeon berries. Pigeon
+berries are not to be eaten. They are woolly, tasteless things. But they
+are to be looked at in their glowing scarlet. They are the jewels with
+which the forest of cone-bearers loves to deck its brown breast. Cecily
+gathered some and pinned them on hers, but they did not become her.
+I thought how witching the Story Girl's brown curls would have looked
+twined with those brilliant clusters. Perhaps Cecily was thinking of it,
+too, for she presently said,
+
+"Bev, don't you think the Story Girl is changing somehow?"
+
+"There are times--just times--when she seems to belong more among the
+grown-ups than among us," I said, reluctantly, "especially when she puts
+on her bridesmaid dress."
+
+"Well, she's the oldest of us, and when you come to think of it, she's
+fifteen,--that's almost grown-up," sighed Cecily. Then she added, with
+sudden vehemence, "I hate the thought of any of us growing up. Felicity
+says she just longs to be grown-up, but I don't, not a bit. I wish I
+could just stay a little girl for ever--and have you and Felix and
+all the others for playmates right along. I don't know how it is--but
+whenever I think of being grown-up I seem to feel tired."
+
+Something about Cecily's speech--or the wistful look that had crept into
+her sweet brown eyes--made me feel vaguely uncomfortable; I was glad
+that we were at the end of our journey, with Mr. Campbell's big house
+before us, and his dog sitting gravely at the veranda steps.
+
+"Oh, dear," said Cecily, with a shiver, "I'd been hoping that dog
+wouldn't be around."
+
+"He never bites," I assured her.
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't, but he always looks as if he was going to,"
+rejoined Cecily.
+
+The dog continued to look, and, as we edged gingerly past him and up
+the veranda steps, he turned his head and kept on looking. What with
+Mr. Campbell before us and the dog behind, Cecily was trembling with
+nervousness; but perhaps it was as well that the dour brute was there,
+else I verily believe she would have turned and fled shamelessly when we
+heard steps in the hall.
+
+It was Mr. Campbell's housekeeper who came to the door, however; she
+ushered us pleasantly into the sitting-room where Mr. Campbell was
+reading. He laid down his book with a slight frown and said nothing at
+all in response to our timid "good afternoon." But after we had sat for
+a few minutes in wretched silence, wishing ourselves a thousand miles
+away, he said, with a chuckle,
+
+"Well, is it the school library again?"
+
+Cecily had remarked as we were coming that what she dreaded most of all
+was introducing the subject; but Mr. Campbell had given her a splendid
+opening, and she plunged wildly in at once, rattling her explanation off
+nervously with trembling voice and flushed cheeks.
+
+"No, it's our Mission Band autograph quilt, Mr. Campbell. There are to
+be as many squares in it as there are members in the Band. Each one has
+a square and is collecting names for it. If you want to have your name
+on the quilt you pay five cents, and if you want to have it right in the
+round spot in the middle of the square you must pay ten cents. Then when
+we have got all the names we can we will embroider them on the squares.
+The money is to go to the little girl our Band is supporting in Korea. I
+heard that nobody had asked you, so I thought perhaps you would give me
+your name for my square."
+
+Mr. Campbell drew his black brows together in a scowl.
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" he exclaimed angrily. "I don't believe in Foreign
+Missions--don't believe in them at all. I never give a cent to them."
+
+"Five cents isn't a very large sum," said Cecily earnestly.
+
+Mr. Campbell's scowl disappeared and he laughed.
+
+"It wouldn't break me," he admitted, "but it's the principle of the
+thing. And as for that Mission Band of yours, if it wasn't for the fun
+you get out of it, catch one of you belonging. You don't really care a
+rap more for the heathen than I do."
+
+"Oh, we do," protested Cecily. "We do think of all the poor little
+children in Korea, and we like to think we are helping them, if it's
+ever so little. We ARE in earnest, Mr. Campbell--indeed we are."
+
+"Don't believe it--don't believe a word of it," said Mr. Campbell
+impolitely. "You'll do things that are nice and interesting. You'll get
+up concerts, and chase people about for autographs and give money your
+parents give you and that doesn't cost you either time or labour. But
+you wouldn't do anything you disliked for the heathen children--you
+wouldn't make any real sacrifice for them--catch you!"
+
+"Indeed we would," cried Cecily, forgetting her timidity in her zeal. "I
+just wish I had a chance to prove it to you."
+
+"You do, eh? Come, now, I'll take you at your word. I'll test you.
+Tomorrow is Communion Sunday and the church will be full of folks and
+they'll all have their best clothes on. If you go to church tomorrow in
+the very costume you have on at present, without telling anyone why you
+do so, until it is all over, I'll give you--why, I vow I'll give you
+five dollars for that quilt of yours."
+
+Poor Cecily! To go to church in a faded print dress, with a shabby
+little old sun-hat and worn shoes! It was very cruel of Mr. Campbell.
+
+"I--I don't think mother would let me," she faltered.
+
+Her tormentor smiled grimly.
+
+"It's not hard to find some excuse," he said sarcastically.
+
+Cecily crimsoned and sat up facing Mr. Campbell spunkily.
+
+"It's NOT an excuse," she said. "If mother will let me go to church like
+this I'll go. But I'll have to tell HER why, Mr. Campbell, because I'm
+certain she'd never let me if I didn't."
+
+"Oh, you can tell all your own family," said Mr. Campbell, "but
+remember, none of them must tell it outside until Sunday is over. If
+they do, I'll be sure to find it out and then our bargain is off. If
+I see you in church tomorrow, dressed as you are now, I'll give you my
+name and five dollars. But I won't see you. You'll shrink when you've
+had time to think it over."
+
+"I sha'n't," said Cecily resolutely.
+
+"Well, we'll see. And now come out to the barn with me. I've got the
+prettiest little drove of calves out there you ever saw. I want you to
+see them."
+
+Mr. Campbell took us all over his barns and was very affable. He had
+beautiful horses, cows and sheep, and I enjoyed seeing them. I don't
+think Cecily did, however. She was very quiet and even Mr. Campbell's
+handsome new span of dappled grays failed to arouse any enthusiasm in
+her. She was already in bitter anticipation living over the martyrdom
+of the morrow. On the way home she asked me seriously if I thought Mr.
+Campbell would go to heaven when he died.
+
+"Of course he will," I said. "Isn't he a member of the church?"
+
+"Oh, yes, but I can't imagine him fitting into heaven. You know he isn't
+really fond of anything but live stock."
+
+"He's fond of teasing people, I guess," I responded. "Are you really
+going to church to-morrow in that dress, Sis?"
+
+"If mother'll let me I'll have to," said poor Cecily. "I won't let Mr.
+Campbell triumph over me. And I DO want to have as many names as Kitty
+has. And I DO want to help the poor little Korean children. But it will
+be simply dreadful. I don't know whether I hope mother will or not."
+
+I did not believe she would, but Aunt Janet sometimes could be depended
+on for the unexpected. She laughed and told Cecily she could please
+herself. Felicity was in a rage over it, and declared SHE wouldn't go to
+church if Cecily went in such a rig. Dan sarcastically inquired if all
+she went to church for was to show off her fine clothes and look at
+other people's; then they quarrelled and didn't speak to each other for
+two days, much to Cecily's distress.
+
+I suspect poor Sis wished devoutly that it might rain the next day; but
+it was gloriously fine. We were all waiting in the orchard for the Story
+Girl who had not begun to dress for church until Cecily and Felicity
+were ready. Felicity was her prettiest in flower-trimmed hat, crisp
+muslin, floating ribbons and trim black slippers. Poor Cecily stood
+beside her mute and pale, in her faded school garb and heavy copper-toed
+boots. But her face, if pale, was very determined. Cecily, having put
+her hand to the plough, was not of those who turn back.
+
+"You do look just awful," said Felicity. "I don't care--I'm going to
+sit in Uncle James' pew. I WON'T sit with you. There will be so many
+strangers there, and all the Markdale people, and what will they think
+of you? Some of them will never know the reason, either."
+
+"I wish the Story Girl would hurry," was all poor Cecily said. "We're
+going to be late. It wouldn't have been quite so hard if I could have
+got there before anyone and slipped quietly into our pew."
+
+"Here she comes at last," said Dan. "Why--what's she got on?"
+
+The Story Girl joined us with a quizzical smile on her face. Dan
+whistled. Cecily's pale cheeks flushed with understanding and gratitude.
+The Story Girl wore her school print dress and hat also, and was
+gloveless and heavy shod.
+
+"You're not going to have to go through this all alone, Cecily," she
+said.
+
+"Oh, it won't be half so hard now," said Cecily, with a long breath of
+relief.
+
+I fancy it was hard enough even then. The Story Girl did not care a
+whit, but Cecily rather squirmed under the curious glances that were
+cast at her. She afterwards told me that she really did not think she
+could have endured it if she had been alone.
+
+Mr. Campbell met us under the elms in the churchyard, with a twinkle in
+his eye.
+
+"Well, you did it, Miss," he said to Cecily, "but you should have been
+alone. That was what I meant. I suppose you think you've cheated me
+nicely."
+
+"No, she doesn't," spoke up the Story Girl undauntedly. "She was all
+dressed and ready to come before she knew I was going to dress the same
+way. So she kept her bargain faithfully, Mr. Campbell, and I think you
+were cruel to make her do it."
+
+"You do, eh? Well, well, I hope you'll forgive me. I didn't think she'd
+do it--I was sure feminine vanity would win the day over missionary
+zeal. It seems it didn't--though how much was pure missionary zeal and
+how much just plain King spunk I'm doubtful. I'll keep my promise, Miss.
+You shall have your five dollars, and mind you put my name in the round
+space. No five-cent corners for me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. A TANTALIZING REVELATION
+
+
+"I shall have something to tell you in the orchard this evening," said
+the Story Girl at breakfast one morning. Her eyes were very bright and
+excited. She looked as if she had not slept a great deal. She had spent
+the previous evening with Miss Reade and had not returned until the rest
+of us were in bed. Miss Reade had finished giving music lessons and was
+going home in a few days. Cecily and Felicity were in despair over this
+and mourned as those without comfort. But the Story Girl, who had been
+even more devoted to Miss Reade than either of them, had not, as I
+noticed, expressed any regret and seemed to be very cheerful over the
+whole matter.
+
+"Why can't you tell it now?" asked Felicity.
+
+"Because the evening is the nicest time to tell things in. I only
+mentioned it now so that you would have something interesting to look
+forward to all day."
+
+"Is it about Miss Reade?" asked Cecily.
+
+"Never mind."
+
+"I'll bet she's going to be married," I exclaimed, remembering the ring.
+
+"Is she?" cried Felicity and Cecily together.
+
+The Story Girl threw an annoyed glance at me. She did not like to have
+her dramatic announcements forestalled.
+
+"I don't say that it is about Miss Reade or that it isn't. You must just
+wait till the evening."
+
+"I wonder what it is," speculated Cecily, as the Story Girl left the
+room.
+
+"I don't believe it's much of anything," said Felicity, beginning to
+clear away the breakfast dishes. "The Story Girl always likes to make so
+much out of so little. Anyhow, I don't believe Miss Reade is going to be
+married. She hasn't any beaus around here and Mrs. Armstrong says
+she's sure she doesn't correspond with anybody. Besides, if she was she
+wouldn't be likely to tell the Story Girl."
+
+"Oh, she might. They're such friends, you know," said Cecily.
+
+"Miss Reade is no better friends with her than she is with me and you,"
+retorted Felicity.
+
+"No, but sometimes it seems to me that she's a different kind of friend
+with the Story Girl than she is with me and you," reflected Cecily. "I
+can't just explain what I mean."
+
+"No wonder. Such nonsense," sniffed Felicity. "It's only some girl's
+secret, anyway," said Dan, loftily. "I don't feel much interest in it."
+
+But he was on hand with the rest of us that evening, interest or no
+interest, in Uncle Stephen's Walk, where the ripening apples were
+beginning to glow like jewels among the boughs.
+
+"Now, are you going to tell us your news?" asked Felicity impatiently.
+
+"Miss Reade IS going to be married," said the Story Girl. "She told me
+so last night. She is going to be married in a fortnight's time."
+
+"Who to?" exclaimed the girls.
+
+"To"--the Story Girl threw a defiant glance at me as if to say, "You
+can't spoil the surprise of THIS, anyway,"--"to--the Awkward Man."
+
+For a few moments amazement literally held us dumb.
+
+"You're not in earnest, Sara Stanley?" gasped Felicity at last.
+
+"Indeed I am. I thought you'd be astonished. But I wasn't. I've
+suspected it all summer, from little things I've noticed. Don't you
+remember that evening last spring when I went a piece with Miss Reade
+and told you when I came back that a story was growing? I guessed it
+from the way the Awkward Man looked at her when I stopped to speak to
+him over his garden fence."
+
+"But--the Awkward Man!" said Felicity helplessly. "It doesn't seem
+possible. Did Miss Reade tell you HERSELF?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I suppose it must be true then. But how did it ever come about? He's
+SO shy and awkward. How did he ever manage to get up enough spunk to ask
+her to marry him?"
+
+"Maybe she asked him," suggested Dan.
+
+The Story Girl looked as if she might tell if she would.
+
+"I believe that WAS the way of it," I said, to draw her on.
+
+"Not exactly," she said reluctantly. "I know all about it but I can't
+tell you. I guessed part from things I've seen--and Miss Reade told me a
+good deal--and the Awkward Man himself told me his side of it as we came
+home last night. I met him just as I left Mr. Armstrong's and we were
+together as far as his house. It was dark and he just talked on as if he
+were talking to himself--I think he forgot I was there at all, once
+he got started. He has never been shy or awkward with me, but he never
+talked as he did last night."
+
+"You might tell us what he said," urged Cecily. "We'd never tell."
+
+The Story Girl shook her head.
+
+"No, I can't. You wouldn't understand. Besides, I couldn't tell it just
+right. It's one of the things that are hardest to tell. I'd spoil it if
+I told it--now. Perhaps some day I'll be able to tell it properly. It's
+very beautiful--but it might sound very ridiculous if it wasn't told
+just exactly the right way."
+
+"I don't know what you mean, and I don't believe you know yourself,"
+said Felicity pettishly. "All that I can make out is that Miss Reade is
+going to marry Jasper Dale, and I don't like the idea one bit. She is
+so beautiful and sweet. I thought she'd marry some dashing young man.
+Jasper Dale must be nearly twenty years older than her--and he's so
+queer and shy--and such a hermit."
+
+"Miss Reade is perfectly happy," said the Story Girl. "She thinks the
+Awkward Man is lovely--and so he is. You don't know him, but I do."
+
+"Well, you needn't put on such airs about it," sniffed Felicity.
+
+"I am not putting on any airs. But it's true. Miss Reade and I are the
+only people in Carlisle who really know the Awkward Man. Nobody else
+ever got behind his shyness to find out just what sort of a man he is."
+
+"When are they to be married?" asked Felicity.
+
+"In a fortnight's time. And then they are coming right back to live at
+Golden Milestone. Won't it be lovely to have Miss Reade always so near
+us?"
+
+"I wonder what she'll think about the mystery of Golden Milestone,"
+remarked Felicity.
+
+Golden Milestone was the beautiful name the Awkward Man had given his
+home; and there was a mystery about it, as readers of the first volume
+of these chronicles will recall.
+
+"She knows all about the mystery and thinks it perfectly lovely--and so
+do I," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Do YOU know the secret of the locked room?" cried Cecily.
+
+"Yes, the Awkward Man told me all about it last night. I told you I'd
+find out the mystery some time."
+
+"And what is it?"
+
+"I can't tell you that either."
+
+"I think you're hateful and mean," exclaimed Felicity. "It hasn't
+anything to do with Miss Reade, so I think you might tell us."
+
+"It has something to do with Miss Reade. It's all about her."
+
+"Well, I don't see how that can be when the Awkward Man never saw or
+heard of Miss Reade until she came to Carlisle in the spring," said
+Felicity incredulously, "and he's had that locked room for years."
+
+"I can't explain it to you--but it's just as I've said," responded the
+Story Girl.
+
+"Well, it's a very queer thing," retorted Felicity.
+
+"The name in the books in the room was Alice--and Miss Reade's name is
+Alice," marvelled Cecily. "Did he know her before she came here?"
+
+"Mrs. Griggs says that room has been locked for ten years. Ten years ago
+Miss Reade was just a little girl of ten. SHE couldn't be the Alice of
+the books," argued Felicity.
+
+"I wonder if she'll wear the blue silk dress," said Sara Ray.
+
+"And what will she do about the picture, if it isn't hers?" added
+Cecily.
+
+"The picture couldn't be hers, or Mrs. Griggs would have known her for
+the same when she came to Carlisle," said Felix.
+
+"I'm going to stop wondering about it," exclaimed Felicity crossly,
+aggravated by the amused smile with which the Story Girl was listening
+to the various speculations. "I think Sara is just as mean as mean when
+she won't tell us."
+
+"I can't," repeated the Story Girl patiently.
+
+"You said one time you had an idea who 'Alice' was," I said. "Was your
+idea anything like the truth?"
+
+"Yes, I guessed pretty nearly right."
+
+"Do you suppose they'll keep the room locked after they are married?"
+asked Cecily.
+
+"Oh, no. I can tell you that much. It is to be Miss Reade's own
+particular sitting room."
+
+"Why, then, perhaps we'll see it some time ourselves, when we go to see
+Miss Reade," cried Cecily.
+
+"I'd be frightened to go into it," confessed Sara Ray. "I hate things
+with mysteries. They always make me nervous."
+
+"I love them. They're so exciting," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Just think, this will be the second wedding of people we know,"
+reflected Cecily. "Isn't that interesting?"
+
+"I only hope the next thing won't be a funeral," remarked Sara Ray
+gloomily. "There were three lighted lamps on our kitchen table last
+night, and Judy Pineau says that's a sure sign of a funeral."
+
+"Well, there are funerals going on all the time," said Dan.
+
+"But it means the funeral of somebody you know. I don't believe in
+it--MUCH--but Judy says she's seen it come true time and again. I hope
+if it does it won't be anybody we know very well. But I hope it'll be
+somebody I know a LITTLE, because then I might get to the funeral. I'd
+just love to go to a funeral."
+
+"That's a dreadful thing to say," commented Felicity in a shocked tone.
+
+Sara Ray looked bewildered.
+
+"I don't see what is dreadful in it," she protested.
+
+"People don't go to funerals for the fun of it," said Felicity severely.
+"And you just as good as said you hoped somebody you knew would die so
+you'd get to the funeral."
+
+"No, no, I didn't. I didn't mean that AT ALL, Felicity. I don't want
+anybody to die; but what I meant was, if anybody I knew HAD to die there
+might be a chance to go to the funeral. I've never been to a single
+funeral yet, and it must be so interesting."
+
+"Well, don't mix up talk about funerals with talk about weddings," said
+Felicity. "It isn't lucky. I think Miss Reade is simply throwing herself
+away, but I hope she'll be happy. And I hope the Awkward Man will manage
+to get married without making some awful blunder, but it's more than I
+expect."
+
+"The ceremony is to be very private," said the Story Girl.
+
+"I'd like to see them the day they appear out in church," chuckled Dan.
+"How'll he ever manage to bring her in and show her into the pew? I'll
+bet he'll go in first--or tramp on her dress--or fall over his feet."
+
+"Maybe he won't go to church at all the first Sunday and she'll have to
+go alone," said Peter. "That happened in Markdale. A man was too bashful
+to go to church the first time after getting married, and his wife went
+alone till he got used to the idea."
+
+"They may do things like that in Markdale but that is not the way people
+behave in Carlisle," said Felicity loftily.
+
+Seeing the Story Girl slipping away with a disapproving face I joined
+her.
+
+"What is the matter, Sara?" I asked.
+
+"I hate to hear them talking like that about Miss Reade and Mr. Dale,"
+she answered vehemently. "It's really all so beautiful--but they make it
+seem silly and absurd, somehow."
+
+"You might tell me all about it, Sara," I insinuated. "I wouldn't
+tell--and I'd understand."
+
+"Yes, I think you would," she said thoughtfully. "But I can't tell it
+even to you because I can't tell it well enough yet. I've a feeling that
+there's only one way to tell it--and I don't know the way yet. Some day
+I'll know it--and then I'll tell you, Bev."
+
+Long, long after she kept her word. Forty years later I wrote to her,
+across the leagues of land and sea that divided us, and told her that
+Jasper Dale was dead; and I reminded her of her old promise and asked
+its fulfilment. In reply she sent me the written love story of Jasper
+Dale and Alice Reade. Now, when Alice sleeps under the whispering elms
+of the old Carlisle churchyard, beside the husband of her youth, that
+story may be given, in all its old-time sweetness, to the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. THE LOVE STORY OF THE AWKWARD MAN
+
+(Written by the Story Girl)
+
+
+Jasper Dale lived alone in the old homestead which he had named Golden
+Milestone. In Carlisle this giving one's farm a name was looked upon as
+a piece of affectation; but if a place must be named why not give it
+a sensible name with some meaning to it? Why Golden Milestone, when
+Pinewood or Hillslope or, if you wanted to be very fanciful, Ivy Lodge,
+might be had for the taking?
+
+He had lived alone at Golden Milestone since his mother's death; he had
+been twenty then and he was close upon forty now, though he did not look
+it. But neither could it be said that he looked young; he had never at
+any time looked young with common youth; there had always been something
+in his appearance that stamped him as different from the ordinary run
+of men, and, apart from his shyness, built up an intangible, invisible
+barrier between him and his kind. He had lived all his life in Carlisle;
+and all the Carlisle people knew of or about him--although they thought
+they knew everything--was that he was painfully, abnormally shy. He
+never went anywhere except to church; he never took part in Carlisle's
+simple social life; even with most men he was distant and reserved; as
+for women, he never spoke to or looked at them; if one spoke to him,
+even if she were a matronly old mother in Israel, he was at once in an
+agony of painful blushes. He had no friends in the sense of companions;
+to all outward appearance his life was solitary and devoid of any human
+interest.
+
+He had no housekeeper; but his old house, furnished as it had been in
+his mother's lifetime, was cleanly and daintily kept. The quaint rooms
+were as free from dust and disorder as a woman could have had them. This
+was known, because Jasper Dale occasionally had his hired man's wife,
+Mrs. Griggs, in to scrub for him. On the morning she was expected he
+betook himself to woods and fields, returning only at night-fall. During
+his absence Mrs. Griggs was frankly wont to explore the house from
+cellar to attic, and her report of its condition was always the
+same--"neat as wax." To be sure, there was one room that was always
+locked against her, the west gable, looking out on the garden and the
+hill of pines beyond. But Mrs. Griggs knew that in the lifetime of
+Jasper Dale's mother it had been unfurnished. She supposed it still
+remained so, and felt no especial curiosity concerning it, though she
+always tried the door.
+
+Jasper Dale had a good farm, well cultivated; he had a large garden
+where he worked most of his spare time in summer; it was supposed that
+he read a great deal, since the postmistress declared that he was always
+getting books and magazines by mail. He seemed well contented with his
+existence and people let him alone, since that was the greatest kindness
+they could do him. It was unsupposable that he would ever marry; nobody
+ever had supposed it.
+
+"Jasper Dale never so much as THOUGHT about a woman," Carlisle oracles
+declared. Oracles, however, are not always to be trusted.
+
+One day Mrs. Griggs went away from the Dale place with a very curious
+story, which she diligently spread far and wide. It made a good deal
+of talk, but people, although they listened eagerly, and wondered and
+questioned, were rather incredulous about it. They thought Mrs. Griggs
+must be drawing considerably upon her imagination; there were not
+lacking those who declared that she had invented the whole account,
+since her reputation for strict veracity was not wholly unquestioned.
+
+Mrs. Griggs's story was as follows:--
+
+One day she found the door of the west gable unlocked. She went in,
+expecting to see bare walls and a collection of odds and ends. Instead
+she found herself in a finely furnished room. Delicate lace curtains
+hung before the small, square, broad-silled windows. The walls were
+adorned with pictures in much finer taste than Mrs. Griggs could
+appreciate. There was a bookcase between the windows filled with
+choicely bound books. Beside it stood a little table with a very dainty
+work-basket on it. By the basket Mrs. Griggs saw a pair of tiny scissors
+and a silver thimble. A wicker rocker, comfortable with silk cushions,
+was near it. Above the bookcase a woman's picture hung--a water-colour,
+if Mrs. Griggs had but known it--representing a pale, very sweet face,
+with large, dark eyes and a wistful expression under loose masses of
+black, lustrous hair. Just beneath the picture, on the top shelf of the
+bookcase, was a vaseful of flowers. Another vaseful stood on the table
+beside the basket.
+
+All this was astonishing enough. But what puzzled Mrs. Griggs completely
+was the fact that a woman's dress was hanging over a chair before the
+mirror--a pale blue, silken affair. And on the floor beside it were two
+little blue satin slippers!
+
+Good Mrs. Griggs did not leave the room until she had thoroughly
+explored it, even to shaking out the blue dress and discovering it to be
+a tea-gown--wrapper, she called it. But she found nothing to throw any
+light on the mystery. The fact that the simple name "Alice" was written
+on the fly-leaves of all the books only deepened it, for it was a name
+unknown in the Dale family. In this puzzled state she was obliged to
+depart, nor did she ever find the door unlocked again; and, discovering
+that people thought she was romancing when she talked about the
+mysterious west gable at Golden Milestone, she indignantly held her
+peace concerning the whole affair.
+
+But Mrs. Griggs had told no more than the simple truth. Jasper Dale,
+under all his shyness and aloofness, possessed a nature full of delicate
+romance and poesy, which, denied expression in the common ways of life,
+bloomed out in the realm of fancy and imagination. Left alone, just when
+the boy's nature was deepening into the man's, he turned to this ideal
+kingdom for all he believed the real world could never give him. Love--a
+strange, almost mystical love--played its part here for him. He shadowed
+forth to himself the vision of a woman, loving and beloved; he cherished
+it until it became almost as real to him as his own personality and he
+gave this dream woman the name he liked best--Alice. In fancy he walked
+and talked with her, spoke words of love to her, and heard words of love
+in return. When he came from work at the close of day she met him at his
+threshold in the twilight--a strange, fair, starry shape, as elusive and
+spiritual as a blossom reflected in a pool by moonlight--with welcome on
+her lips and in her eyes.
+
+One day, when he was in Charlottetown on business, he had been struck by
+a picture in the window of a store. It was strangely like the woman of
+his dream love. He went in, awkward and embarrassed, and bought it. When
+he took it home he did not know where to put it. It was out of place
+among the dim old engravings of bewigged portraits and conventional
+landscapes on the walls of Golden Milestone. As he pondered the matter
+in his garden that evening he had an inspiration. The sunset, flaming on
+the windows of the west gable, kindled them into burning rose. Amid the
+splendour he fancied Alice's fair face peeping archly down at him from
+the room. The inspiration came then. It should be her room; he would fit
+it up for her; and her picture should hang there.
+
+He was all summer carrying out his plan. Nobody must know or suspect,
+so he must go slowly and secretly. One by one the furnishings were
+purchased and brought home under cover of darkness. He arranged them
+with his own hands. He bought the books he thought she would like best
+and wrote her name in them; he got the little feminine knick-knacks of
+basket and thimble. Finally he saw in a store a pale blue tea-gown and
+the satin slippers. He had always fancied her as dressed in blue. He
+bought them and took them home to her room. Thereafter it was sacred to
+her; he always knocked on its door before he entered; he kept it sweet
+with fresh flowers; he sat there in the purple summer evenings and
+talked aloud to her or read his favourite books to her. In his fancy she
+sat opposite to him in her rocker, clad in the trailing blue gown, with
+her head leaning on one slender hand, as white as a twilight star.
+
+But Carlisle people knew nothing of this--would have thought him tinged
+with mild lunacy if they had known. To them, he was just the shy, simple
+farmer he appeared. They never knew or guessed at the real Jasper Dale.
+
+One spring Alice Reade came to teach music in Carlisle. Her pupils
+worshipped her, but the grown people thought she was rather too distant
+and reserved. They had been used to merry, jolly girls who joined
+eagerly in the social life of the place. Alice Reade held herself aloof
+from it--not disdainfully, but as one to whom these things were of small
+importance. She was very fond of books and solitary rambles; she was
+not at all shy but she was as sensitive as a flower; and after a time
+Carlisle people were content to let her live her own life and no longer
+resented her unlikeness to themselves.
+
+She boarded with the Armstrongs, who lived beyond Golden Milestone
+around the hill of pines. Until the snow disappeared she went out to the
+main road by the long Armstrong lane; but when spring came she was wont
+to take a shorter way, down the pine hill, across the brook, past Jasper
+Dale's garden, and out through his lane. And one day, as she went by,
+Jasper Dale was working in his garden.
+
+He was on his knees in a corner, setting out a bunch of roots--an
+unsightly little tangle of rainbow possibilities. It was a still spring
+morning; the world was green with young leaves; a little wind blew down
+from the pines and lost itself willingly among the budding delights of
+the garden. The grass opened eyes of blue violets. The sky was high
+and cloudless, turquoise-blue, shading off into milkiness on the far
+horizons. Birds were singing along the brook valley. Rollicking robins
+were whistling joyously in the pines. Jasper Dale's heart was filled to
+over-flowing with a realization of all the virgin loveliness around him;
+the feeling in his soul had the sacredness of a prayer. At this moment
+he looked up and saw Alice Reade.
+
+She was standing outside the garden fence, in the shadow of a great pine
+tree, looking not at him, for she was unaware of his presence, but
+at the virginal bloom of the plum trees in a far corner, with all her
+delight in it outblossoming freely in her face. For a moment Jasper Dale
+believed that his dream love had taken visible form before him. She was
+like--so like; not in feature, perhaps, but in grace and colouring--the
+grace of a slender, lissome form and the colouring of cloudy hair and
+wistful, dark gray eyes, and curving red mouth; and more than all, she
+was like her in expression--in the subtle revelation of personality
+exhaling from her like perfume from a flower. It was as if his own had
+come to him at last and his whole soul suddenly leaped out to meet and
+welcome her.
+
+Then her eyes fell upon him and the spell was broken. Jasper remained
+kneeling mutely there, shy man once more, crimson with blushes, a
+strange, almost pitiful creature in his abject confusion. A little smile
+flickered about the delicate corners of her mouth, but she turned and
+walked swiftly away down the lane.
+
+Jasper looked after her with a new, painful sense of loss and
+loveliness. It had been agony to feel her conscious eyes upon him, but
+he realized now that there had been a strange sweetness in it, too. It
+was still greater pain to watch her going from him.
+
+He thought she must be the new music teacher but he did not even know
+her name. She had been dressed in blue, too--a pale, dainty blue; but
+that was of course; he had known she must wear it; and he was sure her
+name must be Alice. When, later on, he discovered that it was, he felt
+no surprise.
+
+He carried some mayflowers up to the west gable and put them under the
+picture. But the charm had gone out of the tribute; and looking at the
+picture, he thought how scant was the justice it did her. Her face
+was so much sweeter, her eyes so much softer, her hair so much more
+lustrous. The soul of his love had gone from the room and from the
+picture and from his dreams. When he tried to think of the Alice he
+loved he saw, not the shadowy spirit occupant of the west gable, but the
+young girl who had stood under the pine, beautiful with the beauty of
+moonlight, of starshine on still water, of white, wind-swayed flowers
+growing in silent, shadowy places. He did not then realize what this
+meant: had he realized it he would have suffered bitterly; as it was
+he felt only a vague discomfort--a curious sense of loss and gain
+commingled.
+
+He saw her again that afternoon on her way home. She did not pause by
+the garden but walked swiftly past. Thereafter, every day for a week he
+watched unseen to see her pass his home. Once a little child was with
+her, clinging to her hand. No child had ever before had any part in the
+shy man's dream life. But that night in the twilight the vision of
+the rocking-chair was a girl in a blue print dress, with a little,
+golden-haired shape at her knee--a shape that lisped and prattled and
+called her "mother;" and both of them were his.
+
+It was the next day that he failed for the first time to put flowers
+in the west gable. Instead, he cut a loose handful of daffodils and,
+looking furtively about him as if committing a crime, he laid them
+across the footpath under the pine. She must pass that way; her feet
+would crush them if she failed to see them. Then he slipped back into
+his garden, half exultant, half repentant. From a safe retreat he saw
+her pass by and stoop to lift his flowers. Thereafter he put some in the
+same place every day.
+
+When Alice Reade saw the flowers she knew at once who had put them
+there, and divined that they were for her. She lifted them tenderly in
+much surprise and pleasure. She had heard all about Jasper Dale and his
+shyness; but before she had heard about him she had seen him in church
+and liked him. She thought his face and his dark blue eyes beautiful;
+she even liked the long brown hair that Carlisle people laughed at. That
+he was quite different from other people she had understood at once, but
+she thought the difference in his favour. Perhaps her sensitive nature
+divined and responded to the beauty in his. At least, in her eyes Jasper
+Dale was never a ridiculous figure.
+
+When she heard the story of the west gable, which most people
+disbelieved, she believed it, although she did not understand it. It
+invested the shy man with interest and romance. She felt that she would
+have liked, out of no impertinent curiosity, to solve the mystery; she
+believed that it contained the key to his character.
+
+Thereafter, every day she found flowers under the pine tree; she wished
+to see Jasper to thank him, unaware that he watched her daily from the
+screen of shrubbery in his garden; but it was some time before she found
+the opportunity. One evening she passed when he, not expecting her, was
+leaning against his garden fence with a book in his hand. She stopped
+under the pine.
+
+"Mr. Dale," she said softly, "I want to thank you for your flowers."
+
+Jasper, startled, wished that he might sink into the ground. His anguish
+of embarrassment made her smile a little. He could not speak, so she
+went on gently.
+
+"It has been so good of you. They have given me so much pleasure--I wish
+you could know how much."
+
+"It was nothing--nothing," stammered Jasper. His book had fallen on the
+ground at her feet, and she picked it up and held it out to him.
+
+"So you like Ruskin," she said. "I do, too. But I haven't read this."
+
+"If you--would care--to read it--you may have it," Jasper contrived to
+say.
+
+She carried the book away with her. He did not again hide when she
+passed, and when she brought the book back they talked a little about
+it over the fence. He lent her others, and got some from her in return;
+they fell into the habit of discussing them. Jasper did not find it hard
+to talk to her now; it seemed as if he were talking to his dream Alice,
+and it came strangely natural to him. He did not talk volubly, but
+Alice thought what he did say was worth while. His words lingered in her
+memory and made music. She always found his flowers under the pine, and
+she always wore some of them, but she did not know if he noticed this or
+not.
+
+One evening Jasper walked shyly with her from his gate up the pine hill.
+After that he always walked that far with her. She would have missed him
+much if he had failed to do so; yet it did not occur to her that she was
+learning to love him. She would have laughed with girlish scorn at the
+idea. She liked him very much; she thought his nature beautiful in
+its simplicity and purity; in spite of his shyness she felt more
+delightfully at home in his society than in that of any other person she
+had ever met. He was one of those rare souls whose friendship is at once
+a pleasure and a benediction, showering light from their own crystal
+clearness into all the dark corners in the souls of others, until, for
+the time being at least, they reflected his own nobility. But she never
+thought of love. Like other girls she had her dreams of a possible
+Prince Charming, young and handsome and debonair. It never occurred
+to her that he might be found in the shy, dreamy recluse of Golden
+Milestone.
+
+In August came a day of gold and blue. Alice Reade, coming through the
+trees, with the wind blowing her little dark love-locks tricksily about
+under her wide blue hat, found a fragrant heap of mignonette under
+the pine. She lifted it and buried her face in it, drinking in the
+wholesome, modest perfume.
+
+She had hoped Jasper would be in his garden, since she wished to ask him
+for a book she greatly desired to read. But she saw him sitting on the
+rustic seat at the further side. His back was towards her, and he was
+partially screened by a copse of lilacs.
+
+Alice, blushing slightly, unlatched the garden gate, and went down the
+path. She had never been in the garden before, and she found her heart
+beating in a strange fashion.
+
+He did not hear her footsteps, and she was close behind him when she
+heard his voice, and realized that he was talking to himself, in a low,
+dreamy tone. As the meaning of his words dawned on her consciousness she
+started and grew crimson. She could not move or speak; as one in a
+dream she stood and listened to the shy man's reverie, guiltless of any
+thought of eavesdropping.
+
+"How much I love you, Alice," Jasper Dale was saying, unafraid, with no
+shyness in voice or manner. "I wonder what you would say if you knew.
+You would laugh at me--sweet as you are, you would laugh in mockery. I
+can never tell you. I can only dream of telling you. In my dream you are
+standing here by me, dear. I can see you very plainly, my sweet lady, so
+tall and gracious, with your dark hair and your maiden eyes. I can dream
+that I tell you my love; that--maddest, sweetest dream of all--that you
+love me in return. Everything is possible in dreams, you know, dear. My
+dreams are all I have, so I go far in them, even to dreaming that you
+are my wife. I dream how I shall fix up my dull old house for you. One
+room will need nothing more--it is your room, dear, and has been ready
+for you a long time--long before that day I saw you under the pine. Your
+books and your chair and your picture are there, dear--only the picture
+is not half lovely enough. But the other rooms of the house must be made
+to bloom out freshly for you. What a delight it is thus to dream of
+what I would do for you! Then I would bring you home, dear, and lead
+you through my garden and into my house as its mistress. I would see you
+standing beside me in the old mirror at the end of the hall--a bride,
+in your pale blue dress, with a blush on your face. I would lead you
+through all the rooms made ready for your coming, and then to your own.
+I would see you sitting in your own chair and all my dreams would
+find rich fulfilment in that royal moment. Oh, Alice, we would have a
+beautiful life together! It's sweet to make believe about it. You will
+sing to me in the twilight, and we will gather early flowers together
+in the spring days. When I come home from work, tired, you will put
+your arms about me and lay your head on my shoulder. I will stroke
+it--so--that bonny, glossy head of yours. Alice, my Alice--all mine in
+my dream--never to be mine in real life--how I love you!"
+
+The Alice behind him could bear no more. She gave a little choking cry
+that betrayed her presence. Jasper Dale sprang up and gazed upon her. He
+saw her standing there, amid the languorous shadows of August, pale with
+feeling, wide-eyed, trembling.
+
+For a moment shyness wrung him. Then every trace of it was banished by a
+sudden, strange, fierce anger that swept over him. He felt outraged and
+hurt to the death; he felt as if he had been cheated out of something
+incalculably precious--as if sacrilege had been done to his most holy
+sanctuary of emotion. White, tense with his anger, he looked at her and
+spoke, his lips as pale as if his fiery words scathed them.
+
+"How dare you? You have spied on me--you have crept in and listened! How
+dare you? Do you know what you have done, girl? You have destroyed all
+that made life worth while to me. My dream is dead. It could not live
+when it was betrayed. And it was all I had. Oh, laugh at me--mock me! I
+know that I am ridiculous! What of it? It never could have hurt you! Why
+must you creep in like this to hear me and put me to shame? Oh, I love
+you--I will say it, laugh as you will. Is it such a strange thing that I
+should have a heart like other men? This will make sport for you! I, who
+love you better than my life, better than any other man in the world
+can love you, will be a jest to you all your life. I love you--and yet
+I think I could hate you--you have destroyed my dream--you have done me
+deadly wrong."
+
+"Jasper! Jasper!" cried Alice, finding her voice. His anger hurt her
+with a pain she could not endure. It was unbearable that Jasper should
+be angry with her. In that moment she realized that she loved him--that
+the words he had spoken when unconscious of her presence were the
+sweetest she had ever heard, or ever could hear. Nothing mattered at
+all, save that he loved her and was angry with her.
+
+"Don't say such dreadful things to me," she stammered, "I did not
+mean to listen. I could not help it. I shall never laugh at you. Oh,
+Jasper"--she looked bravely at him and the fine soul of her shone
+through the flesh like an illuminating lamp--"I am glad that you love
+me! and I am glad I chanced to overhear you, since you would never have
+had the courage to tell me otherwise. Glad--glad! Do you understand,
+Jasper?"
+
+Jasper looked at her with the eyes of one who, looking through pain,
+sees rapture beyond.
+
+"Is it possible?" he said, wonderingly. "Alice--I am so much older
+than you--and they call me the Awkward Man--they say I am unlike other
+people"--
+
+"You ARE unlike other people," she said softly, "and that is why I love
+you. I know now that I must have loved you ever since I saw you."
+
+"I loved you long before I saw you," said Jasper.
+
+He came close to her and drew her into his arms, tenderly and
+reverently, all his shyness and awkwardness swallowed up in the grace
+of his great happiness. In the old garden he kissed her lips and Alice
+entered into her own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. UNCLE BLAIR COMES HOME
+
+
+It happened that the Story Girl and I both got up very early on the
+morning of the Awkward Man's wedding day. Uncle Alec was going to
+Charlottetown that day, and I, awakened at daybreak by the sounds in the
+kitchen beneath us, remembered that I had forgotten to ask him to bring
+me a certain school-book I wanted. So I hurriedly dressed and hastened
+down to tell him before he went. I was joined on the stairs by the Story
+Girl, who said she had wakened and, not feeling like going to sleep
+again, thought she might as well get up.
+
+"I had such a funny dream last night," she said. "I dreamed that I heard
+a voice calling me from away down in Uncle Stephen's Walk--'Sara, Sara,
+Sara,' it kept calling. I didn't know whose it was, and yet it seemed
+like a voice I knew. I wakened up while it was calling, and it seemed so
+real I could hardly believe it was a dream. It was bright moonlight,
+and I felt just like getting up and going out to the orchard. But I knew
+that would be silly and of course I didn't go. But I kept on wanting to
+and I couldn't sleep any more. Wasn't it queer?"
+
+When Uncle Alec had gone I proposed a saunter to the farther end of the
+orchard, where I had left a book the preceding evening. A young mom was
+walking rosily on the hills as we passed down Uncle Stephen's Walk,
+with Paddy trotting before us. High overhead was the spirit-like blue of
+paling skies; the east was a great arc of crystal, smitten through with
+auroral crimsonings; just above it was one milk-white star of morning,
+like a pearl on a silver sea. A light wind of dawn was weaving an orient
+spell.
+
+"It's lovely to be up as early as this, isn't it?" said the Story Girl.
+"The world seems so different just at sunrise, doesn't it? It makes me
+feel just like getting up to see the sun rise every morning of my
+life after this. But I know I won't. I'll likely sleep later than ever
+tomorrow morning. But I wish I could."
+
+"The Awkward Man and Miss Reade are going to have a lovely day for their
+wedding," I said.
+
+"Yes, and I'm so glad. Beautiful Alice deserves everything good. Why,
+Bev--why, Bev! Who is that in the hammock?"
+
+I looked. The hammock was swung under the two end trees of the Walk. In
+it a man was lying, asleep, his head pillowed on his overcoat. He was
+sleeping easily, lightly, and wholesomely. He had a pointed brown beard
+and thick wavy brown hair. His cheeks were a dusky red and the lashes of
+his closed eyes were as long and dark and silken as a girl's. He wore a
+light gray suit, and on the slender white hand that hung down over the
+hammock's edge was a spark of diamond fire.
+
+It seemed to me that I knew his face, although assuredly I had never
+seen him before. While I groped among vague speculations the Story Girl
+gave a queer, choked little cry. The next moment she had sprung over the
+intervening space, dropped on her knees by the hammock, and flung her
+arms about the man's neck.
+
+"Father! Father!" she cried, while I stood, rooted to the ground in my
+amazement.
+
+The sleeper stirred and opened two large, exceedingly brilliant hazel
+eyes. For a moment he gazed rather blankly at the brown-curled young
+lady who was embracing him. Then a most delightful smile broke over his
+face; he sprang up and caught her to his heart.
+
+"Sara--Sara--my little Sara! To think didn't know you at first glance!
+But you are almost a woman. And when I saw you last you were just a
+little girl of eight. My own little Sara!"
+
+"Father--father--sometimes I've wondered if you were ever coming back to
+me," I heard the Story Girl say, as I turned and scuttled up the Walk,
+realizing that I was not wanted there just then and would be little
+missed. Various emotions and speculations possessed my mind in my
+retreat; but chiefly did I feel a sense of triumph in being the bearer
+of exciting news.
+
+"Aunt Janet, Uncle Blair is here," I announced breathlessly at the
+kitchen door.
+
+Aunt Janet, who was kneading her bread, turned round and lifted floury
+hands. Felicity and Cecily, who were just entering the kitchen, rosy
+from slumber, stopped still and stared at me.
+
+"Uncle who?" exclaimed Aunt Janet.
+
+"Uncle Blair--the Story Girl's father, you know. He's here."
+
+"WHERE?"
+
+"Down in the orchard. He was asleep in the hammock. We found him there."
+
+"Dear me!" said Aunt Janet, sitting down helplessly. "If that isn't
+like Blair! Of course he couldn't come like anybody else. I wonder," she
+added in a tone unheard by anyone else save myself, "I wonder if he has
+come to take the child away."
+
+My elation went out like a snuffed candle. I had never thought of this.
+If Uncle Blair took the Story Girl away would not life become rather
+savourless on the hill farm? I turned and followed Felicity and Cecily
+out in a very subdued mood.
+
+Uncle Blair and the Story Girl were just coming out of the orchard. His
+arm was about her and hers was on his shoulder. Laughter and tears were
+contending in her eyes. Only once before--when Peter had come back from
+the Valley of the Shadow--had I seen the Story Girl cry. Emotion had to
+go very deep with her ere it touched the source of tears. I had always
+known that she loved her father passionately, though she rarely talked
+of him, understanding that her uncles and aunts were not whole-heartedly
+his friends.
+
+But Aunt Janet's welcome was cordial enough, though a trifle flustered.
+Whatever thrifty, hard-working farmer folk might think of gay, Bohemian
+Blair Stanley in his absence, in his presence even they liked him, by
+the grace of some winsome, lovable quality in the soul of him. He had
+"a way with him"--revealed even in the manner with which he caught staid
+Aunt Janet in his arms, swung her matronly form around as though she had
+been a slim schoolgirl, and kissed her rosy cheek.
+
+"Sister o' mine, are you never going to grow old?" he said. "Here you
+are at forty-five with the roses of sixteen--and not a gray hair, I'll
+wager."
+
+"Blair, Blair, it is you who are always young," laughed Aunt Janet, not
+ill pleased. "Where in the world did you come from? And what is this I
+hear of your sleeping all night in the hammock?"
+
+"I've been painting in the Lake District all summer, as you know,"
+answered Uncle Blair, "and one day I just got homesick to see my little
+girl. So I sailed for Montreal without further delay. I got here at
+eleven last night--the station-master's son drove me down. Nice boy. The
+old house was in darkness and I thought it would be a shame to rouse you
+all out of bed after a hard day's work. So I decided that I would spend
+the night in the orchard. It was moonlight, you know, and moonlight in
+an old orchard is one of the few things left over from the Golden Age."
+
+"It was very foolish of you," said practical Aunt Janet. "These
+September nights are real chilly. You might have caught your death of
+cold--or a bad dose of rheumatism."
+
+"So I might. No doubt it was foolish of me," agreed Uncle Blair gaily.
+"It must have been the fault, of the moonlight. Moonlight, you know,
+Sister Janet, has an intoxicating quality. It is a fine, airy, silver
+wine, such as fairies may drink at their revels, unharmed of it; but
+when a mere mortal sips of it, it mounts straightway to his brain, to
+the undoing of his daylight common sense. However, I have got neither
+cold nor rheumatism, as a sensible person would have done had he ever
+been lured into doing such a non-sensible thing; there is a special
+Providence for us foolish folk. I enjoyed my night in the orchard; for
+a time I was companioned by sweet old memories; and then I fell asleep
+listening to the murmurs of the wind in those old trees yonder. And I
+had a beautiful dream, Janet. I dreamed that the old orchard blossomed
+again, as it did that spring eighteen years ago. I dreamed that its
+sunshine was the sunshine of spring, not autumn. There was newness of
+life in my dream, Janet, and the sweetness of forgotten words."
+
+"Wasn't it strange about MY dream?" whispered the Story Girl to me.
+
+"Well, you'd better come in and have some breakfast," said Aunt Janet.
+"These are my little girls--Felicity and Cecily."
+
+"I remember them as two most adorable tots," said Uncle Blair, shaking
+hands. "They haven't changed quite so much as my own baby-child. Why,
+she's a woman, Janet--she's a woman."
+
+"She's child enough still," said Aunt Janet hastily.
+
+The Story Girl shook her long brown curls.
+
+"I'm fifteen," she said. "And you ought to see me in my long dress,
+father."
+
+"We must not be separated any longer, dear heart," I heard Uncle Blair
+say tenderly. I hoped that he meant he would stay in Canada--not that he
+would take the Story Girl away.
+
+Apart from this we had a gay day with Uncle Blair. He evidently liked
+our society better than that of the grown-ups, for he was a child
+himself at heart, gay, irresponsible, always acting on the impulse of
+the moment. We all found him a delightful companion. There was no
+school that day, as Mr. Perkins was absent, attending a meeting of
+the Teachers' Convention, so we spent most of its golden hours in the
+orchard with Uncle Blair, listening to his fascinating accounts of
+foreign wanderings. He also drew all our pictures for us, and this was
+especially delightful, for the day of the camera was only just dawning
+and none of us had ever had even our photographs taken. Sara Ray's
+pleasure was, as usual, quite spoiled by wondering what her mother
+would say of it, for Mrs. Ray had, so it appeared, some very peculiar
+prejudices against the taking or making of any kind of picture
+whatsoever, owing to an exceedingly strict interpretation of the second
+commandment. Dan suggested that she need not tell her mother anything
+about it; but Sara shook her head.
+
+"I'll have to tell her. I've made it a rule to tell ma everything I do
+ever since the Judgment Day."
+
+"Besides," added Cecily seriously, "the Family Guide says one ought to
+tell one's mother everything."
+
+"It's pretty hard sometimes, though," sighed Sara. "Ma scolds so much
+when I do tell her things, that it sort of discourages me. But when I
+think of how dreadful I felt the time of the Judgment Day over deceiving
+her in some things it nerves me up. I'd do almost anything rather than
+feel like that the next time the Judgment Day comes."
+
+"Fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell a story," said Uncle Blair. "What do you mean
+by speaking of the Judgment Day in the past tense?"
+
+The Story Girl told him the tale of that dreadful Sunday in the
+preceding summer and we all laughed with him at ourselves.
+
+"All the same," muttered Peter, "I don't want to have another experience
+like that. I hope I'll be dead the next time the Judgment Day comes."
+
+"But you'll be raised up for it," said Felix.
+
+"Oh, that'll be all right. I won't mind that. I won't know anything
+about it till it really happens. It's the expecting it that's the
+worst."
+
+"I don't think you ought to talk of such things," said Felicity.
+
+When evening came we all went to Golden Milestone. We knew the Awkward
+Man and his bride were expected home at sunset, and we meant to scatter
+flowers on the path by which she must enter her new home. It was the
+Story Girl's idea, but I don't think Aunt Janet would have let us go if
+Uncle Blair had not pleaded for us. He asked to be taken along, too, and
+we agreed, if he would stand out of sight when the newly married pair
+came home.
+
+"You see, father, the Awkward Man won't mind us, because we're only
+children and he knows us well," explained the Story Girl, "but if
+he sees you, a stranger, it might confuse him and we might spoil the
+homecoming, and that would be such a pity."
+
+So we went to Golden Milestone, laden with all the flowery spoil we
+could plunder from both gardens. It was a clear amber-tinted September
+evening and far away, over Markdale Harbour, a great round red moon
+was rising as we waited. Uncle Blair was hidden behind the wind-blown
+tassels of the pines at the gate, but he and the Story Girl kept waving
+their hands at each other and calling out gay, mirthful jests.
+
+"Do you really feel acquainted with your father?" whispered Sara Ray
+wonderingly. "It's long since you saw him."
+
+"If I hadn't seen him for a hundred years it wouldn't make any
+difference that way," laughed the Story Girl.
+
+"S-s-h-s-s-h--they're coming," whispered Felicity excitedly.
+
+And then they came--Beautiful Alice blushing and lovely, in the
+prettiest of pretty blue dresses, and the Awkward Man, so fervently
+happy that he quite forgot to be awkward. He lifted her out of the buggy
+gallantly and led her forward to us, smiling. We retreated before them,
+scattering our flowers lavishly on the path, and Alice Dale walked to
+the very doorstep of her new home over a carpet of blossoms. On the
+step they both paused and turned towards us, and we shyly did the proper
+thing in the way of congratulations and good wishes.
+
+"It was so sweet of you to do this," said the smiling bride.
+
+"It was lovely to be able to do it for you, dearest," whispered the
+Story Girl, "and oh, Miss Reade--Mrs. Dale, I mean--we all hope you'll
+be so, so happy for ever."
+
+"I am sure I shall," said Alice Dale, turning to her husband. He looked
+down into her eyes--and we were quite forgotten by both of them. We saw
+it, and slipped away, while Jasper Dale drew his wife into their home
+and shut the world out.
+
+We scampered joyously away through the moonlit dusk. Uncle Blair joined
+us at the gate and the Story Girl asked him what he thought of the
+bride.
+
+"When she dies white violets will grow out of her dust," he answered.
+
+"Uncle Blair says even queerer things than the Story Girl," Felicity
+whispered to me.
+
+And so that beautiful day went away from us, slipping through our
+fingers as we tried to hold it. It hooded itself in shadows and fared
+forth on the road that is lighted by the white stars of evening. It had
+been a gift of Paradise. Its hours had all been fair and beloved. From
+dawn flush to fall of night there had been naught to mar it. It took
+with it its smiles and laughter. But it left the boon of memory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
+
+
+"I am going away with father when he goes. He is going to spend the
+winter in Paris, and I am to go to school there."
+
+The Story Girl told us this one day in the orchard. There was a little
+elation in her tone, but more regret. The news was not a great surprise
+to us. We had felt it in the air ever since Uncle Blair's arrival. Aunt
+Janet had been very unwilling to let the Story Girl go. But Uncle Blair
+was inexorable. It was time, he said, that she should go to a better
+school than the little country one in Carlisle; and besides, he did not
+want her to grow into womanhood a stranger to him. So it was finally
+decided that she was to go.
+
+"Just think, you are going to Europe," said Sara Ray in an awe-struck
+tone. "Won't that be splendid!"
+
+"I suppose I'll like it after a while," said the Story Girl slowly,
+"but I know I'll be dreadfully homesick at first. Of course, it will be
+lovely to be with father, but oh, I'll miss the rest of you so much!"
+
+"Just think how WE'LL miss YOU," sighed Cecily. "It will be so lonesome
+here this winter, with you and Peter both gone. Oh, dear, I do wish
+things didn't have to change."
+
+Felicity said nothing. She kept looking down at the grass on which she
+sat, absently pulling at the slender blades. Presently we saw two big
+tears roll down over her cheeks. The Story Girl looked surprised.
+
+"Are you crying because I'm going away, Felicity?" she asked.
+
+"Of course I am," answered Felicity, with a big sob. "Do you think I've
+no f-f-eeling?"
+
+"I didn't think you'd care much," said the Story Girl frankly. "You've
+never seemed to like me very much."
+
+"I d-don't wear my h-heart on my sleeve," said poor Felicity, with an
+attempt at dignity. "I think you m-might stay. Your father would let you
+s-stay if you c-coaxed him."
+
+"Well, you see I'd have to go some time," sighed the Story Girl,
+"and the longer it was put off the harder it would be. But I do feel
+dreadfully about it. I can't even take poor Paddy. I'll have to leave
+him behind, and oh, I want you all to promise to be kind to him for my
+sake."
+
+We all solemnly assured her that we would.
+
+"I'll g-give him cream every m-morning and n-night," sobbed Felicity,
+"but I'll never be able to look at him without crying. He'll make me
+think of you."
+
+"Well, I'm not going right away," said the Story Girl, more cheerfully.
+"Not till the last of October. So we have over a month yet to have a
+good time in. Let's all just determine to make it a splendid month for
+the last. We won't think about my going at all till we have to, and we
+won't have any quarrels among us, and we'll just enjoy ourselves all we
+possibly can. So don't cry any more, Felicity. I'm awfully glad you
+do like me and am sorry I'm going away, but let's all forget it for a
+month."
+
+Felicity sighed, and tucked away her damp handkerchief.
+
+"It isn't so easy for me to forget things, but I'll try," she said
+disconsolately, "and if you want any more cooking lessons before you go
+I'll be real glad to teach you anything I know."
+
+This was a high plane of self-sacrifice for Felicity to attain. But the
+Story Girl shook her head.
+
+"No, I'm not going to bother my head about cooking lessons this last
+month. It's too vexing."
+
+"Do you remember the time you made the pudding--" began Peter, and
+suddenly stopped.
+
+"Out of sawdust?" finished the Story Girl cheerfully. "You needn't be
+afraid to mention it to me after this. I don't mind any more. I begin to
+see the fun of it now. I should think I do remember it--and the time I
+baked the bread before it was raised enough."
+
+"People have made worse mistakes than that," said Felicity kindly.
+
+"Such as using tooth-powd--" but here Dan stopped abruptly, remembering
+the Story Girl's plea for a beautiful month. Felicity coloured, but said
+nothing--did not even LOOK anything.
+
+"We HAVE had lots of fun together one way or another," said Cecily,
+retrospectively.
+
+"Just think how much we've laughed this last year or so," said the Story
+Girl. "We've had good times together; but I think we'll have lots more
+splendid years ahead."
+
+"Eden is always behind us--Paradise always before," said Uncle
+Blair, coming up in time to hear her. He said it with a sigh that was
+immediately lost in one of his delightful smiles.
+
+"I like Uncle Blair so much better than I expected to," Felicity
+confided to me. "Mother says he's a rolling stone, but there really is
+something very nice about him, although he says a great many things I
+don't understand. I suppose the Story Girl will have a very gay time in
+Paris."
+
+"She's going to school and she'll have to study hard," I said.
+
+"She says she's going to study for the stage," said Felicity. "Uncle
+Roger thinks it is all right, and says she'll be very famous some day.
+But mother thinks it's dreadful, and so do I."
+
+"Aunt Julia is a concert singer," I said.
+
+"Oh, that's very different. But I hope poor Sara will get on all right,"
+sighed Felicity. "You never know what may happen to a person in those
+foreign countries. And everybody says Paris is such a wicked place. But
+we must hope for the best," she concluded in a resigned tone.
+
+That evening the Story Girl and I drove the cows to pasture after
+milking, and when we came home we sought out Uncle Blair in the orchard.
+He was sauntering up and down Uncle Stephen's Walk, his hands clasped
+behind him and his beautiful, youthful face uplifted to the western sky
+where waves of night were breaking on a dim primrose shore of sunset.
+
+"See that star over there in the south-west?" he said, as we joined him.
+"The one just above that pine? An evening star shining over a dark
+pine tree is the whitest thing in the universe--because it is LIVING
+whiteness--whiteness possessing a soul. How full this old orchard is of
+twilight! Do you know, I have been trysting here with ghosts."
+
+"The Family Ghost?" I asked, very stupidly.
+
+"No, not the Family Ghost. I never saw beautiful, broken-hearted Emily
+yet. Your mother saw her once, Sara--that was a strange thing," he added
+absently, as if to himself.
+
+"Did mother really see her?" whispered the Story Girl.
+
+"Well, she always believed she did. Who knows?"
+
+"Do you think there are such things as ghosts, Uncle Blair?" I asked
+curiously.
+
+"I never saw any, Beverley."
+
+"But you said you were trysting with ghosts here this evening," said the
+Story Girl.
+
+"Oh, yes--the ghosts of the old years. I love this orchard because of
+its many ghosts. We are good comrades, those ghosts and I; we walk and
+talk--we even laugh together--sorrowful laughter that has sorrow's own
+sweetness. And always there comes to me one dear phantom and wanders
+hand in hand with me--a lost lady of the old years."
+
+"My mother?" said the Story Girl very softly.
+
+"Yes, your mother. Here, in her old haunts, it is impossible for me to
+believe that she can be dead--that her LAUGHTER can be dead. She was the
+gayest, sweetest thing--and so young--only three years older than you,
+Sara. Yonder old house had been glad because of her for eighteen years
+when I met her first."
+
+"I wish I could remember her," said the Story Girl, with a little sigh.
+"I haven't even a picture of her. Why didn't you paint one, father?"
+
+"She would never let me. She had some queer, funny, half-playful,
+half-earnest superstition about it. But I always meant to when she would
+become willing to let me. And then--she died. Her twin brother Felix
+died the same day. There was something strange about that, too. I was
+holding her in my arms and she was looking up at me; suddenly she looked
+past me and gave a little start. 'Felix!' she said. For a moment
+she trembled and then she smiled and looked up at me again a little
+beseechingly. 'Felix has come for me, dear,' she said. 'We were always
+together before you came--you must not mind--you must be glad I do not
+have to go alone.' Well, who knows? But she left me, Sara--she left me."
+
+There was that in Uncle Blair's voice that kept us silent for a time.
+Then the Story Girl said, still very softly:
+
+"What did mother look like, father? I don't look the least little bit
+like her, do I?"
+
+"No, I wish you did, you brown thing. Your mother's face was as white as
+a wood-lily, with only a faint dream of rose in her cheeks. She had the
+eyes of one who always had a song in her heart--blue as a mist, those
+eyes were. She had dark lashes, and a little red mouth that quivered
+when she was very sad or very happy like a crimson rose too rudely
+shaken by the wind. She was as slim and lithe as a young, white-stemmed
+birch tree. How I loved her! How happy we were! But he who accepts human
+love must bind it to his soul with pain, and she is not lost to me.
+Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it."
+
+Uncle Blair looked up at the evening star. We saw that he had forgotten
+us, and we slipped away, hand in hand, leaving him alone in the
+memory-haunted shadows of the old orchard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PATH TO ARCADY
+
+
+October that year gathered up all the spilled sunshine of the summer and
+clad herself in it as in a garment. The Story Girl had asked us to
+try to make the last month together beautiful, and Nature seconded our
+efforts, giving us that most beautiful of beautiful things--a gracious
+and perfect moon of falling leaves. There was not in all that vanished
+October one day that did not come in with auroral splendour and go out
+attended by a fair galaxy of evening stars--not a day when there were
+not golden lights in the wide pastures and purple hazes in the ripened
+distances. Never was anything so gorgeous as the maple trees that year.
+Maples are trees that have primeval fire in their souls. It glows out a
+little in their early youth, before the leaves open, in the redness and
+rosy-yellowness of their blossoms, but in summer it is carefully hidden
+under a demure, silver-lined greenness. Then when autumn comes, the
+maples give up trying to be sober and flame out in all the barbaric
+splendour and gorgeousness of their real nature, making of the hills
+things out of an Arabian Nights dream in the golden prime of good Haroun
+Alraschid.
+
+You may never know what scarlet and crimson really are until you see
+them in their perfection on an October hillside, under the unfathomable
+blue of an autumn sky. All the glow and radiance and joy at earth's
+heart seem to have broken loose in a splendid determination to express
+itself for once before the frost of winter chills her beating pulses. It
+is the year's carnival ere the dull Lenten days of leafless valleys and
+penitential mists come.
+
+The time of apple-picking had come around once more and we worked
+joyously. Uncle Blair picked apples with us, and between him and the
+Story Girl it was an October never to be forgotten.
+
+"Will you go far afield for a walk with me to-day?" he said to her and
+me, one idle afternoon of opal skies, pied meadows and misty hills.
+
+It was Saturday and Peter had gone home; Felix and Dan were helping
+Uncle Alec top turnips; Cecily and Felicity were making cookies for
+Sunday, so the Story Girl and I were alone in Uncle Stephen's Walk.
+
+We liked to be alone together that last month, to think the long, long
+thoughts of youth and talk about our futures. There had grown up between
+us that summer a bond of sympathy that did not exist between us and the
+others. We were older than they--the Story Girl was fifteen and I was
+nearly that; and all at once it seemed as if we were immeasurably older
+than the rest, and possessed of dreams and visions and forward-reaching
+hopes which they could not possibly share or understand. At times we
+were still children, still interested in childish things. But there came
+hours when we seemed to our two selves very grown up and old, and
+in those hours we talked our dreams and visions and hopes, vague and
+splendid, as all such are, over together, and so began to build up, out
+of the rainbow fragments of our childhood's companionship, that rare
+and beautiful friendship which was to last all our lives, enriching and
+enstarring them. For there is no bond more lasting than that formed by
+the mutual confidences of that magic time when youth is slipping from
+the sheath of childhood and beginning to wonder what lies for it beyond
+those misty hills that bound the golden road.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked the Story Girl.
+
+"To 'the woods that belt the gray hillside'--ay, and overflow beyond it
+into many a valley purple-folded in immemorial peace," answered Uncle
+Blair. "I have a fancy for one more ramble in Prince Edward Island woods
+before I leave Canada again. But I would not go alone. So come, you two
+gay youthful things to whom all life is yet fair and good, and we will
+seek the path to Arcady. There will be many little things along our
+way to make us glad. Joyful sounds will 'come ringing down the wind;' a
+wealth of gypsy gold will be ours for the gathering; we will learn the
+potent, unutterable charm of a dim spruce wood and the grace of flexile
+mountain ashes fringing a lonely glen; we will tryst with the folk of
+fur and feather; we'll hearken to the music of gray old firs. Come, and
+you'll have a ramble and an afternoon that you will both remember all
+your lives."
+
+We did have it; never has its remembrance faded; that idyllic afternoon
+of roving in the old Carlisle woods with the Story Girl and Uncle Blair
+gleams in my book of years, a page of living beauty. Yet it was but
+a few hours of simplest pleasure; we wandered pathlessly through the
+sylvan calm of those dear places which seemed that day to be full of
+a great friendliness; Uncle Blair sauntered along behind us, whistling
+softly; sometimes he talked to himself; we delighted in those brief
+reveries of his; Uncle Blair was the only man I have ever known who
+could, when he so willed, "talk like a book," and do it without seeming
+ridiculous; perhaps it was because he had the knack of choosing "fit
+audience, though few," and the proper time to appeal to that audience.
+
+We went across the fields, intending to skirt the woods at the back of
+Uncle Alec's farm and find a lane that cut through Uncle Roger's woods;
+but before we came to it we stumbled on a sly, winding little path quite
+by accident--if, indeed, there can be such a thing as accident in the
+woods, where I am tempted to think we are led by the Good People along
+such of their fairy ways as they have a mind for us to walk in.
+
+"Go to, let us explore this," said Uncle Blair. "It always drags
+terribly at my heart to go past a wood lane if I can make any excuse at
+all for traversing it: for it is the by-ways that lead to the heart of
+the woods and we must follow them if we would know the forest and be
+known of it. When we can really feel its wild heart beating against ours
+its subtle life will steal into our veins and make us its own for ever,
+so that no matter where we go or how wide we wander in the noisy ways of
+cities or over the lone ways of the sea, we shall yet be drawn back to
+the forest to find our most enduring kinship."
+
+"I always feel so SATISFIED in the woods," said the Story Girl dreamily,
+as we turned in under the low-swinging fir boughs. "Trees seem such
+friendly things."
+
+"They are the most friendly things in God's good creation," said Uncle
+Blair emphatically. "And it is so easy to live with them. To hold
+converse with pines, to whisper secrets with the poplars, to listen to
+the tales of old romance that beeches have to tell, to walk in eloquent
+silence with self-contained firs, is to learn what real companionship
+is. Besides, trees are the same all over the world. A beech tree on the
+slopes of the Pyrenees is just what a beech tree here in these Carlisle
+woods is; and there used to be an old pine hereabouts whose twin brother
+I was well acquainted with in a dell among the Apennines. Listen to
+those squirrels, will you, chattering over yonder. Did you ever hear
+such a fuss over nothing? Squirrels are the gossips and busybodies of
+the woods; they haven't learned the fine reserve of its other denizens.
+But after all, there is a certain shrill friendliness in their
+greeting."
+
+"They seem to be scolding us," I said, laughing.
+
+"Oh, they are not half such scolds as they sound," answered Uncle Blair
+gaily. "If they would but 'tak a thought and mend' their shrew-like ways
+they would be dear, lovable creatures enough."
+
+"If I had to be an animal I think I'd like to be a squirrel," said the
+Story Girl. "It must be next best thing to flying."
+
+"Just see what a spring that fellow gave," laughed Uncle Blair. "And now
+listen to his song of triumph! I suppose that chasm he cleared seemed as
+wide and deep to him as Niagara Gorge would to us if we leaped over
+it. Well, the wood people are a happy folk and very well satisfied with
+themselves."
+
+Those who have followed a dim, winding, balsamic path to the unexpected
+hollow where a wood-spring lies have found the rarest secret the forest
+can reveal. Such was our good fortune that day. At the end of our path
+we found it, under the pines, a crystal-clear thing with lips unkissed
+by so much as a stray sunbeam.
+
+"It is easy to dream that this is one of the haunted springs of old
+romance," said Uncle Blair. "'Tis an enchanted spot this, I am very
+sure, and we should go softly, speaking low, lest we disturb the rest
+of a white, wet naiad, or break some spell that has cost long years of
+mystic weaving."
+
+"It's so easy to believe things in the woods," said the Story Girl,
+shaping a cup from a bit of golden-brown birch bark and filling it at
+the spring.
+
+"Drink a toast in that water, Sara," said Uncle Blair. "There's not a
+doubt that it has some potent quality of magic in it and the wish you
+wish over it will come true."
+
+The Story Girl lifted her golden-hued flagon to her red lips. Her hazel
+eyes laughed at us over the brim.
+
+"Here's to our futures," she cried, "I wish that every day of our lives
+may be better than the one that went before."
+
+"An extravagant wish--a very wish of youth," commented Uncle Blair, "and
+yet in spite of its extravagance, a wish that will come true if you are
+true to yourselves. In that case, every day WILL be better than all that
+went before--but there will be many days, dear lad and lass, when you
+will not believe it."
+
+We did not understand him, but we knew Uncle Blair never explained his
+meaning. When asked it he was wont to answer with a smile, "Some day
+you'll grow to it. Wait for that." So we addressed ourselves to follow
+the brook that stole away from the spring in its windings and doublings
+and tricky surprises.
+
+"A brook," quoth Uncle Blair, "is the most changeful, bewitching,
+lovable thing in the world. It is never in the same mind or mood two
+minutes. Here it is sighing and murmuring as if its heart were broken.
+But listen--yonder by the birches it is laughing as if it were enjoying
+some capital joke all by itself."
+
+It was indeed a changeful brook; here it would make a pool, dark and
+brooding and still, where we bent to look at our mirrored faces; then it
+grew communicative and gossiped shallowly over a broken pebble bed where
+there was a diamond dance of sunbeams and no troutling or minnow could
+glide through without being seen. Sometimes its banks were high and
+steep, hung with slender ashes and birches; again they were mere, low
+margins, green with delicate mosses, shelving out of the wood. Once
+it came to a little precipice and flung itself over undauntedly in an
+indignation of foam, gathering itself up rather dizzily among the mossy
+stones below. It was some time before it got over its vexation; it went
+boiling and muttering along, fighting with the rotten logs that lie
+across it, and making far more fuss than was necessary over every root
+that interfered with it. We were getting tired of its ill-humour and
+talked of leaving it, when it suddenly grew sweet-tempered again,
+swooped around a curve--and presto, we were in fairyland.
+
+It was a little dell far in the heart of the woods. A row of birches
+fringed the brook, and each birch seemed more exquisitely graceful
+and golden than her sisters. The woods receded from it on every hand,
+leaving it lying in a pool of amber sunshine. The yellow trees were
+mirrored in the placid stream, with now and then a leaf falling on the
+water, mayhap to drift away and be used, as Uncle Blair suggested, by
+some adventurous wood sprite who had it in mind to fare forth to some
+far-off, legendary region where all the brooks ran into the sea.
+
+"Oh, what a lovely place!" I exclaimed, looking around me with delight.
+
+"A spell of eternity is woven over it, surely," murmured Uncle Blair.
+"Winter may not touch it, or spring ever revisit it. It should be like
+this for ever."
+
+"Let us never come here again," said the Story Girl softly, "never,
+no matter how often we may be in Carlisle. Then we will never see it
+changed or different. We can always remember it just as we see it now,
+and it will be like this for ever for us."
+
+"I'm going to sketch it," said Uncle Blair.
+
+While he sketched it the Story Girl and I sat on the banks of the brook
+and she told me the story of the Sighing Reed. It was a very simple
+little story, that of the slender brown reed which grew by the forest
+pool and always was sad and sighing because it could not utter music
+like the brook and the birds and the winds. All the bright, beautiful
+things around it mocked it and laughed at it for its folly. Who would
+ever look for music in it, a plain, brown, unbeautiful thing? But one
+day a youth came through the wood; he was as beautiful as the spring; he
+cut the brown reed and fashioned it according to his liking; and then he
+put it to his lips and breathed on it; and, oh, the music that floated
+through the forest! It was so entrancing that everything--brooks and
+birds and winds--grew silent to listen to it. Never had anything so
+lovely been heard; it was the music that had for so long been shut up in
+the soul of the sighing reed and was set free at last through its pain
+and suffering.
+
+I had heard the Story Girl tell many a more dramatic tale; but that one
+stands out for me in memory above them all, partly, perhaps, because of
+the spot in which she told it, partly because it was the last one I was
+to hear her tell for many years--the last one she was ever to tell me on
+the golden road.
+
+When Uncle Blair had finished his sketch the shafts of sunshine were
+turning crimson and growing more and more remote; the early autumn
+twilight was falling over the woods. We left our dell, saying good-bye
+to it for ever, as the Story Girl had suggested, and we went slowly
+homeward through the fir woods, where a haunting, indescribable odour
+stole out to meet us.
+
+"There is magic in the scent of dying fir," Uncle Blair was saying aloud
+to himself, as if forgetting he was not quite alone. "It gets into
+our blood like some rare, subtly-compounded wine, and thrills us with
+unutterable sweetnesses, as of recollections from some other fairer
+life, lived in some happier star. Compared to it, all other scents seem
+heavy and earth-born, luring to the valleys instead of the heights. But
+the tang of the fir summons onward and upward to some 'far-off, divine
+event'--some spiritual peak of attainment whence we shall see with
+unfaltering, unclouded vision the spires of some aerial City Beautiful,
+or the fulfilment of some fair, fadeless land of promise."
+
+He was silent for a moment, then added in a lower tone,
+
+"Felicity, you loved the scent of dying fir. If you were here tonight
+with me--Felicity--Felicity!"
+
+Something in his voice made me suddenly sad. I was comforted when I felt
+the Story Girl slip her hand into mine. So we walked out of the woods
+into the autumn dusk.
+
+We were in a little valley. Half-way up the opposite slope a brush fire
+was burning clearly and steadily in a maple grove. There was something
+indescribably alluring in that fire, glowing so redly against the dark
+background of forest and twilit hill.
+
+"Let us go to it," cried Uncle Blair, gaily, casting aside his sorrowful
+mood and catching our hands. "A wood fire at night has a fascination not
+to be resisted by those of mortal race. Hasten--we must not lose time."
+
+"Oh, it will burn a long time yet," I gasped, for Uncle Blair was
+whisking us up the hill at a merciless rate.
+
+"You can't be sure. It may have been lighted by some good, honest
+farmer-man, bent on tidying up his sugar orchard, but it may also, for
+anything we know, have been kindled by no earthly woodman as a beacon or
+summons to the tribes of fairyland, and may vanish away if we tarry."
+
+It did not vanish and presently we found ourselves in the grove. It was
+very beautiful; the fire burned with a clear, steady glow and a soft
+crackle; the long arcades beneath the trees were illuminated with a
+rosy radiance, beyond which lurked companies of gray and purple shadows.
+Everything was very still and dreamy and remote.
+
+"It is impossible that out there, just over the hill, lies a village of
+men, where tame household lamps are shining," said Uncle Blair.
+
+"I feel as if we must be thousands of miles away from everything we've
+ever known," murmured the Story Girl.
+
+"So you are!" said Uncle Blair emphatically. "You're back in the youth
+of the race--back in the beguilement of the young world. Everything
+is in this hour--the beauty of classic myths, the primal charm of the
+silent and the open, the lure of mystery. Why, it's a time and place
+when and where everything might come true--when the men in green might
+creep out to join hands and dance around the fire, or dryads steal from
+their trees to warm their white limbs, grown chilly in October frosts,
+by the blaze. I wouldn't be much surprised if we should see something
+of the kind. Isn't that the flash of an ivory shoulder through yonder
+gloom? And didn't you see a queer little elfin face peering at us around
+that twisted gray trunk? But one can't be sure. Mortal eyesight is too
+slow and clumsy a thing to match against the flicker of a pixy-litten
+fire."
+
+Hand in hand we wandered through that enchanted place, seeking the folk
+of elf-land, "and heard their mystic voices calling, from fairy knoll
+and haunted hill." Not till the fire died down into ashes did we leave
+the grove. Then we found that the full moon was gleaming lustrously from
+a cloudless sky across the valley. Between us and her stretched up a
+tall pine, wondrously straight and slender and branchless to its very
+top, where it overflowed in a crest of dark boughs against the silvery
+splendour behind it. Beyond, the hill farms were lying in a suave, white
+radiance.
+
+"Doesn't it seem a long, long time to you since we left home this
+afternoon?" asked the Story Girl. "And yet it is only a few hours."
+
+Only a few hours--true; yet such hours were worth a cycle of common
+years untouched by the glory and the dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. WE LOSE A FRIEND
+
+
+Our beautiful October was marred by one day of black tragedy--the day
+Paddy died. For Paddy, after seven years of as happy a life as ever
+a cat lived, died suddenly--of poison, as was supposed. Where he had
+wandered in the darkness to meet his doom we did not know, but in the
+frosty dawnlight he dragged himself home to die. We found him lying
+on the doorstep when we got up, and it did not need Aunt Janet's curt
+announcement, or Uncle Blair's reluctant shake of the head, to tell us
+that there was no chance of our pet recovering this time. We felt that
+nothing could be done. Lard and sulphur on his paws would be of no use,
+nor would any visit to Peg Bowen avail. We stood around in mournful
+silence; the Story Girl sat down on the step and took poor Paddy upon
+her lap.
+
+"I s'pose there's no use even in praying now," said Cecily desperately.
+
+"It wouldn't do any harm to try," sobbed Felicity.
+
+"You needn't waste your prayers," said Dan mournfully, "Pat is beyond
+human aid. You can tell that by his eyes. Besides, I don't believe it
+was the praying cured him last time."
+
+"No, it was Peg Bowen," declared Peter, "but she couldn't have bewitched
+him this time for she's been away for months, nobody knows where."
+
+"If he could only TELL us where he feels the worst!" said Cecily
+piteously. "It's so dreadful to see him suffering and not be able to do
+a single thing to help him!"
+
+"I don't think he's suffering much now," I said comfortingly.
+
+The Story Girl said nothing. She passed and repassed her long brown hand
+gently over her pet's glossy fur. Pat lifted his head and essayed to
+creep a little nearer to his beloved mistress. The Story Girl drew his
+limp body close in her arms. There was a plaintive little mew--a long
+quiver--and Paddy's friendly soul had fared forth to wherever it is that
+good cats go.
+
+"Well, he's gone," said Dan, turning his back abruptly to us.
+
+"It doesn't seem as if it can be true," sobbed Cecily. "This time
+yesterday morning he was full of life."
+
+"He drank two full saucers of cream," moaned Felicity, "and I saw him
+catch a mouse in the evening. Maybe it was the last one he ever caught."
+
+"He did for many a mouse in his day," said Peter, anxious to pay his
+tribute to the departed.
+
+"'He was a cat--take him for all in all. We shall not look upon his like
+again,'" quoted Uncle Blair.
+
+Felicity and Cecily and Sara Ray cried so much that Aunt Janet lost
+patience completely and told them sharply that they would have something
+to cry for some day--which did not seem to comfort them much. The Story
+Girl shed no tears, though the look in her eyes hurt more than weeping.
+
+"After all, perhaps it's for the best," she said drearily. "I've been
+feeling so badly over having to go away and leave Paddy. No matter how
+kind you'd all be to him I know he'd miss me terribly. He wasn't like
+most cats who don't care who comes and goes as long as they get plenty
+to eat. Paddy wouldn't have been contented without me."
+
+"Oh, no-o-o, oh, no-o-o," wailed Sara Ray lugubriously.
+
+Felix shot a disgusted glance at her.
+
+"I don't see what YOU are making such a fuss about," he said
+unfeelingly. "He wasn't your cat."
+
+"But I l-l-oved him," sobbed Sara, "and I always feel bad when my
+friends d-do."
+
+"I wish we could believe that cats went to heaven, like people," sighed
+Cecily. "Do you really think it isn't possible?"
+
+Uncle Blair shook his head.
+
+"I'm afraid not. I'd like to think cats have a chance for heaven, but I
+can't. There's nothing heavenly about cats, delightful creatures though
+they are."
+
+"Blair, I'm really surprised to hear the things you say to the
+children," said Aunt Janet severely.
+
+"Surely you wouldn't prefer me to tell them that cats DO go to heaven,"
+protested Uncle Blair.
+
+"I think it's wicked to carry on about an animal as those children do,"
+answered Aunt Janet decidedly, "and you shouldn't encourage them. Here
+now, children, stop making a fuss. Bury that cat and get off to your
+apple picking."
+
+We had to go to our work, but Paddy was not to be buried in any such
+off-hand fashion as that. It was agreed that we should bury him in
+the orchard at sunset that evening, and Sara Ray, who had to go home,
+declared she would be back for it, and implored us to wait for her if
+she didn't come exactly on time.
+
+"I mayn't be able to get away till after milking," she sniffed, "but I
+don't want to miss it. Even a cat's funeral is better than none at all."
+
+"Horrid thing!" said Felicity, barely waiting until Sara was out of
+earshot.
+
+We worked with heavy hearts that day; the girls cried bitterly most of
+the time and we boys whistled defiantly. But as evening drew on we began
+to feel a sneaking interest in the details of the funeral. As Dan said,
+the thing should be done properly, since Paddy was no common cat. The
+Story Girl selected the spot for the grave, in a little corner behind
+the cherry copse, where early violets enskied the grass in spring, and
+we boys dug the grave, making it "soft and narrow," as the heroine of
+the old ballad wanted hers made. Sara Ray, who managed to come in time
+after all, and Felicity stood and watched us, but Cecily and the Story
+Girl kept far aloof.
+
+"This time last night you never thought you'd be digging Pat's grave
+to-night," sighed Felicity.
+
+"We little k-know what a day will bring forth," sobbed Sara. "I've heard
+the minister say that and it is true."
+
+"Of course it's true. It's in the Bible; but I don't think you should
+repeat it in connection with a cat," said Felicity dubiously.
+
+When all was in readiness the Story Girl brought her pet through the
+orchard where he had so often frisked and prowled. No useless coffin
+enclosed his breast but he reposed in a neat cardboard box.
+
+"I wonder if it would be right to say 'ashes to ashes and dust to
+dust,'" said Peter.
+
+"No, it wouldn't," averred Felicity. "It would be real wicked."
+
+"I think we ought to sing a hymn, anyway," asseverated Sara Ray.
+
+"Well, we might do that, if it isn't a very religious one," conceded
+Felicity.
+
+"How would 'Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore,' do?" asked
+Cecily. "That never seemed to me a very religious hymn."
+
+"But it doesn't seem very appropriate to a funeral occasion either,"
+said Felicity.
+
+"I think 'Lead, kindly light,' would be ever so much more suitable,"
+suggested Sara Ray, "and it is kind of soothing and melancholy too."
+
+"We are not going to sing anything," said the Story Girl coldly. "Do
+you want to make the affair ridiculous? We will just fill up the grave
+quietly and put a flat stone over the top."
+
+"It isn't much like my idea of a funeral," muttered Sara Ray
+discontentedly.
+
+"Never mind, we're going to have a real obituary about him in Our
+Magazine," whispered Cecily consolingly.
+
+"And Peter is going to cut his name on top of the stone," added
+Felicity. "Only we mustn't let on to the grown-ups until it is done,
+because they might say it wasn't right."
+
+We left the orchard, a sober little band, with the wind of the gray
+twilight blowing round us. Uncle Roger passed us at the gate.
+
+"So the last sad obsequies are over?" he remarked with a grin.
+
+And we hated Uncle Roger. But we loved Uncle Blair because he said
+quietly,
+
+"And so you've buried your little comrade?"
+
+So much may depend on the way a thing is said. But not even Uncle
+Blair's sympathy could take the sting out of the fact that there was
+no Paddy to get the froth that night at milking time. Felicity cried
+bitterly all the time she was straining the milk. Many human beings have
+gone to their graves unattended by as much real regret as followed that
+one gray pussy cat to his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX. PROPHECIES
+
+
+"Here's a letter for you from father," said Felix, tossing it to me as
+he came through the orchard gate. We had been picking apples all day,
+but were taking a mid-afternoon rest around the well, with a cup of its
+sparkling cold water to refresh us.
+
+I opened the letter rather indifferently, for father, with all his
+excellent and lovable traits, was but a poor correspondent; his letters
+were usually very brief and very unimportant.
+
+This letter was brief enough, but it was freighted with a message of
+weighty import. I sat gazing stupidly at the sheet after I had read it
+until Felix exclaimed,
+
+"Bev, what's the matter with you? What's in that letter?"
+
+"Father is coming home," I said dazedly. "He is to leave South America
+in a fortnight and will be here in November to take us back to Toronto."
+
+Everybody gasped. Sara Ray, of course, began to cry, which aggravated me
+unreasonably.
+
+"Well," said Felix, when he got his second wind, "I'll be awful glad
+to see father again, but I tell you I don't like the thought of leaving
+here."
+
+I felt exactly the same but, in view of Sara Ray's tears, admit it I
+would not; so I sat in grum silence while the other tongues wagged.
+
+"If I were not going away myself I'd feel just terrible," said the Story
+Girl. "Even as it is I'm real sorry. I'd like to be able to think of
+you as all here together when I'm gone, having good times and writing me
+about them."
+
+"It'll be awfully dull when you fellows go," muttered Dan.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know what we're ever going to do here this winter,"
+said Felicity, with the calmness of despair.
+
+"Thank goodness there are no more fathers to come back," breathed Cecily
+with a vicious earnestness that made us all laugh, even in the midst of
+our dismay.
+
+We worked very half-heartedly the rest of the day, and it was not until
+we assembled in the orchard in the evening that our spirits recovered
+something like their wonted level. It was clear and slightly frosty; the
+sun had declined behind a birch on a distant hill and it seemed a tree
+with a blazing heart of fire. The great golden willow at the lane gate
+was laughter-shaken in the wind of evening. Even amid all the changes of
+our shifting world we could not be hopelessly low-spirited--except Sara
+Ray, who was often so, and Peter, who was rarely so. But Peter had been
+sorely vexed in spirit for several days. The time was approaching for
+the October issue of Our Magazine and he had no genuine fiction ready
+for it. He had taken so much to heart Felicity's taunt that his stories
+were all true that he had determined to have a really-truly false one
+in the next number. But the difficulty was to get anyone to write it. He
+had asked the Story Girl to do it, but she refused; then he appealed to
+me and I shirked. Finally Peter determined to write a story himself.
+
+"It oughtn't to be any harder than writing a poem and I managed that,"
+he said dolefully.
+
+He worked at it in the evenings in the granary loft, and the rest of us
+forebore to question him concerning it, because he evidently disliked
+talking about his literary efforts. But this evening I had to ask him if
+he would soon have it ready, as I wanted to make up the paper.
+
+"It's done," said Peter, with an air of gloomy triumph. "It don't amount
+to much, but anyhow I made it all out of my own head. Not one word of it
+was ever printed or told before, and nobody can say there was."
+
+"Then I guess we have all the stuff in and I'll have Our Magazine ready
+to read by tomorrow night," I said.
+
+"I s'pose it will be the last one we'll have," sighed Cecily. "We can't
+carry it on after you all go, and it has been such fun."
+
+"Bev will be a real newspaper editor some day," declared the Story Girl,
+on whom the spirit of prophecy suddenly descended that night.
+
+She was swinging on the bough of an apple tree, with a crimson shawl
+wrapped about her head, and her eyes were bright with roguish fire.
+
+"How do you know he will?" asked Felicity.
+
+"Oh, I can tell futures," answered the Story Girl mysteriously. "I know
+what's going to happen to all of you. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"Do, just for the fun of it," I said. "Then some day we'll know just how
+near you came to guessing right. Go on. What else about me?"
+
+"You'll write books, too, and travel all over the world," continued the
+Story Girl. "Felix will be fat to the end of his life, and he will be a
+grandfather before he is fifty, and he will wear a long black beard."
+
+"I won't," cried Felix disgustedly. "I hate whiskers. Maybe I can't help
+the grandfather part, but I CAN help having a beard."
+
+"You can't. It's written in the stars."
+
+"'Tain't. The stars can't prevent me from shaving."
+
+"Won't Grandpa Felix sound awful funny?" reflected Felicity.
+
+"Peter will be a minister," went on the Story Girl.
+
+"Well, I might be something worse," remarked Peter, in a not ungratified
+tone.
+
+"Dan will be a farmer and will marry a girl whose name begins with K and
+he will have eleven children. And he'll vote Grit."
+
+"I won't," cried scandalized Dan. "You don't know a thing about
+it. Catch ME ever voting Grit! As for the rest of it--I don't care.
+Farming's well enough, though I'd rather be a sailor."
+
+"Don't talk such nonsense," protested Felicity sharply. "What on earth
+do you want to be a sailor for and be drowned?"
+
+"All sailors aren't drowned," said Dan.
+
+"Most of them are. Look at Uncle Stephen."
+
+"You ain't sure he was drowned."
+
+"Well, he disappeared, and that is worse."
+
+"How do you know? Disappearing might be real easy."
+
+"It's not very easy for your family."
+
+"Hush, let's hear the rest of the predictions," said Cecily.
+
+"Felicity," resumed the Story Girl gravely, "will marry a minister."
+
+Sara Ray giggled and Felicity blushed. Peter tried hard not to look too
+self-consciously delighted.
+
+"She will be a perfect housekeeper and will teach a Sunday School class
+and be very happy all her life."
+
+"Will her husband be happy?" queried Dan solemnly.
+
+"I guess he'll be as happy as your wife," retorted Felicity reddening.
+
+"He'll be the happiest man in the world," declared Peter warmly.
+
+"What about me?" asked Sara Ray.
+
+The Story Girl looked rather puzzled. It was so hard to imagine Sara Ray
+as having any kind of future. Yet Sara was plainly anxious to have her
+fortune told and must be gratified.
+
+"You'll be married," said the Story Girl recklessly, "and you'll live to
+be nearly a hundred years old, and go to dozens of funerals and have a
+great many sick spells. You will learn not to cry after you are seventy;
+but your husband will never go to church."
+
+"I'm glad you warned me," said Sara Ray solemnly, "because now I know
+I'll make him promise before I marry him that he will go."
+
+"He won't keep the promise," said the Story Girl, shaking her head. "But
+it is getting cold and Cecily is coughing. Let us go in."
+
+"You haven't told my fortune," protested Cecily disappointedly.
+
+The Story Girl looked very tenderly at Cecily--at the smooth little
+brown head, at the soft, shining eyes, at the cheeks that were often
+over-rosy after slight exertion, at the little sunburned hands that were
+always busy doing faithful work or quiet kindnesses. A very strange look
+came over the Story Girl's face; her eyes grew sad and far-reaching, as
+if of a verity they pierced beyond the mists of hidden years.
+
+"I couldn't tell any fortune half good enough for you, dearest," she
+said, slipping her arm round Cecily. "You deserve everything good and
+lovely. But you know I've only been in fun--of course I don't know
+anything about what's going to happen to us."
+
+"Perhaps you know more than you think for," said Sara Ray, who seemed
+much pleased with her fortune and anxious to believe it, despite the
+husband who wouldn't go to church.
+
+"But I'd like to be told my fortune, even in fun," persisted Cecily.
+
+"Everybody you meet will love you as long as you live." said the Story
+Girl. "There that's the very nicest fortune I can tell you, and it will
+come true whether the others do or not, and now we must go in."
+
+We went, Cecily still a little disappointed. In later years I often
+wondered why the Story Girl refused to tell her fortune that night.
+Did some strange gleam of foreknowledge fall for a moment across her
+mirth-making? Did she realize in a flash of prescience that there was
+no earthly future for our sweet Cecily? Not for her were to be the
+lengthening shadows or the fading garland. The end was to come while
+the rainbow still sparkled on her wine of life, ere a single petal had
+fallen from her rose of joy. Long life was before all the others who
+trysted that night in the old homestead orchard; but Cecily's maiden
+feet were never to leave the golden road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. THE LAST NUMBER OF OUR MAGAZINE
+
+
+EDITORIAL
+
+It is with heartfelt regret that we take up our pen to announce that
+this will be the last number of Our Magazine. We have edited ten numbers
+of it and it has been successful beyond our expectations. It has to be
+discontinued by reason of circumstances over which we have no control
+and not because we have lost interest in it. Everybody has done his or
+her best for Our Magazine. Prince Edward Island expected everyone to do
+his and her duty and everyone did it.
+
+Mr. Dan King conducted the etiquette department in a way worthy of the
+Family Guide itself. He is especially entitled to commendation because
+he laboured under the disadvantage of having to furnish most of the
+questions as well as the answers. Miss Felicity King has edited our
+helpful household department very ably, and Miss Cecily King's fashion
+notes were always up to date. The personal column was well looked after
+by Miss Sara Stanley and the story page has been a marked success under
+the able management of Mr. Peter Craig, to whose original story in
+this issue, "The Battle of the Partridge Eggs," we would call especial
+attention. The Exciting Adventure series has also been very popular.
+
+And now, in closing, we bid farewell to our staff and thank them one and
+all for their help and co-operation in the past year. We have enjoyed
+our work and we trust that they have too. We wish them all happiness
+and success in years to come, and we hope that the recollection of
+Our Magazine will not be held least dear among the memories of their
+childhood.
+
+(SOBS FROM THE GIRLS): "INDEED IT WON'T!"
+
+
+OBITUARY
+
+On October eighteenth, Patrick Grayfur departed for that bourne whence
+no traveller returns. He was only a cat, but he had been our faithful
+friend for a long time and we aren't ashamed to be sorry for him. There
+are lots of people who are not as friendly and gentlemanly as Paddy was,
+and he was a great mouser. We buried all that was mortal of poor Pat in
+the orchard and we are never going to forget him. We have resolved
+that whenever the date of his death comes round we'll bow our heads and
+pronounce his name at the hour of his funeral. If we are anywhere where
+we can't say the name out loud we'll whisper it.
+
+
+"Farewell, dearest Paddy, in all the years that are to be We'll cherish
+your memory faithfully."[1]
+
+
+MY MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE
+
+My most exciting adventure was the day I fell off Uncle Roger's loft two
+years ago. I wasn't excited until it was all over because I hadn't time
+to be. The Story Girl and I were looking for eggs in the loft. It was
+filled with wheat straw nearly to the roof and it was an awful distance
+from us to the floor. And wheat straw is so slippery. I made a little
+spring and the straw slipped from under my feet and there I was going
+head first down from the loft. It seemed to me I was an awful long time
+falling, but the Story Girl says I couldn't have been more than three
+seconds. But I know that I thought five thoughts and there seemed to be
+quite a long time between them. The first thing I thought was, what has
+happened, because I really didn't know at first, it was so sudden. Then
+after a spell I thought the answer, I am falling off the loft. And then
+I thought, what will happen to me when I strike the floor, and after
+another little spell I thought, I'll be killed. And then I thought,
+well, I don't care. I really wasn't a bit frightened. I just was quite
+willing to be killed. If there hadn't been a big pile of chaff on the
+barn floor these words would never have been written. But there was and
+I fell on it and wasn't a bit hurt, only my hair and mouth and eyes
+and ears got all full of chaff. The strange part is that I wasn't a bit
+frightened when I thought I was going to be killed, but after all the
+danger was over I was awfully frightened and trembled so the Story Girl
+had to help me into the house.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE PARTRIDGE EGGS
+
+Once upon a time there lived about half a mile from a forrest a farmer
+and his wife and his sons and daughters and a granddaughter. The farmer
+and his wife loved this little girl very much but she caused them great
+trouble by running away into the woods and they often spent haf days
+looking for her. One day she wondered further into the forrest than
+usual and she begun to be hungry. Then night closed in. She asked a fox
+where she could get something to eat. The fox told her he knew where
+there was a partridges nest and a bluejays nest full of eggs. So he led
+her to the nests and she took five eggs out of each. When the birds came
+home they missed the eggs and flew into a rage. The bluejay put on his
+topcoat and was going to the partridge for law when he met the partridge
+coming to him. They lit up a fire and commenced sining their deeds when
+they heard a tremendous howl close behind them. They jumped up and put
+out the fire and were immejutly attacked by five great wolves. The next
+day the little girl was rambelling through the woods when they saw her
+and took her prisoner. After she had confessed that she had stole the
+eggs they told her to raise an army. They would have to fight over the
+nests of eggs and whoever one would have the eggs. So the partridge
+raised a great army of all kinds of birds except robins and the little
+girl got all the robins and foxes and bees and wasps. And best of all
+the little girl had a gun and plenty of ammunishun. The leader of her
+army was a wolf. The result of the battle was that all the birds were
+killed except the partridge and the bluejay and they were taken prisoner
+and starved to death.
+
+The little girl was then taken prisoner by a witch and cast into a
+dunjun full of snakes where she died from their bites and people who
+went through the forrest after that were taken prisoner by her ghost and
+cast into the same dunjun where they died. About a year after the wood
+turned into a gold castle and one morning everything had vanished except
+a piece of a tree.
+
+                                       PETER CRAIG.
+
+
+
+(DAN, WITH A WHISTLE:--"Well, I guess nobody can say Peter can't write
+fiction after THAT."
+
+SARA RAY, WIPING AWAY HER TEARS:--"It's a very interesting story, but it
+ends SO sadly."
+
+FELIX:--"What made you call it The Battle of the Partridge Eggs when the
+bluejay had just as much to do with it?"
+
+PETER, SHORTLY:--"Because it sounded better that way."
+
+FELICITY:--"Did she eat the eggs raw?"
+
+SARA RAY:--"Poor little thing, I suppose if you're starving you can't be
+very particular."
+
+CECILY, SIGHING:--"I wish you'd let her go home safe, Peter, and not put
+her to such a cruel death."
+
+BEVERLEY:--"I don't quite understand where the little girl got her gun
+and ammunition."
+
+PETER, SUSPECTING THAT HE IS BEING MADE FUN OF:--"If you could write a
+better story, why didn't you? I give you the chance."
+
+THE STORY GIRL, WITH A PRETERNATURALLY SOLEMN FACE:--"You shouldn't
+criticize Peter's story like that. It's a fairy tale, you know, and
+anything can happen in a fairy tale."
+
+FELICITY:--"There isn't a word about fairies in it!"
+
+CECILY:--"Besides, fairy tales always end nicely and this doesn't."
+
+PETER, SULKILY:--"I wanted to punish her for running away from home."
+
+DAN:--"Well, I guess you did it all right."
+
+CECILY:--"Oh, well, it was very interesting, and that is all that is
+really necessary in a story." )
+
+
+PERSONALS
+
+Mr. Blair Stanley is visiting friends and relatives in Carlisle. He
+intends returning to Europe shortly. His daughter, Miss Sara, will
+accompany him.
+
+Mr. Alan King is expected home from South America next month. His sons
+will return with him to Toronto. Beverley and Felix have made hosts of
+friends during their stay in Carlisle and will be much missed in social
+circles.
+
+The Mission Band of Carlisle Presbyterian Church completed their
+missionary quilt last week. Miss Cecily King collected the largest sum
+on her square. Congratulations, Cecily.
+
+Mr. Peter Craig will be residing in Markdale after October and will
+attend school there this winter. Peter is a good fellow and we all wish
+him success and prosperity.
+
+Apple picking is almost ended. There was an unusually heavy crop this
+year. Potatoes, not so good.
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENT
+
+Apple pies are the order of the day.
+
+Eggs are a very good price now. Uncle Roger says it isn't fair to have
+to pay as much for a dozen little eggs as a dozen big ones, but they go
+just as far.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+ETIQUETTE DEPARTMENT
+
+F-l-t-y. Is it considered good form to eat peppermints in church? Ans.;
+No, not if a witch gives them to you.
+
+No, F-l-x, we would not call Treasure Island or the Pilgrim's Progress
+dime novels.
+
+Yes, P-t-r, when you call on a young lady and her mother offers you a
+slice of bread and jam it is quite polite for you to accept it.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+FASHION NOTES
+
+Necklaces of roseberries are very much worn now.
+
+It is considered smart to wear your school hat tilted over your left
+eye.
+
+Bangs are coming in. Em Frewen has them. She went to Summerside for a
+visit and came back with them. All the girls in school are going to bang
+their hair as soon as their mothers will let them. But I do not intend
+to bang mine.
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+(SARA RAY, DESPAIRINGLY:--"I know ma will never let ME have bangs.")
+
+
+FUNNY PARAGRAPHS
+
+D-n. What are details? C-l-y. I am not sure, but I think they are things
+that are left over.
+
+(CECILY, WONDERINGLY:--"I don't see why that was put among the
+funny paragraphs. Shouldn't it have gone in the General Information
+department?")
+
+Old Mr. McIntyre's son on the Markdale Road had been very sick for
+several years and somebody was sympathizing with him because his son was
+going to die. "Oh," Mr. McIntyre said, quite easy, "he might as weel be
+awa'. He's only retarding buzziness."
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+GENERAL INFORMATION BUREAU
+
+P-t-r. What kind of people live in uninhabited places?
+
+Ans.: Cannibals, likely.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+
+[Footnote 1: The obituary was written by Mr. Felix King, but the two
+lines of poetry were composed by Miss Sara Ray.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. OUR LAST EVENING TOGETHER
+
+
+IT was the evening before the day on which the Story Girl and Uncle
+Blair were to leave us, and we were keeping our last tryst together
+in the orchard where we had spent so many happy hours. We had made a
+pilgrimage to all the old haunts--the hill field, the spruce wood, the
+dairy, Grandfather King's willow, the Pulpit Stone, Pat's grave, and
+Uncle Stephen's Walk; and now we foregathered in the sere grasses about
+the old well and feasted on the little jam turnovers Felicity had made
+that day specially for the occasion.
+
+"I wonder if we'll ever all be together again," sighed Cecily.
+
+"I wonder when I'll get jam turnovers like this again," said the Story
+Girl, trying to be gay but not making much of a success of it.
+
+"If Paris wasn't so far away I could send you a box of nice things
+now and then," said Felicity forlornly, "but I suppose there's no use
+thinking of that. Dear knows what they'll give you to eat over there."
+
+"Oh, the French have the reputation of being the best cooks in the
+world," rejoined the Story Girl, "but I know they can't beat your jam
+turnovers and plum puffs, Felicity. Many a time I'll be hankering after
+them."
+
+"If we ever do meet again you'll be grown up," said Felicity gloomily.
+
+"Well, you won't have stood still yourselves, you know."
+
+"No, but that's just the worst of it. We'll all be different and
+everything will be changed."
+
+"Just think," said Cecily, "last New Year's Eve we were wondering what
+would happen this year; and what a lot of things have happened that we
+never expected. Oh, dear!"
+
+"If things never happened life would be pretty dull," said the Story
+Girl briskly. "Oh, don't look so dismal, all of you."
+
+"It's hard to be cheerful when everybody's going away," sighed Cecily.
+
+"Well, let's pretend to be, anyway," insisted the Story Girl. "Don't
+let's think of parting. Let's think instead of how much we've laughed
+this last year or so. I'm sure I shall never forget this dear old place.
+We've had so many good times here."
+
+"And some bad times, too," reminded Felix.
+
+"Remember when Dan et the bad berries last summer?"
+
+"And the time we were so scared over that bell ringing in the house,"
+grinned Peter.
+
+"And the Judgment Day," added Dan.
+
+"And the time Paddy was bewitched," suggested Sara Ray.
+
+"And when Peter was dying of the measles," said Felicity.
+
+"And the time Jimmy Patterson was lost," said Dan. "Gee-whiz, but that
+scared me out of a year's growth."
+
+"Do you remember the time we took the magic seed," grinned Peter.
+
+"Weren't we silly?" said Felicity. "I really can never look Billy
+Robinson in the face when I meet him. I'm always sure he's laughing at
+me in his sleeve."
+
+"It's Billy Robinson who ought to be ashamed when he meets you or any of
+us," commented Cecily severely. "I'd rather be cheated than cheat other
+people."
+
+"Do you mind the time we bought God's picture?" asked Peter.
+
+"I wonder if it's where we buried it yet," speculated Felix.
+
+"I put a stone over it, just as we did over Pat," said Cecily.
+
+"I wish I could forget what God looks like," sighed Sara Ray. "I can't
+forget it--and I can't forget what the bad place is like either, ever
+since Peter preached that sermon on it."
+
+"When you get to be a real minister you'll have to preach that sermon
+over again, Peter," grinned Dan.
+
+"My Aunt Jane used to say that people needed a sermon on that place once
+in a while," retorted Peter seriously.
+
+"Do you mind the night I et the cucumbers and milk to make me dream?"
+said Cecily.
+
+And therewith we hunted out our old dream books to read them again, and,
+forgetful of coming partings, laughed over them till the old orchard
+echoed to our mirth. When we had finished we stood in a circle around
+the well and pledged "eternal friendship" in a cup of its unrivalled
+water.
+
+Then we joined hands and sang "Auld Lang Syne." Sara Ray cried bitterly
+in lieu of singing.
+
+"Look here," said the Story Girl, as we turned to leave the old orchard,
+"I want to ask a favour of you all. Don't say good-bye to me tomorrow
+morning."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Felicity in astonishment.
+
+"Because it's such a hopeless sort of word. Don't let's SAY it at all.
+Just see me off with a wave of your hands. It won't seem half so bad
+then. And don't any of you cry if you can help it. I want to remember
+you all smiling."
+
+We went out of the old orchard where the autumn night wind was beginning
+to make its weird music in the russet boughs, and shut the little gate
+behind us. Our revels there were ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. THE STORY GIRL GOES
+
+
+The morning dawned, rosy and clear and frosty. Everybody was up early,
+for the travellers must leave in time to catch the nine o'clock train.
+The horse was harnessed and Uncle Alec was waiting by the door. Aunt
+Janet was crying, but everybody else was making a valiant effort not to.
+The Awkward Man and Mrs. Dale came to see the last of their favourite.
+Mrs. Dale had brought her a glorious sheaf of chrysanthemums, and the
+Awkward Man gave her, quite gracefully, another little, old, limp book
+from his library.
+
+"Read it when you are sad or happy or lonely or discouraged or hopeful,"
+he said gravely.
+
+"He has really improved very much since he got married," whispered
+Felicity to me.
+
+Sara Stanley wore a smart new travelling suit and a blue felt hat with a
+white feather. She looked so horribly grown up in it that we felt as if
+she were lost to us already.
+
+Sara Ray had vowed tearfully the night before that she would be up in
+the morning to say farewell. But at this juncture Judy Pineau appeared
+to say that Sara, with her usual luck, had a sore throat, and that her
+mother consequently would not permit her to come. So Sara had written
+her parting words in a three-cornered pink note.
+
+
+  "My OWN DARLING FRIEND:--WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS my feelings over not
+  being able to go up this morning to say good-bye to one I so
+  FONDLY ADORE.  When I think that I cannot SEE YOU AGAIN my heart
+  is almost TOO FULL FOR UTTERANCE.  But mother says I cannot and I
+  MUST OBEY.  But I will be present IN SPIRIT.  It just BREAKS MY
+  HEART that you are going SO FAR AWAY.  You have always been SO
+  KIND to me and never hurt my feelings AS SOME DO and I shall miss
+  you SO MUCH.  But I earnestly HOPE AND PRAY that you will be HAPPY
+  AND PROSPEROUS wherever YOUR LOT IS CAST and not be seasick on THE
+  GREAT OCEAN.  I hope you will find time AMONG YOUR MANY DUTIES to
+  write me a letter ONCE IN A WHILE.  I shall ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU
+  and please remember me.  I hope we WILL MEET AGAIN sometime, but
+  if not may we meet in A FAR BETTER WORLD where there are no SAD
+  PARTINGS.
+
+  "Your true and loving friend,
+
+                                           "SARA RAY"
+
+
+"Poor little Sara," said the Story Girl, with a queer catch in her
+voice, as she slipped the tear-blotted note into her pocket. "She isn't
+a bad little soul, and I'm sorry I couldn't see her once more, though
+maybe it's just as well for she'd have to cry and set us all off. I
+WON'T cry. Felicity, don't you dare. Oh, you dear, darling people, I
+love you all so much and I'll go on loving you always."
+
+"Mind you write us every week at the very least," said Felicity, winking
+furiously.
+
+"Blair, Blair, watch over the child well," said Aunt Janet. "Remember,
+she has no mother."
+
+The Story Girl ran over to the buggy and climbed in. Uncle Blair
+followed her. Her arms were full of Mrs. Dale's chrysanthemums, held
+close up to her face, and her beautiful eyes shone softly at us over
+them. No good-byes were said, as she wished. We all smiled bravely and
+waved our hands as they drove out of the lane and down the moist red
+road into the shadows of the fir wood in the valley. But we still stood
+there, for we knew we should see the Story Girl once more. Beyond the
+fir wood was an open curve in the road and she had promised to wave a
+last farewell as they passed around it.
+
+We watched the curve in silence, standing in a sorrowful little group
+in the sunshine of the autumn morning. The delight of the world had been
+ours on the golden road. It had enticed us with daisies and rewarded
+us with roses. Blossom and lyric had waited on our wishes. Thoughts,
+careless and sweet, had visited us. Laughter had been our comrade and
+fearless Hope our guide. But now the shadow of change was over it.
+
+"There she is," cried Felicity.
+
+The Story Girl stood up and waved her chrysanthemums at us. We waved
+wildly back until the buggy had driven around the curve. Then we went
+slowly and silently back to the house. The Story Girl was gone.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Road, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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diff --git a/old/316.zip b/old/316.zip
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery
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+The Golden Road by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+Author of the "Anne of the Green Gables" Series 
+
+August, 1995  [Etext #316]
+
+Canada, 1913
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery
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+THE GOLDEN ROAD
+By
+L. M. MONTGOMERY
+
+
+"Life was a rose-lipped comrade
+ With purple flowers dripping from her fingers."
+                                   --The Author.
+
+
+TO
+THE MEMORY OF
+Aunt Mary Lawson
+WHO TOLD ME MANY OF THE TALES
+REPEATED BY THE
+STORY GIRL
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Once upon a time we all walked on the golden road.  It was a fair
+highway, through the Land of Lost Delight; shadow and sunshine
+were blessedly mingled, and every turn and dip revealed a fresh
+charm and a new loveliness to eager hearts and unspoiled eyes.
+
+On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in
+fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist; we were rich in
+gossamer fancies and iris hopes; our hearts sought and found the
+boon of dreams; the years waited beyond and they were very fair;
+life was a rose-lipped comrade with purple flowers dripping from
+her fingers.
+
+We may long have left the golden road behind, but its memories are
+the dearest of our eternal possessions; and those who cherish them
+as such may haply find a pleasure in the pages of this book, whose
+people are pilgrims on the golden road of youth.
+
+
+
+THE GOLDEN ROAD
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A NEW DEPARTURE
+
+
+"I've thought of something amusing for the winter," I said as we
+drew into a half-circle around the glorious wood-fire in Uncle
+Alec's kitchen.
+
+It had been a day of wild November wind, closing down into a wet,
+eerie twilight.  Outside, the wind was shrilling at the windows
+and around the eaves, and the rain was playing on the roof.  The
+old willow at the gate was writhing in the storm and the orchard
+was a place of weird music, born of all the tears and fears that
+haunt the halls of night.  But little we cared for the gloom and
+the loneliness of the outside world; we kept them at bay with the
+light of the fire and the laughter of our young lips.
+
+We had been having a splendid game of Blind-Man's Buff.  That is,
+it had been splendid at first; but later the fun went out of it
+because we found that Peter was, of malice prepense, allowing
+himself to be caught too easily, in order that he might have the
+pleasure of catching Felicity--which he never failed to do, no
+matter how tightly his eyes were bound.  What remarkable goose
+said that love is blind?  Love can see through five folds of
+closely-woven muffler with ease!
+
+"I'm getting tired," said Cecily, whose breath was coming rather
+quickly and whose pale cheeks had bloomed into scarlet.  "Let's
+sit down and get the Story Girl to tell us a story."
+
+But as we dropped into our places the Story Girl shot a
+significant glance at me which intimated that this was the
+psychological moment for introducing the scheme she and I had been
+secretly developing for some days.  It was really the Story Girl's
+idea and none of mine.  But she had insisted that I should make
+the suggestion as coming wholly from myself.
+
+"If you don't, Felicity won't agree to it.  You know yourself,
+Bev, how contrary she's been lately over anything I mention.  And
+if she goes against it Peter will too--the ninny!--and it wouldn't
+be any fun if we weren't all in it."
+
+"What is it?" asked Felicity, drawing her chair slightly away from
+Peter's.
+
+"It is this.  Let us get up a newspaper of our own--write it all
+ourselves, and have all we do in it.  Don't you think we can get a
+lot of fun out of it?"
+
+Everyone looked rather blank and amazed, except the Story Girl. 
+She knew what she had to do, and she did it.
+
+"What a silly idea!" she exclaimed, with a contemptuous toss of
+her long brown curls.  "Just as if WE could get up a newspaper!"
+
+Felicity fired up, exactly as we had hoped.
+
+"I think it's a splendid idea," she said enthusiastically.  "I'd
+like to know why we couldn't get up as good a newspaper as they
+have in town!  Uncle Roger says the Daily Enterprise has gone to
+the dogs--all the news it prints is that some old woman has put a
+shawl on her head and gone across the road to have tea with
+another old woman.  I guess we could do better than that.  You
+needn't think, Sara Stanley, that nobody but you can do anything."
+
+"I think it would be great fun," said Peter decidedly.  "My Aunt
+Jane helped edit a paper when she was at Queen's Academy, and she
+said it was very amusing and helped her a great deal."
+
+The Story Girl could hide her delight only by dropping her eyes
+and frowning.
+
+"Bev wants to be editor," she said, "and I don't see how he can,
+with no experience.  Anyhow, it would be a lot of trouble."
+
+"Some people are so afraid of a little bother," retorted Felicity.
+
+"I think it would be nice," said Cecily timidly, "and none of us
+have any experience of being editors, any more than Bev, so that
+wouldn't matter."
+
+"Will it be printed?" asked Dan.
+
+"Oh, no," I said.  "We can't have it printed.  We'll just have to
+write it out--we can buy foolscap from the teacher."
+
+"I don't think it will be much of a newspaper if it isn't
+printed," said Dan scornfully.
+
+"It doesn't matter very much what YOU think," said Felicity.
+
+"Thank you," retorted Dan.
+
+"Of course," said the Story Girl hastily, not wishing to have Dan
+turned against our project, "if all the rest of you want it I'll
+go in for it too.  I daresay it would be real good fun, now that I
+come to think of it.  And we'll keep the copies, and when we
+become famous they'll be quite valuable."
+
+"I wonder if any of us ever will be famous," said Felix.
+
+"The Story Girl will be," I said.
+
+"I don't see how she can be," said Felicity skeptically.  "Why,
+she's just one of us."
+
+"Well, it's decided, then, that we're to have a newspaper," I
+resumed briskly.  "The next thing is to choose a name for it. 
+That's a very important thing."
+
+"How often are you going to publish it?" asked Felix.
+
+"Once a month."
+
+"I thought newspapers came out every day, or every week at least,"
+said Dan.
+
+"We couldn't have one every week," I explained.  "It would be too
+much work."
+
+"Well, that's an argument," admitted Dan.  "The less work you can
+get along with the better, in my opinion.  No, Felicity, you
+needn't say it.  I know exactly what you want to say, so save your
+breath to cool your porridge.  I agree with you that I never work
+if I can find anything else to do."
+
+
+    "'Remember it is harder still
+      To have no work to do,"'
+
+
+quoted Cecily reprovingly.
+
+"I don't believe THAT," rejoined Dan.  "I'm like the Irishman who
+said he wished the man who begun work had stayed and finished it."
+
+"Well, is it decided that Bev is to be editor?" asked Felix.
+
+"Of course it is," Felicity answered for everybody.
+
+"Then," said Felix, "I move that the name be The King Monthly
+Magazine."
+
+"That sounds fine," said Peter, hitching his chair a little nearer
+Felicity's.
+
+"But," said Cecily timidly, "that will leave out Peter and the
+Story Girl and Sara Ray, just as if they didn't have a share in
+it.  I don't think that would be fair."
+
+"You name it then, Cecily," I suggested.
+
+"Oh!" Cecily threw a deprecating glance at the Story Girl and
+Felicity.  Then, meeting the contempt in the latter's gaze, she
+raised her head with unusual spirit.
+
+"I think it would be nice just to call it Our Magazine," she said. 
+"Then we'd all feel as if we had a share in it."
+
+"Our Magazine it will be, then," I said.  "And as for having a
+share in it, you bet we'll all have a share in it.  If I'm to be
+editor you'll all have to be sub-editors, and have charge of a
+department."
+
+"Oh, I couldn't," protested Cecily.
+
+"You must," I said inexorably.  "'England expects everyone to do
+his duty.' That's our motto--only we'll put Prince Edward Island
+in place of England.  There must be no shirking.  Now, what
+departments will we have?  We must make it as much like a real
+newspaper as we can."
+
+"Well, we ought to have an etiquette department, then," said
+Felicity.  "The Family Guide has one."
+
+"Of course we'll have one," I said, "and Dan will edit it."
+
+"Dan!" exclaimed Felicity, who had fondly expected to be asked to
+edit it herself.
+
+"I can run an etiquette column as well as that idiot in the Family
+Guide, anyhow," said Dan defiantly.  "But you can't have an
+etiquette department unless questions are asked.  What am I to do
+if nobody asks any?"
+
+"You must make some up," said the Story Girl.  "Uncle Roger says
+that is what the Family Guide man does.  He says it is impossible
+that there can be as many hopeless fools in the world as that
+column would stand for otherwise."
+
+"We want you to edit the household department, Felicity," I said,
+seeing a cloud lowering on that fair lady's brow.  "Nobody can do
+that as well as you.  Felix will edit the jokes and the
+Information Bureau, and Cecily must be fashion editor.  Yes, you
+must, Sis.  It's easy as wink. And the Story Girl will attend to
+the personals.  They're very important.  Anyone can contribute a
+personal, but the Story Girl is to see there are some in every
+issue, even if she has to make them up, like Dan with the
+etiquette."
+
+"Bev will run the scrap book department, besides the editorials,"
+said the Story Girl, seeing that I was too modest to say it
+myself.
+
+"Aren't you going to have a story page?" asked Peter.
+
+"We will, if you'll be fiction and poetry editor," I said.
+
+Peter, in his secret soul, was dismayed, but he would not blanch
+before Felicity.
+
+"All right," he said, recklessly.
+
+"We can put anything we like in the scrap book department," I
+explained, "but all the other contributions must be original, and
+all must have the name of the writer signed to them, except the
+personals.  We must all do our best.  Our Magazine is to be 'a
+feast of reason and flow of soul."'
+
+I felt that I had worked in two quotations with striking effect. 
+The others, with the exception of the Story Girl, looked suitably
+impressed.
+
+"But," said Cecily, reproachfully, "haven't you anything for Sara
+Ray to do?  She'll feel awful bad if she is left out."
+
+I had forgotten Sara Ray.  Nobody, except Cecily, ever did
+remember Sara Ray unless she was on the spot.  But we decided to
+put her in as advertising manager.  That sounded well and really
+meant very little.
+
+"Well, we'll go ahead then," I said, with a sigh of relief that
+the project had been so easily launched.  "We'll get the first
+issue out about the first of January.  And whatever else we do we
+mustn't let Uncle Roger get hold of it.  He'd make such fearful
+fun of it."
+
+"I hope we can make a success of it," said Peter moodily.  He had
+been moody ever since he was entrapped into being fiction editor.
+
+"It will be a success if we are determined to succeed," I said. 
+"'Where there is a will there is always a way.'"
+
+"That's just what Ursula Townley said when her father locked her
+in her room the night she was going to run away with Kenneth
+MacNair," said the Story Girl.
+
+We pricked up our ears, scenting a story.
+
+"Who were Ursula Townley and Kenneth MacNair?" I asked.
+
+"Kenneth MacNair was a first cousin of the Awkward Man's
+grandfather, and Ursula Townley was the belle of the Island in her
+day.  Who do you suppose told me the story--no, read it to me, out
+of his brown book?"
+
+"Never the Awkward Man himself!" I exclaimed incredulously.
+
+"Yes, he did," said the Story Girl triumphantly.  "I met him one
+day last week back in the maple woods when I was looking for
+ferns.  He was sitting by the spring, writing in his brown book. 
+He hid it when he saw me and looked real silly; but after I had
+talked to him awhile I just asked him about it, and told him that
+the gossips said he wrote poetry in it, and if he did would he
+tell me, because I was dying to know.  He said he wrote a little
+of everything in it; and then I begged him to read me something
+out of it, and he read me the story of Ursula and Kenneth."
+
+"I don't see how you ever had the face," said Felicity; and even
+Cecily looked as if she thought the Story Girl had gone rather
+far.
+
+"Never mind that," cried Felix, "but tell us the story.  That's
+the main thing."
+
+"I'll tell it just as the Awkward Man read it, as far as I can,"
+said the Story Girl, "but I can't put all his nice poetical
+touches in, because I can't remember them all, though he read it
+over twice for me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A WILL, A WAY AND A WOMAN
+
+
+"One day, over a hundred years ago, Ursula Townley was waiting for
+Kenneth MacNair in a great beechwood, where brown nuts were
+falling and an October wind was making the leaves dance on the
+ground like pixy-people."
+
+"What are pixy-people?" demanded Peter, forgetting the Story
+Girl's dislike of interruptions.
+
+"Hush," whispered Cecily.  "That is only one of the Awkward Man's
+poetical touches, I guess."
+
+"There were cultivated fields between the grove and the dark blue
+gulf; but far behind and on each side were woods, for Prince
+Edward Island a hundred years ago was not what it is today.  The
+settlements were few and scattered, and the population so scanty
+that old Hugh Townley boasted that he knew every man, woman and
+child in it.
+
+"Old Hugh was quite a noted man in his day.  He was noted for
+several things--he was rich, he was hospitable, he was proud, he
+was masterful--and he had for daughter the handsomest young woman
+in Prince Edward Island.
+
+"Of course, the young men were not blind to her good looks, and
+she had so many lovers that all the other girls hated her--"
+
+"You bet!" said Dan, aside--
+
+"But the only one who found favour in her eyes was the very last
+man she should have pitched her fancy on, at least if old Hugh
+were the judge.  Kenneth MacNair was a dark-eyed young sea-captain
+of the next settlement, and it was to meet him that Ursula stole
+to the beechwood on that autumn day of crisp wind and ripe
+sunshine.  Old Hugh had forbidden his house to the young man,
+making such a scene of fury about it that even Ursula's high
+spirit quailed.  Old Hugh had really nothing against Kenneth
+himself; but years before either Kenneth or Ursula was born,
+Kenneth's father had beaten Hugh Townley in a hotly contested
+election.  Political feeling ran high in those days, and old Hugh
+had never forgiven the MacNair his victory.  The feud between the
+families dated from that tempest in the provincial teapot, and the
+surplus of votes on the wrong side was the reason why, thirty
+years after, Ursula had to meet her lover by stealth if she met
+him at all."
+
+"Was the MacNair a Conservative or a Grit?" asked Felicity.
+
+"It doesn't make any difference what he was," said the Story Girl
+impatiently.  "Even a Tory would be romantic a hundred years ago. 
+Well, Ursula couldn't see Kenneth very often, for Kenneth lived
+fifteen miles away and was often absent from home in his vessel. 
+On this particular day it was nearly three months since they had
+met.
+
+"The Sunday before, young Sandy MacNair had been in Carlyle
+church.  He had risen at dawn that morning, walked bare-footed for
+eight miles along the shore, carrying his shoes, hired a harbour
+fisherman to row him over the channel, and then walked eight miles
+more to the church at Carlyle, less, it is to be feared, from a
+zeal for holy things than that he might do an errand for his
+adored brother, Kenneth.  He carried a letter which he contrived
+to pass into Ursula's hand in the crowd as the people came out. 
+This letter asked Ursula to meet Kenneth in the beechwood the next
+afternoon, and so she stole away there when suspicious father and
+watchful stepmother thought she was spinning in the granary loft."
+
+"It was very wrong of her to deceive her parents," said Felicity
+primly.
+
+The Story Girl couldn't deny this, so she evaded the ethical side
+of the question skilfully.
+
+"I am not telling you what Ursula Townley ought to have done," she
+said loftily.  "I am only telling you what she DID do.  If you
+don't want to hear it you needn't listen, of course.  There
+wouldn't be many stories to tell if nobody ever did anything she
+shouldn't do.
+
+"Well, when Kenneth came, the meeting was just what might have
+been expected between two lovers who had taken their last kiss
+three months before.  So it was a good half-hour before Ursula
+said,
+
+"'Oh, Kenneth, I cannot stay long--I shall be missed.  You said in
+your letter that you had something important to talk of.  What is
+it?'
+
+"'My news is this, Ursula.  Next Saturday morning my vessel, The
+Fair Lady, with her captain on board, sails at dawn from
+Charlottetown harbour, bound for Buenos Ayres.  At this season
+this means a safe and sure return--next May.'
+
+"'Kenneth!' cried Ursula.  She turned pale and burst into tears. 
+'How can you think of leaving me?  Oh, you are cruel!'
+
+"'Why, no, sweetheart,' laughed Kenneth.  'The captain of The Fair
+Lady will take his bride with him.  We'll spend our honeymoon on
+the high seas, Ursula, and the cold Canadian winter under southern
+palms.'
+
+"'You want me to run away with you, Kenneth?' exclaimed Ursula.
+
+"'Indeed, dear girl, there's nothing else to do!'
+
+"'Oh, I cannot!' she protested.  'My father would--'
+
+"'We'll not consult him--until afterward.  Come, Ursula, you know
+there's no other way.  We've always known it must come to this.
+YOUR father will never forgive me for MY father.  You won't fail
+me now.  Think of the long parting if you send me away alone on
+such a voyage.  Pluck up your courage, and we'll let Townleys and
+MacNairs whistle their mouldy feuds down the wind while we sail
+southward in The Fair Lady.  I have a plan.'
+
+"'Let me hear it,' said Ursula, beginning to get back her breath.
+
+"'There is to be a dance at The Springs Friday night.  Are you
+invited, Ursula?'
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Good.  I am not--but I shall be there--in the fir grove behind
+the house, with two horses.  When the dancing is at its height
+you'll steal out to meet me.  Then 'tis but a fifteen mile ride to
+Charlottetown, where a good minister, who is a friend of mine,
+will be ready to marry us.  By the time the dancers have tired
+their heels you and I will be on our vessel, able to snap our
+fingers at fate.'
+
+"'And what if I do not meet you in the fir grove?' said Ursula, a
+little impertinently.
+
+"'If you do not, I'll sail for South America the next morning, and
+many a long year will pass ere Kenneth MacNair comes home again.'
+
+"Perhaps Kenneth didn't mean that, but Ursula thought he did, and
+it decided her.  She agreed to run away with him.  Yes, of course
+that was wrong, too, Felicity.  She ought to have said, 'No, I
+shall be married respectably from home, and have a wedding and a
+silk dress and bridesmaids and lots of presents.'  But she didn't. 
+She wasn't as prudent as Felicity King would have been."
+
+"She was a shameless hussy," said Felicity, venting on the long-
+dead Ursula that anger she dare not visit on the Story Girl.
+
+"Oh, no, Felicity dear, she was just a lass of spirit.  I'd have
+done the same.  And when Friday night came she began to dress for
+the dance with a brave heart.  She was to go to The Springs with
+her uncle and aunt, who were coming on horseback that afternoon,
+and would then go on to The Springs in old Hugh's carriage, which
+was the only one in Carlyle then.  They were to leave in time to
+reach The Springs before nightfall, for the October nights were
+dark and the wooded roads rough for travelling.
+
+"When Ursula was ready she looked at herself in the glass with a
+good deal of satisfaction.  Yes, Felicity, she was a vain baggage,
+that same Ursula, but that kind didn't all die out a hundred years
+ago.  And she had good reason for being vain.  She wore the sea-
+green silk which had been brought out from England a year before
+and worn but once--at the Christmas ball at Government House.  A
+fine, stiff, rustling silk it was, and over it shone Ursula's
+crimson cheeks and gleaming eyes, and masses of nut brown hair.
+
+"As she turned from the glass she heard her father's voice below,
+loud and angry.  Growing very pale, she ran out into the hall. 
+Her father was already half way upstairs, his face red with fury. 
+In the hall below Ursula saw her step-mother, looking troubled and
+vexed.  At the door stood Malcolm Ramsay, a homely neighbour youth
+who had been courting Ursula in his clumsy way ever since she grew
+up.  Ursula had always hated him.
+
+"'Ursula!' shouted old Hugh, 'come here and tell this scoundrel he
+lies.  He says that you met Kenneth MacNair in the beechgrove last
+Tuesday.  Tell him he lies!  Tell him he lies!'
+
+"Ursula was no coward.  She looked scornfully at poor Ramsay.
+
+"'The creature is a spy and a tale-bearer,' she said, 'but in this
+he does not lie.  I DID meet Kenneth MacNair last Tuesday.'
+
+"'And you dare to tell me this to my face!' roared old Hugh. 
+'Back to your room, girl!  Back to your room and stay there!  Take
+off that finery.  You go to no more dances.  You shall stay in
+that room until I choose to let you out.  No, not a word!  I'll put
+you there if you don't go.  In with you--ay, and take your
+knitting with you.  Occupy yourself with that this evening instead
+of kicking your heels at The Springs!'
+
+"He snatched a roll of gray stocking from the hall table and flung
+it into Ursula's room.  Ursula knew she would have to follow it,
+or be picked up and carried in like a naughty child.  So she gave
+the miserable Ramsay a look that made him cringe, and swept into
+her room with her head in the air.  The next moment she heard the
+door locked behind her.  Her first proceeding was to have a cry of
+anger and shame and disappointment.  That did no good, and then
+she took to marching up and down her room.  It did not calm her to
+hear the rumble of the carriage out of the gate as her uncle and
+aunt departed.
+
+"'Oh, what's to be done?' she sobbed.  'Kenneth will be furious. 
+He will think I have failed him and he will go away hot with anger
+against me.  If I could only send a word of explanation I know he
+would not leave me.  But there seems to be no way at all--though I
+have heard that there's always a way when there's a will.  Oh, I
+shall go mad!  If the window were not so high I would jump out of
+it.  But to break my legs or my neck would not mend the matter.'
+
+"The afternoon passed on.  At sunset Ursula heard hoof-beats and
+ran to the window.  Andrew Kinnear of The Springs was tying his
+horse at the door.  He was a dashing young fellow, and a political
+crony of old Hugh.  No doubt he would be at the dance that night. 
+Oh, if she could get speech for but a moment with him!
+
+"When he had gone into the house, Ursula, turning impatiently from
+the window, tripped and almost fell over the big ball of homespun
+yarn her father had flung on the floor.  For a moment she gazed at
+it resentfully--then, with a gay little laugh, she pounced on it. 
+The next moment she was at her table, writing a brief note to
+Kenneth MacNair.  When it was written, Ursula unwound the gray
+ball to a considerable depth, pinned the note on it, and rewound
+the yarn over it.  A gray ball, the color of the twilight, might
+escape observation, where a white missive fluttering down from an
+upper window would surely be seen by someone.  Then she softly
+opened her window and waited.
+
+"It was dusk when Andrew went away.  Fortunately old Hugh did not
+come to the door with him.  As Andrew untied his horse Ursula
+threw the ball with such good aim that it struck him, as she had
+meant it to do, squarely on the head.  Andrew looked up at her
+window.  She leaned out, put her finger warningly on her lips,
+pointed to the ball, and nodded.  Andrew, looking somewhat
+puzzled, picked up the ball, sprang to his saddle, and galloped
+off.
+
+"So far, well, thought Ursula.  But would Andrew understand?  Would
+he have wit enough to think of exploring the big, knobby ball for
+its delicate secret?  And would he be at the dance after all?
+
+"The evening dragged by.  Time had never seemed so long to Ursula. 
+She could not rest or sleep.  It was midnight before she heard the
+patter of a handful of gravel on her window-panes.  In a trice she
+was leaning out.  Below in the darkness stood Kenneth MacNair.
+
+"'Oh, Kenneth, did you get my letter?  And is it safe for you to be
+here?'
+
+"'Safe enough.  Your father is in bed.  I've waited two hours down
+the road for his light to go out, and an extra half-hour to put
+him to sleep.  The horses are there.  Slip down and out, Ursula. 
+We'll make Charlottetown by dawn yet.'
+
+"'That's easier said than done, lad.  I'm locked in.  But do you
+go out behind the new barn and bring the ladder you will find
+there.'
+
+"Five minutes later, Miss Ursula, hooded and cloaked, scrambled
+soundlessly down the ladder, and in five more minutes she and
+Kenneth were riding along the road.
+
+"'There's a stiff gallop before us, Ursula,' said Kenneth.
+
+"'I would ride to the world's end with you, Kenneth MacNair,' said
+Ursula.  Oh, of course she shouldn't have said anything of the
+sort, Felicity.  But you see people had no etiquette departments
+in those days.  And when the red sunlight of a fair October dawn
+was shining over the gray sea The Fair Lady sailed out of
+Charlottetown harbour.  On her deck stood Kenneth and Ursula
+MacNair, and in her hand, as a most precious treasure, the bride
+carried a ball of gray homespun yarn."
+
+"Well," said Dan, yawning, "I like that kind of a story.  Nobody
+goes and dies in it, that's one good thing."
+
+"Did old Hugh forgive Ursula?" I asked.
+
+"The story stopped there in the brown book," said the Story Girl,
+"but the Awkward Man says he did, after awhile."
+
+"It must be rather romantic to be run away with," remarked Cecily,
+wistfully.
+
+"Don't you get such silly notions in your head, Cecily King," said
+Felicity, severely.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE CHRISTMAS HARP
+
+
+Great was the excitement in the houses of King as Christmas drew
+nigh.  The air was simply charged with secrets.  Everybody was
+very penurious for weeks beforehand and hoards were counted
+scrutinizingly every day.  Mysterious pieces of handiwork were
+smuggled in and out of sight, and whispered consultations were
+held, about which nobody thought of being jealous, as might have
+happened at any other time.  Felicity was in her element, for she
+and her mother were deep in preparations for the day.  Cecily and
+the Story Girl were excluded from these doings with indifference
+on Aunt Janet's part and what seemed ostentatious complacency on
+Felicity's.  Cecily took this to heart and complained to me about
+it.
+
+"I'm one of this family just as much as Felicity is," she said,
+with as much indignation as Cecily could feel, "and I don't think
+she need shut me out of everything.  When I wanted to stone the
+raisins for the mince-meat she said, no, she would do it herself,
+because Christmas mince-meat was very particular--as if I couldn't
+stone raisins right!  The airs Felicity puts on about her cooking
+just make me sick," concluded Cecily wrathfully.
+
+"It's a pity she doesn't make a mistake in cooking once in a while
+herself," I said.  "Then maybe she wouldn't think she knew so much
+more than other people."
+
+All parcels that came in the mail from distant friends were taken
+charge of by Aunts Janet and Olivia, not to be opened until the
+great day of the feast itself.  How slowly the last week passed!
+But even watched pots will boil in the fulness of time, and
+finally Christmas day came, gray and dour and frost-bitten
+without, but full of revelry and rose-red mirth within.  Uncle
+Roger and Aunt Olivia and the Story Girl came over early for the
+day; and Peter came too, with his shining, morning face, to be
+hailed with joy, for we had been afraid that Peter would not be
+able to spend Christmas with us.  His mother had wanted him home
+with her.
+
+"Of course I ought to go," Peter had told me mournfully, "but we
+won't have turkey for dinner, because ma can't afford it.  And ma
+always cries on holidays because she says they make her think of
+father.  Of course she can't help it, but it ain't cheerful.  Aunt
+Jane wouldn't have cried.  Aunt Jane used to say she never saw the
+man who was worth spoiling her eyes for.  But I guess I'll have to
+spend Christmas at home."
+
+At the last moment, however, a cousin of Mrs. Craig's in
+Charlottetown invited her for Christmas, and Peter, being given
+his choice of going or staying, joyfully elected to stay.  So we
+were all together, except Sara Ray, who had been invited but whose
+mother wouldn't let her come.
+
+"Sara Ray's mother is a nuisance," snapped the Story Girl.  "She
+just lives to make that poor child miserable, and she won't let
+her go to the party tonight, either."
+
+"It is just breaking Sara's heart that she can't," said Cecily
+compassionately.  "I'm almost afraid I won't enjoy myself for
+thinking of her, home there alone, most likely reading the Bible,
+while we're at the party."
+
+"She might be worse occupied than reading the Bible," said
+Felicity rebukingly.
+
+"But Mrs. Ray makes her read it as a punishment," protested
+Cecily.  "Whenever Sara cries to go anywhere--and of course she'll
+cry tonight--Mrs. Ray makes her read seven chapters in the Bible. 
+I wouldn't think that would make her very fond of it.  And I'll
+not be able to talk the party over with Sara afterwards--and
+that's half the fun gone."
+
+"You can tell her all about it," comforted Felix.
+
+"Telling isn't a bit like talking it over," retorted Cecily. 
+"It's too one-sided."
+
+We had an exciting time opening our presents.  Some of us had more
+than others, but we all received enough to make us feel
+comfortably that we were not unduly neglected in the matter.  The
+contents of the box which the Story Girl's father had sent her
+from Paris made our eyes stick out.  It was full of beautiful
+things, among them another red silk dress--not the bright, flame-
+hued tint of her old one, but a rich, dark crimson, with the most
+distracting flounces and bows and ruffles; and with it were little
+red satin slippers with gold buckles, and heels that made Aunt
+Janet hold up her hands in horror.  Felicity remarked scornfully
+that she would have thought the Story Girl would get tired wearing
+red so much, and even Cecily commented apart to me that she
+thought when you got so many things all at once you didn't
+appreciate them as much as when you only got a few.
+
+"I'd never get tired of red," said the Story Girl.  "I just love
+it--it's so rich and glowing.  When I'm dressed in red I always
+feel ever so much cleverer than in any other colour.  Thoughts
+just crowd into my brain one after the other.  Oh, you darling
+dress--you dear, sheeny, red-rosy, glistening, silky thing!"
+
+She flung it over her shoulder and danced around the kitchen.
+
+"Don't be silly, Sara," said Aunt Janet, a little stimy.  She was
+a good soul, that Aunt Janet, and had a kind, loving heart in her
+ample bosom.  But I fancy there were times when she thought it
+rather hard that the daughter of a roving adventurer--as she
+considered him--like Blair Stanley should disport herself in silk
+dresses, while her own daughters must go clad in gingham and
+muslin--for those were the days when a feminine creature got one
+silk dress in her lifetime, and seldom more than one.
+
+The Story Girl also got a present from the Awkward Man--a little,
+shabby, worn volume with a great many marks on the leaves.
+
+"Why, it isn't new--it's an old book!" exclaimed Felicity.  "I
+didn't think the Awkward Man was mean, whatever else he was."
+
+"Oh, you don't understand, Felicity," said the Story Girl
+patiently.  "And I don't suppose I can make you understand.  But
+I'll try.  I'd ten times rather have this than a new book.  It's
+one of his own, don't you see--one that he has read a hundred
+times and loved and made a friend of.  A new book, just out of a
+shop, wouldn't be the same thing at all.  It wouldn't MEAN
+anything.  I consider it a great compliment that he has given me
+this book.  I'm prouder of it than of anything else I've got."
+
+"Well, you're welcome to it," said Felicity.  "I don't understand
+and I don't want to.  I wouldn't give anybody a Christmas present
+that wasn't new, and I wouldn't thank anybody who gave me one."
+
+Peter was in the seventh heaven because Felicity had given him a
+present--and, moreover, one that she had made herself.  It was a
+bookmark of perforated cardboard, with a gorgeous red and yellow
+worsted goblet worked on it, and below, in green letters, the
+solemn warning, "Touch Not The Cup." As Peter was not addicted to
+habits of intemperance, not even to looking on dandelion wine when
+it was pale yellow, we did not exactly see why Felicity should
+have selected such a device.  But Peter was perfectly satisfied,
+so nobody cast any blight on his happiness by carping criticism. 
+Later on Felicity told me she had worked the bookmark for him
+because his father used to drink before he ran away.
+
+"I thought Peter ought to be warned in time," she said.
+
+Even Pat had a ribbon of blue, which he clawed off and lost half
+an hour after it was tied on him.  Pat did not care for vain
+adornments of the body.
+
+We had a glorious Christmas dinner, fit for the halls of Lucullus,
+and ate far more than was good for us, none daring to make us
+afraid on that one day of the year.  And in the evening--oh,
+rapture and delight!--we went to Kitty Marr's party.
+
+It was a fine December evening; the sharp air of morning had
+mellowed until it was as mild as autumn.  There had been no snow,
+and the long fields, sloping down from the homestead, were brown
+and mellow.  A weird, dreamy stillness had fallen on the purple
+earth, the dark fir woods, the valley rims, the sere meadows. 
+Nature seemed to have folded satisfied hands to rest, knowing that
+her long wintry slumber was coming upon her.
+
+At first, when the invitations to the party had come, Aunt Janet
+had said we could not go; but Uncle Alec interceded in our favour,
+perhaps influenced thereto by Cecily's wistful eyes.  If Uncle
+Alec had a favourite among his children it was Cecily, and he had
+grown even more indulgent towards her of late.  Now and then I saw
+him looking at her intently, and, following his eyes and thought,
+I had, somehow, seen that Cecily was paler and thinner than she
+had been in the summer, and that her soft eyes seemed larger, and
+that over her little face in moments of repose there was a certain
+languor and weariness that made it very sweet and pathetic.  And I
+heard him tell Aunt Janet that he did not like to see the child
+getting so much the look of her Aunt Felicity.
+
+"Cecily is perfectly well," said Aunt Janet sharply.  "She's only
+growing very fast.  Don't be foolish, Alec."
+
+But after that Cecily had cups of cream where the rest of us got
+only milk; and Aunt Janet was very particular to see that she had
+her rubbers on whenever she went out.
+
+On this merry Christmas evening, however, no fears or dim
+foreshadowings of any coming event clouded our hearts or faces. 
+Cecily looked brighter and prettier than I had ever seen her, with
+her softly shining eyes and the nut brown gloss of her hair. 
+Felicity was too beautiful for words; and even the Story Girl,
+between excitement and the crimson silk array, blossomed out with
+a charm and allurement more potent than any regular loveliness--
+and this in spite of the fact that Aunt Olivia had tabooed the red
+satin slippers and mercilessly decreed that stout shoes should be
+worn.
+
+"I know just how you feel about it, you daughter of Eve," she
+said, with gay sympathy, "but December roads are damp, and if you
+are going to walk to Marrs' you are not going to do it in those
+frivolous Parisian concoctions, even with overboots on; so be
+brave, dear heart, and show that you have a soul above little red
+satin shoes."
+
+"Anyhow," said Uncle Roger, "that red silk dress will break the
+hearts of all the feminine small fry at the party.  You'd break
+their spirits, too, if you wore the slippers.  Don't do it, Sara. 
+Leave them one wee loophole of enjoyment."
+
+"What does Uncle Roger mean?" whispered Felicity.
+
+"He means you girls are all dying of jealousy because of the Story
+Girl's dress," said Dan.
+
+"I am not of a jealous disposition," said Felicity loftily, "and
+she's entirely welcome to the dress--with a complexion like that."
+
+But we enjoyed that party hugely, every one of us.  And we enjoyed
+the walk home afterwards, through dim, enshadowed fields where
+silvery star-beams lay, while Orion trod his stately march above
+us, and a red moon climbed up the black horizon's rim.  A brook
+went with us part of the way, singing to us through the dark--a
+gay, irresponsible vagabond of valley and wilderness.
+
+Felicity and Peter walked not with us.  Peter's cup must surely
+have brimmed over that Christmas night.  When we left the Marr
+house, he had boldly said to Felicity, "May I see you home?"  And
+Felicity, much to our amazement, had taken his arm and marched off
+with him.  The primness of her was indescribable, and was not at
+all ruffled by Dan's hoot of derision.  As for me, I was consumed
+by a secret and burning desire to ask the Story Girl if I might
+see HER home; but I could not screw my courage to the sticking
+point.  How I envied Peter his easy, insouciant manner!  I could
+not emulate him, so Dan and Felix and Cecily and the Story Girl
+and I all walked hand in hand, huddling a little closer together
+as we went through James Frewen's woods--for there are strange
+harps in a fir grove, and who shall say what fingers sweep them?
+Mighty and sonorous was the music above our heads as the winds of
+the night stirred the great boughs tossing athwart the starlit
+sky.  Perhaps it was that aeolian harmony which recalled to the
+Story Girl a legend of elder days.
+
+"I read such a pretty story in one of Aunt Olivia's books last
+night," she said.  "It was called 'The Christmas Harp.' Would you
+like to hear it?  It seems to me it would just suit this part of
+the road."
+
+"There isn't anything about--about ghosts in it, is there?" said
+Cecily timidly.
+
+"Oh, no, I wouldn't tell a ghost story here for anything.  I'd
+frighten myself too much.  This story is about one of the
+shepherds who saw the angels on the first Christmas night.  He was
+just a youth, and he loved music with all his heart, and he longed
+to be able to express the melody that was in his soul.  But he
+could not; he had a harp and he often tried to play on it; but his
+clumsy fingers only made such discord that his companions laughed
+at him and mocked him, and called him a madman because he would
+not give it up, but would rather sit apart by himself, with his
+arms about his harp, looking up into the sky, while they gathered
+around their fire and told tales to wile away their long night
+vigils as they watched their sheep on the hills.  But to him the
+thoughts that came out of the great silence were far sweeter than
+their mirth; and he never gave up the hope, which sometimes left
+his lips as a prayer, that some day he might be able to express
+those thoughts in music to the tired, weary, forgetful world.  On
+the first Christmas night he was out with his fellow shepherds on
+the hills.  It was chill and dark, and all, except him, were glad
+to gather around the fire.  He sat, as usual, by himself, with his
+harp on his knee and a great longing in his heart.  And there came
+a marvellous light in the sky and over the hills, as if the
+darkness of the night had suddenly blossomed into a wonderful
+meadow of flowery flame; and all the shepherds saw the angels and
+heard them sing.  And as they sang, the harp that the young
+shepherd held began to play softly by itself, and as he listened
+to it he realized that it was playing the same music that the
+angels sang and that all his secret longings and aspirations and
+strivings were expressed in it.  From that night, whenever he took
+the harp in his hands, it played the same music; and he wandered
+all over the world carrying it; wherever the sound of its music
+was heard hate and discord fled away and peace and good-will
+reigned.  No one who heard it could think an evil thought; no one
+could feel hopeless or despairing or bitter or angry.  When a man
+had once heard that music it entered into his soul and heart and
+life and became a part of him for ever.  Years went by; the
+shepherd grew old and bent and feeble; but still he roamed over
+land and sea, that his harp might carry the message of the
+Christmas night and the angel song to all mankind.  At last his
+strength failed him and he fell by the wayside in the darkness;
+but his harp played as his spirit passed; and it seemed to him
+that a Shining One stood by him, with wonderful starry eyes, and
+said to him, 'Lo, the music thy harp has played for so many years
+has been but the echo of the love and sympathy and purity and
+beauty in thine own soul; and if at any time in the wanderings
+thou hadst opened the door of that soul to evil or envy or
+selfishness thy harp would have ceased to play.  Now thy life is
+ended; but what thou hast given to mankind has no end; and as long
+as the world lasts, so long will the heavenly music of the
+Christmas harp ring in the ears of men.' When the sun rose the old
+shepherd lay dead by the roadside, with a smile on his face; and
+in his hands was a harp with all its strings broken."
+
+We left the fir woods as the tale was ended, and on the opposite
+hill was home.  A dim light in the kitchen window betokened that
+Aunt Janet had no idea of going to bed until all her young fry
+were safely housed for the night.
+
+"Ma's waiting up for us," said Dan.  "I'd laugh if she happened to
+go to the door just as Felicity and Peter were strutting up.  I
+guess she'll be cross.  It's nearly twelve."
+
+"Christmas will soon be over," said Cecily, with a sigh.  "Hasn't
+it been a nice one?  It's the first we've all spent together.  Do
+you suppose we'll ever spend another together?"
+
+"Lots of 'em," said Dan cheerily.  "Why not?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," answered Cecily, her footsteps lagging
+somewhat.  "Only things seem just a little too pleasant to last."
+
+"If Willy Fraser had had as much spunk as Peter, Miss Cecily King
+mightn't be so low spirited," quoth Dan, significantly.
+
+Cecily tossed her head and disdained reply.  There are really some
+remarks a self-respecting young lady must ignore.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS
+
+
+If we did not have a white Christmas we had a white New Year. 
+Midway between the two came a heavy snowfall.  It was winter in
+our orchard of old delights then,--so truly winter that it was
+hard to believe summer had ever dwelt in it, or that spring would
+ever return to it.  There were no birds to sing the music of the
+moon; and the path where the apple blossoms had fallen were heaped
+with less fragrant drifts.  But it was a place of wonder on a
+moonlight night, when the snowy arcades shone like avenues of
+ivory and crystal, and the bare trees cast fairy-like traceries
+upon them.  Over Uncle Stephen's Walk, where the snow had fallen
+smoothly, a spell of white magic had been woven.  Taintless and
+wonderful it seemed, like a street of pearl in the new Jerusalem.
+
+On New Year's Eve we were all together in Uncle Alec's kitchen,
+which was tacitly given over to our revels during the winter
+evenings.  The Story Girl and Peter were there, of course, and
+Sara Ray's mother had allowed her to come up on condition that she
+should be home by eight sharp.  Cecily was glad to see her, but
+the boys never hailed her arrival with over-much delight, because,
+since the dark began to come down early, Aunt Janet always made
+one of us walk down home with her.  We hated this, because Sara
+Ray was always so maddeningly self-conscious of having an escort. 
+We knew perfectly well that next day in school she would tell her
+chums as a "dead" secret that "So-and-So King saw her home" from
+the hill farm the night before.  Now, seeing a young lady home
+from choice, and being sent home with her by your aunt or mother
+are two entirely different things, and we thought Sara Ray ought
+to have sense enough to know it.
+
+Outside there was a vivid rose of sunset behind the cold hills of
+fir, and the long reaches of snowy fields glowed fairily pink in
+the western light.  The drifts along the edges of the meadows and
+down the lane looked as if a series of breaking waves had, by the
+lifting of a magician's wand, been suddenly transformed into
+marble, even to their toppling curls of foam.
+
+Slowly the splendour died, giving place to the mystic beauty of a
+winter twilight when the moon is rising.  The hollow sky was a cup
+of blue.  The stars came out over the white glens and the earth
+was covered with a kingly carpet for the feet of the young year to
+press.
+
+"I'm so glad the snow came," said the Story Girl.  "If it hadn't
+the New Year would have seemed just as dingy and worn out as the
+old.  There's something very solemn about the idea of a New Year,
+isn't there?  Just think of three hundred and sixty-five whole
+days, with not a thing happened in them yet."
+
+"I don't suppose anything very wonderful will happen in them,"
+said Felix pessimistically.  To Felix, just then, life was flat,
+stale and unprofitable because it was his turn to go home with
+Sara Ray.
+
+"It makes me a little frightened to think of all that may happen
+in them," said Cecily.  "Miss Marwood says it is what we put into
+a year, not what we get out of it, that counts at last."
+
+"I'm always glad to see a New Year," said the Story Girl.  "I wish
+we could do as they do in Norway.  The whole family sits up until
+midnight, and then, just as the clock is striking twelve, the
+father opens the door and welcomes the New Year in.  Isn't it a
+pretty custom?"
+
+"If ma would let us stay up till twelve we might do that too,"
+said Dan, "but she never will.  I call it mean."
+
+"If I ever have children I'll let them stay up to watch the New
+Year in," said the Story Girl decidedly.
+
+"So will I," said Peter, "but other nights they'll have to go to
+bed at seven."
+
+"You ought to be ashamed, speaking of such things," said Felicity,
+with a scandalized face.
+
+Peter shrank into the background abashed, no doubt believing that
+he had broken some Family Guide precept all to pieces.
+
+"I didn't know it wasn't proper to mention children," he muttered
+apologetically.
+
+"We ought to make some New Year resolutions," suggested the Story
+Girl.  "New Year's Eve is the time to make them."
+
+"I can't think of any resolutions I want to make," said Felicity,
+who was perfectly satisfied with herself.
+
+"I could suggest a few to you," said Dan sarcastically.
+
+"There are so many I would like to make," said Cecily, "that I'm
+afraid it wouldn't be any use trying to keep them all."
+
+"Well, let's all make a few, just for the fun of it, and see if we
+can keep them," I said.  "And let's get paper and ink and write
+them out.  That will make them seem more solemn and binding."
+
+"And then pin them up on our bedroom walls, where we'll see them
+every day," suggested the Story Girl, "and every time we break a
+resolution we must put a cross opposite it.  That will show us
+what progress we are making, as well as make us ashamed if we have
+too many crosses."
+
+"And let's have a Roll of Honour in Our Magazine," suggested
+Felix, "and every month we'll publish the names of those who keep
+their resolutions perfect."
+
+"I think it's all nonsense," said Felicity.  But she joined our
+circle around the table, though she sat for a long time with a
+blank sheet before her.
+
+"Let's each make a resolution in turn," I said.  "I'll lead off."
+
+And, recalling with shame certain unpleasant differences of
+opinion I had lately had with Felicity, I wrote down in my best
+hand,
+
+"I shall try to keep my temper always."
+
+"You'd better," said Felicity tactfully.
+
+It was Dan's turn next.
+
+"I can't think of anything to start with," he said, gnawing his
+penholder fiercely.
+
+"You might make a resolution not to eat poison berries," suggested
+Felicity.
+
+"You'd better make one not to nag people everlastingly," retorted
+Dan.
+
+"Oh, don't quarrel the last night of the old year," implored
+Cecily.
+
+"You might resolve not to quarrel any time," suggested Sara Ray.
+
+"No, sir," said Dan emphatically.  "There's no use making a
+resolution you CAN'T keep.  There are people in this family you've
+just GOT to quarrel with if you want to live.  But I've thought of
+one--I won't do things to spite people."
+
+Felicity--who really was in an unbearable mood that night--laughed
+disagreeably; but Cecily gave her a fierce nudge, which probably
+restrained her from speaking.
+
+"I will not eat any apples," wrote Felix.
+
+"What on earth do you want to give up eating apples for?" asked
+Peter in astonishment.
+
+"Never mind," returned Felix.
+
+"Apples make people fat, you know," said Felicity sweetly.
+
+"It seems a funny kind of resolution," I said doubtfully.  "I
+think our resolutions ought to be giving up wrong things or doing
+right ones."
+
+"You make your resolutions to suit yourself and I'll make mine to
+suit myself," said Felix defiantly.
+
+"I shall never get drunk," wrote Peter painstakingly.
+
+"But you never do," said the Story Girl in astonishment.
+
+"Well, it will be all the easier to keep the resolution," argued
+Peter.
+
+"That isn't fair," complained Dan.  "If we all resolved not to do
+the things we never do we'd all be on the Roll of Honour."
+
+"You let Peter alone," said Felicity severely.  "It's a very good
+resolution and one everybody ought to make."
+
+"I shall not be jealous," wrote the Story Girl.
+
+"But are you?" I asked, surprised.
+
+The Story Girl coloured and nodded.  "Of one thing," she
+confessed, "but I'm not going to tell what it is."
+
+"I'm jealous sometimes, too," confessed Sara Ray, "and so my first
+resolution will be 'I shall try not to feel jealous when I hear
+the other girls in school describing all the sick spells they've
+had.'"
+
+"Goodness, do you want to be sick?" demanded Felix in
+astonishment.
+
+"It makes a person important," explained Sara Ray.
+
+"I am going to try to improve my mind by reading good books and
+listening to older people," wrote Cecily.
+
+"You got that out of the Sunday School paper," cried Felicity.
+
+"It doesn't matter where I got it," said Cecily with dignity. 
+"The main thing is to keep it."
+
+"It's your turn, Felicity," I said.
+
+Felicity tossed her beautiful golden head.
+
+"I told you I wasn't going to make any resolutions.  Go on
+yourself."
+
+"I shall always study my grammar lesson," I wrote--I, who loathed
+grammar with a deadly loathing.
+
+"I hate grammar too," sighed Sara Ray.  "It seems so unimportant."
+
+Sara was rather fond of a big word, but did not always get hold of
+the right one.  I rather suspected that in the above instance she
+really meant uninteresting.
+
+"I won't get mad at Felicity, if I can help it," wrote Dan.
+
+"I'm sure I never do anything to make you mad," exclaimed
+Felicity.
+
+"I don't think it's polite to make resolutions about your
+sisters," said Peter.
+
+"He can't keep it anyway," scoffed Felicity.  "He's got such an
+awful temper."
+
+"It's a family failing," flashed Dan, breaking his resolution ere
+the ink on it was dry.
+
+"There you go," taunted Felicity.
+
+"I'll work all my arithmetic problems without any help," scribbled
+Felix.
+
+"I wish I could resolve that, too," sighed Sara Ray, "but it
+wouldn't be any use.  I'd never be able to do those compound
+multiplication sums the teacher gives us to do at home every night
+if I didn't get Judy Pineau to help me.  Judy isn't a good reader
+and she can't spell AT ALL, but you can't stick her in arithmetic
+as far as she went herself.  I feel sure," concluded poor Sara, in
+a hopeless tone, "that I'll NEVER be able to understand compound
+multiplication."
+
+
+          "'Multiplication is vexation,
+               Division is as bad,
+           The rule of three perplexes me,
+               And fractions drive me mad,'"
+
+
+quoted Dan.
+
+"I haven't got as far as fractions yet," sighed Sara, "and I hope
+I'll be too big to go to school before I do.  I hate arithmetic,
+but I am PASSIONATELY fond of geography."
+
+"I will not play tit-tat-x on the fly leaves of my hymn book in
+church," wrote Peter.
+
+"Mercy, did you ever do such a thing?" exclaimed Felicity in
+horror.
+
+Peter nodded shamefacedly.
+
+"Yes--that Sunday Mr. Bailey preached.  He was so long-winded, I
+got awful tired, and, anyway, he was talking about things I
+couldn't understand, so I played tit-tat-x with one of the
+Markdale boys.  It was the day I was sitting up in the gallery."
+
+"Well, I hope if you ever do the like again you won't do it in OUR
+pew," said Felicity severely.
+
+"I ain't going to do it at all," said Peter.  "I felt sort of mean
+all the rest of the day."
+
+"I shall try not to be vexed when people interrupt me when I'm
+telling stories," wrote the Story Girl.  "but it will be hard,"
+she added with a sigh.
+
+"I never mind being interrupted," said Felicity.
+
+"I shall try to be cheerful and smiling all the time," wrote
+Cecily.
+
+"You are, anyway," said Sara Ray loyally.
+
+"I don't believe we ought to be cheerful ALL the time," said the
+Story Girl.  "The Bible says we ought to weep with those who
+weep."
+
+"But maybe it means that we're to weep cheerfully," suggested
+Cecily.
+
+"Sorter as if you were thinking, 'I'm very sorry for you but I'm
+mighty glad I'm not in the scrape too,'" said Dan.
+
+"Dan, don't be irreverent," rebuked Felicity.
+
+"I know a story about old Mr. and Mrs. Davidson of Markdale," said
+the Story Girl.  "She was always smiling and it used to aggravate
+her husband, so one day he said very crossly, 'Old lady, what ARE
+you grinning at?' 'Oh, well, Abiram, everything's so bright and
+pleasant, I've just got to smile.'
+
+"Not long after there came a time when everything went wrong--the
+crop failed and their best cow died, and Mrs. Davidson had
+rheumatism; and finally Mr. Davidson fell and broke his leg.  But
+still Mrs. Davidson smiled.  'What in the dickens are you grinning
+about now, old lady?' he demanded.  'Oh, well, Abiram,' she said,
+'everything is so dark and unpleasant I've just got to smile.'
+'Well,' said the old man crossly, 'I think you might give your
+face a rest sometimes.'"
+
+"I shall not talk gossip," wrote Sara Ray with a satisfied air.
+
+"Oh, don't you think that's a little TOO strict?" asked Cecily
+anxiously.  "Of course, it's not right to talk MEAN gossip, but
+the harmless kind doesn't hurt.  If I say to you that Emmy
+MacPhail is going to get a new fur collar this winter, THAT is
+harmless gossip, but if I say I don't see how Emmy MacPhail can
+afford a new fur collar when her father can't pay my father for
+the oats he got from him, that would be MEAN gossip.  If I were
+you, Sara, I'd put MEAN gossip."
+
+Sara consented to this amendment.
+
+"I will be polite to everybody," was my third resolution, which
+passed without comment.
+
+"I'll try not to use slang since Cecily doesn't like it," wrote
+Dan.
+
+"I think some slang is real cute," said Felicity.
+
+"The Family Guide says it's very vulgar," grinned Dan.  "Doesn't
+it, Sara Stanley?"
+
+"Don't disturb me," said the Story Girl dreamily.  "I'm just
+thinking a beautiful thought."
+
+"I've thought of a resolution to make," cried Felicity.  "Mr.
+Marwood said last Sunday we should always try to think beautiful
+thoughts and then our lives would be very beautiful.  So I shall
+resolve to think a beautiful thought every morning before
+breakfast."
+
+"Can you only manage one a day?" queried Dan.
+
+"And why before breakfast?" I asked.
+
+"Because it's easier to think on an empty stomach," said Peter, in
+all good faith.  But Felicity shot a furious glance at him.
+
+"I selected that time," she explained with dignity, "because when
+I'm brushing my hair before my glass in the morning I'll see my
+resolution and remember it."
+
+"Mr. Marwood meant that ALL our thoughts ought to be beautiful,"
+said the Story Girl.  "If they were, people wouldn't be afraid to
+say what they think."
+
+"They oughtn't to be afraid to, anyhow," said Felix stoutly.  "I'm
+going to make a resolution to say just what I think always."
+
+"And do you expect to get through the year alive if you do?" asked
+Dan.
+
+"It might be easy enough to say what you think if you could always
+be sure just what you DO think," said the Story Girl.  "So often I
+can't be sure."
+
+"How would you like it if people always said just what they think
+to you?" asked Felicity.
+
+"I'm not very particular what SOME people think of me," rejoined
+Felix.
+
+"I notice you don't like to be told by anybody that you're fat,"
+retorted Felicity.
+
+"Oh, dear me, I do wish you wouldn't all say such sarcastic things
+to each other," said poor Cecily plaintively.  "It sounds so
+horrid the last night of the old year.  Dear knows where we'll all
+be this night next year.  Peter, it's your turn."
+
+"I will try," wrote Peter, "to say my prayers every night regular,
+and not twice one night because I don't expect to have time the
+next,--like I did the night before the party," he added.
+
+"I s'pose you never said your prayers until we got you to go to
+church," said Felicity--who had had no hand in inducing Peter to
+go to church, but had stoutly opposed it, as recorded in the first
+volume of our family history.
+
+"I did, too," said Peter.  "Aunt Jane taught me to say my prayers. 
+Ma hadn't time, being as father had run away; ma had to wash at
+night same as in day-time."
+
+"I shall learn to cook," wrote the Story Girl, frowning.
+
+"You'd better resolve not to make puddings of--" began Felicity,
+then stopped as suddenly as if she had bitten off the rest of her
+sentence and swallowed it.  Cecily had nudged her, so she had
+probably remembered the Story Girl's threat that she would never
+tell another story if she was ever twitted with the pudding she
+had made from sawdust.  But we all knew what Felicity had started
+to say and the Story Girl dealt her a most uncousinly glance.
+
+"I will not cry because mother won't starch my aprons," wrote Sara
+Ray.
+
+"Better resolve not to cry about anything," said Dan kindly.
+
+Sara Ray shook her head forlornly.
+
+"That would be too hard to keep.  There are times when I HAVE to
+cry.  It's a relief."
+
+"Not to the folks who have to hear you," muttered Dan aside to
+Cecily.
+
+"Oh, hush," whispered Cecily back.  "Don't go and hurt her
+feelings the last night of the old year.  Is it my turn again?
+Well, I'll resolve not to worry because my hair is not curly. 
+But, oh, I'll never be able to help wishing it was."
+
+"Why don't you curl it as you used to do, then?" asked Dan.
+
+"You know very well that I've never put my hair up in curl papers
+since the time Peter was dying of the measles," said Cecily
+reproachfully.  "I resolved then I wouldn't because I wasn't sure
+it was quite right."
+
+"I will keep my finger-nails neat and clean," I wrote.  "There,
+that's four resolutions.  I'm not going to make any more.  Four's
+enough."
+
+"I shall always think twice before I speak," wrote Felix.
+
+"That's an awful waste of time," commented Dan, "but I guess
+you'll need to if you're always going to say what you think."
+
+"I'm going to stop with three," said Peter.
+
+"I will have all the good times I can," wrote the Story Girl.
+
+"THAT'S what I call sensible," said Dan.
+
+"It's a very easy resolution to keep, anyhow," commented Felix.
+
+"I shall try to like reading the Bible," wrote Sara Ray.
+
+"You ought to like reading the Bible without trying to," exclaimed
+Felicity.
+
+"If you had to read seven chapters of it every time you were
+naughty I don't believe you would like it either," retorted Sara
+Ray with a flash of spirit.
+
+"I shall try to believe only half of what I hear," was Cecily's
+concluding resolution.
+
+"But which half?" scoffed Dan.
+
+"The best half," said sweet Cecily simply.
+
+"I'll try to obey mother ALWAYS," wrote Sara Ray, with a
+tremendous sigh, as if she fully realized the difficulty of
+keeping such a resolution.  "And that's all I'm going to make."
+
+"Felicity has only made one," said the Story Girl.
+
+"I think it better to make just one and keep it than make a lot
+and break them," said Felicity loftily.
+
+She had the last word on the subject, for it was time for Sara Ray
+to go, and our circle broke up.  Sara and Felix departed and we
+watched them down the lane in the moonlight--Sara walking demurely
+in one runner track, and Felix stalking grimly along in the other. 
+I fear the romantic beauty of that silver shining night was
+entirely thrown away on my mischievous brother.
+
+And it was, as I remember it, a most exquisite night--a white
+poem, a frosty, starry lyric of light.  It was one of those nights
+on which one might fall asleep and dream happy dreams of gardens
+of mirth and song, feeling all the while through one's sleep the
+soft splendour and radiance of the white moon-world outside, as
+one hears soft, far-away music sounding through the thoughts and
+words that are born of it.
+
+As a matter of fact, however, Cecily dreamed that night that she
+saw three full moons in the sky, and wakened up crying with the
+horror of it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FIRST NUMBER OF Our Magazine
+
+
+The first number of Our Magazine was ready on New Year's Day, and
+we read it that evening in the kitchen.  All our staff had worked
+nobly and we were enormously proud of the result, although Dan
+still continued to scoff at a paper that wasn't printed.  The
+Story Girl and I read it turnabout while the others, except Felix,
+ate apples.  It opened with a short
+
+
+EDITORIAL
+
+With this number Our Magazine makes its first bow to the public. 
+All the editors have done their best and the various departments
+are full of valuable information and amusement.  The tastefully
+designed cover is by a famous artist, Mr. Blair Stanley, who sent
+it to us all the way from Europe at the request of his daughter. 
+Mr. Peter Craig, our enterprising literary editor, contributes a
+touching love story.  (Peter, aside, in a gratified pig's whisper:
+"I never was called 'Mr.' before.") Miss Felicity King's essays on
+Shakespeare is none the worse for being an old school composition,
+as it is new to most of our readers.  Miss Cecily King contributes
+a thrilling article of adventure.  The various departments are
+ably edited, and we feel that we have reason to be proud of Our
+Magazine.  But we shall not rest on our oars.  "Excelsior" shall
+ever be our motto.  We trust that each succeeding issue will be
+better than the one that went before.  We are well aware of many
+defects, but it is easier to see them than to remedy them.  Any
+suggestion that would tend to the improvement of Our Magazine will
+be thankfully received, but we trust that no criticism will be
+made that will hurt anyone's feelings.  Let us all work together
+in harmony, and strive to make Our Magazine an influence for good
+and a source of innocent pleasure, and let us always remember the
+words of the poet.
+
+
+  "The heights by great men reached and kept
+     Were not attained by sudden flight,
+   But they, while their companions slept,
+     Were toiling upwards in the night."
+
+
+(Peter, IMPRESSIVELY:--"I've read many a worse editorial in the
+Enterprise.")
+
+
+ESSAY ON SHAKESPEARE
+
+Shakespeare's full name was William Shakespeare.  He did not
+always spell it the same way.  He lived in the reign of Queen
+Elizabeth and wrote a great many plays.  His plays are written in
+dialogue form.  Some people think they were not written by
+Shakespeare but by another man of the same name.  I have read some
+of them because our school teacher says everybody ought to read
+them, but I did not care much for them.  There are some things in
+them I cannot understand.  I like the stories of Valeria H.
+Montague in the Family Guide ever so much better.  They are more
+exciting and truer to life.  Romeo and Juliet was one of the plays
+I read.  It was very sad.  Juliet dies and I don't like stories
+where people die.  I like it better when they all get married
+especially to dukes and earls.  Shakespeare himself was married to
+Anne Hatheway.  They are both dead now.  They have been dead a
+good while.  He was a very famous man.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+(PETER, MODESTLY:  "I don't know much about Shakespeare myself but
+I've got a book of his plays that belonged to my Aunt Jane, and I
+guess I'll have to tackle him as soon as I finish with the
+Bible.")
+
+
+THE STORY OF AN ELOPEMENT FROM CHURCH
+
+This is a true story.  It happened in Markdale to an uncle of my
+mothers.  He wanted to marry Miss Jemima Parr.  Felicity says
+Jemima is not a romantic name for a heroin of a story but I cant
+help it in this case because it is a true story and her name realy
+was Jemima.  My mothers uncle was named Thomas Taylor.  He was
+poor at that time and so the father of Miss Jemima Parr did not
+want him for a soninlaw and told him he was not to come near the
+house or he would set the dog on him.  Miss Jemima Parr was very
+pretty and my mothers uncle Thomas was just crazy about her and
+she wanted him too.  She cried almost every night after her father
+forbid him to come to the house except the nights she had to sleep
+or she would have died.  And she was so frightened he might try to
+come for all and get tore up by the dog and it was a bull-dog too
+that would never let go.  But mothers uncle Thomas was too cute
+for that.  He waited till one day there was preaching in the
+Markdale church in the middle of the week because it was sacrament
+time and Miss Jemima Parr and her family all went because her
+father was an elder.  My mothers uncle Thomas went too and set in
+the pew just behind Miss Jemima Parrs family. When they all bowed
+their heads at prayer time Miss Jemima Parr didnt but set bolt
+uprite and my mothers uncle Thomas bent over and wispered in her
+ear.  I dont know what he said so I cant right it but Miss Jemima
+Parr blushed that is turned red and nodded her head.  Perhaps some
+people may think that my mothers uncle Thomas shouldent of
+wispered at prayer time in church but you must remember that Miss
+Jemima Parrs father had thretened to set the dog on him and that
+was hard lines when he was a respektable young man though not
+rich.  Well when they were singing the last sam my mothers uncle
+Thomas got up and went out very quitely and as soon as church was
+out Miss Jemima Parr walked out too real quick.  Her family never
+suspekted anything and they hung round talking to folks and
+shaking hands while Miss Jemima Parr and my mothers uncle Thomas
+were eloping outside.  And what do you suppose they eloped in. 
+Why in Miss Jemima Parrs fathers slay.  And when he went out they
+were gone and his slay was gone also his horse.  Of course my
+mothers uncle Thomas didnt steal the horse.  He just borroed it
+and sent it home the next day.  But before Miss Jemima Parrs
+father could get another rig to follow them they were so far away
+he couldent catch them before they got married.  And they lived
+happy together forever afterwards.  Mothers uncle Thomas lived to
+be a very old man.  He died very suddent.  He felt quite well when
+he went to sleep and when he woke up he was dead.
+
+                                       PETER CRAIG.
+
+
+MY MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE
+
+The editor says we must all write up our most exciting adventure
+for Our Magazine.  My most exciting adventure happened a year ago
+last November.  I was nearly frightened to death.  Dan says he
+wouldn't of been scared and Felicity says she would of known what
+it was but it's easy to talk.
+
+It happened the night I went down to see Kitty Marr.  I thought
+when I went that Aunt Olivia was visiting there and I could come
+home with her.  But she wasn't there and I had to come home alone. 
+Kitty came a piece of the way but she wouldn't come any further
+than Uncle James Frewen's gate.  She said it was because it was so
+windy she was afraid she would get the tooth-ache and not because
+she was frightened of the ghost of the dog that haunted the bridge
+in Uncle James' hollow.  I did wish she hadn't said anything about
+the dog because I mightn't of thought about it if she hadn't.  I
+had to go on alone thinking of it.  I'd heard the story often but
+I'd never believed in it.  They said the dog used to appear at one
+end of the bridge and walk across it with people and vanish when
+he got to the other end.  He never tried to bite anyone but one
+wouldn't want to meet the ghost of a dog even if one didn't
+believe in him.  I knew there was no such thing as ghosts and I
+kept saying a paraphrase over to myself and the Golden Text of the
+next Sunday School lesson but oh, how my heart beat when I got
+near the hollow!  It was so dark.  You could just see things dim-
+like but you couldn't see what they were.  When I got to the
+bridge I walked along sideways with my back to the railing so I
+couldn't think the dog was behind me.  And then just in the middle
+of the bridge I met something.  It was right before me and it was
+big and black, just about the size of a Newfoundland dog, and I
+thought I could see a white nose.  And it kept jumping about from
+one side of the bridge to the other.  Oh, I hope none of my
+readers will ever be so frightened as I was then.  I was too
+frightened to run back because I was afraid it would chase me and
+I couldn't get past it, it moved so quick, and then it just made
+one spring right on me and I felt its claws and I screamed and
+fell down.  It rolled off to one side and laid there quite quiet
+but I didn't dare move and I don't know what would have become of
+me if Amos Cowan hadn't come along that very minute with a
+lantern.  And there was me sitting in the middle of the bridge and
+that awful thing beside me.  And what do you think it was but a
+big umbrella with a white handle?  Amos said it was his umbrella
+and it had blown away from him and he had to go back and get the
+lantern to look for it.  I felt like asking him what on earth he
+was going about with an umbrella open when it wasent raining.  But
+the Cowans do such queer things.  You remember the time Jerry
+Cowan sold us God's picture.  Amos took me right home and I was
+thankful for I don't know what would have become of me if he
+hadn't come along.  I couldn't sleep all night and I never want to
+have any more adventures like that one.
+
+                                      CECILY KING.
+
+
+PERSONALS
+
+Mr. Dan King felt somewhat indisposed the day after Christmas--
+probably as the result of too much mince pie.  (DAN, INDIGNANTLY:--
+"I wasn't.  I only et one piece!")
+
+Mr. Peter Craig thinks he saw the Family Ghost on Christmas Eve. 
+But the rest of us think all he saw was the white calf with the
+red tail.  (PETER, MUTTERING SULKILY:--"It's a queer calf that
+would walk up on end and wring its hands.")
+
+Miss Cecily King spent the night of Dec. 20th with Miss Kitty
+Marr.  They talked most of the night about new knitted lace
+patterns and their beaus and were very sleepy in school next day. 
+(CECILY, SHARPLY:--"We never mentioned such things!")
+
+Patrick Grayfur, Esq., was indisposed yesterday, but seems to be
+enjoying his usual health to-day.
+
+The King family expect their Aunt Eliza to visit them in January. 
+She is really our great-aunt.  We have never seen her but we are
+told she is very deaf and does not like children.  So Aunt Janet
+says we must make ourselves scarece when she comes.
+
+Miss Cecily King has undertaken to fill with names a square of the
+missionary quilt which the Mission Band is making.  You pay five
+cents to have your name embroidered in a corner, ten cents to have
+it in the centre, and a quarter if you want it left off
+altogether.  (CECILY, INDIGNANTLY:--"That isn't the way at all.")
+
+
+ADS.
+
+WANTED--A remedy to make a fat boy thin.  Address, "Patient
+Sufferer, care of Our Magazine."
+
+(FELIX, SOURLY:--"Sara Ray never got that up.  I'll bet it was
+Dan.  He'd better stick to his own department.")
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENT
+
+Mrs. Alexander King killed all her geese the twentieth of
+December.  We all helped pick them.  We had one Christmas Day and
+will have one every fortnight the rest of the winter.
+
+The bread was sour last week because mother wouldn't take my
+advice.  I told her it was too warm for it in the corner behind
+the stove.
+
+Miss Felicity King invented a new recete for date cookies
+recently, which everybody said were excelent.  I am not going to
+publish it though, because I don't want other people to find it
+out.
+
+ANXIOUS INQUIRER:--If you want to remove inkstains place the stain
+over steam and apply salt and lemon juice.  If it was Dan who sent
+this question in I'd advise him to stop wiping his pen on his
+shirt sleeves and then he wouldn't have so many stains.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+ETIQUETTE DEPARTMENT
+
+
+
+F-l-x:--Yes, you should offer your arm to a lady when seeing her
+home, but don't keep her standing too long at the gate while you
+say good night.
+
+(FELIX, ENRAGED:--"I never asked such a question.")
+
+C-c-l-y:--No, it is not polite to use "Holy Moses" or "dodgasted"
+in ordinary conversation.
+
+(Cecily had gone down cellar to replenish the apple plate, so this
+passed without protest.)
+
+S-r-a:--No, it isn't polite to cry all the time.  As to whether
+you should ask a young man in, it all depends on whether he went
+home with you of his own accord or was sent by some elderly
+relative.
+
+F-l-t-y:--It does not break any rule of etiquette if you keep a
+button off your best young man's coat for a keepsake.  But don't
+take more than one or his mother might miss them.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+FASHION NOTES
+
+Knitted mufflers are much more stylish than crocheted ones this
+winter.  It is nice to have one the same colour as your cap.
+
+Red mittens with a black diamond pattern on the back are much run
+after.  Em Frewen's grandma knits hers for her.  She can knit the
+double diamond pattern and Em puts on such airs about it, but I
+think the single diamond is in better taste.
+
+The new winter hats at Markdale are very pretty.  It is so
+exciting to pick a hat.  Boys can't have that fun.  Their hats are
+so much alike.
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+FUNNY PARAGRAPHS
+
+This is a true joke and really happened.
+
+There was an old local preacher in New Brunswick one time whose
+name was Samuel Clask.  He used to preach and pray and visit the
+sick just like a regular minister.  One day he was visiting a
+neighbour who was dying and he prayed the Lord to have mercy on
+him because he was very poor and had worked so hard all his life
+that he hadn't much time to attend to religion.
+
+"And if you don't believe me, O Lord," Mr. Clask finished up with,
+"just take a look at his hands."
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+GENERAL INFORMATION BUREAU
+
+DAN:--Do porpoises grow on trees or vines?
+
+Ans.  Neither.  They inhabit the deep sea.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+(DAN, AGGRIEVED:--"Well, I'd never heard of porpoises and it
+sounded like something that grew.  But you needn't have gone and
+put it in the paper."
+
+FELIX:--"It isn't any worse than the things you put in about me
+that I never asked at all."
+
+CECILY, SOOTHINGLY:--"Oh, well, boys, it's all in fun, and I think
+Our Magazine is perfectly elegant."
+
+FELICITY, FAILING TO SEE THE STORY GIRL AND BEVERLEY EXCHANGING
+WINKS BEHIND HER BACK:--"It certainly is, though SOME PEOPLE were
+so opposed to starting it.")
+
+
+What harmless, happy fooling it all was!  How we laughed as we read
+and listened and devoured apples!  Blow high, blow low, no wind can
+ever quench the ruddy glow of that faraway winter night in our
+memories.  And though Our Magazine never made much of a stir in
+the world, or was the means of hatching any genius, it continued
+to be capital fun for us throughout the year.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+GREAT-AUNT ELIZA'S VISIT
+
+
+It was a diamond winter day in February--clear, cold, hard,
+brilliant.  The sharp blue sky shone, the white fields and hills
+glittered, the fringe of icicles around the eaves of Uncle Alec's
+house sparkled.  Keen was the frost and crisp the snow over our
+world; and we young fry of the King households were all agog to
+enjoy life--for was it not Saturday, and were we not left all
+alone to keep house?
+
+Aunt Janet and Aunt Olivia had had their last big "kill" of market
+poultry the day before; and early in the morning all our grown-ups
+set forth to Charlottetown, to be gone the whole day.  They left
+us many charges as usual, some of which we remembered and some of
+which we forgot; but with Felicity in command none of us dared
+stray far out of line.  The Story Girl and Peter came over, of
+course, and we all agreed that we would haste and get the work
+done in the forenoon, that we might have an afternoon of
+uninterrupted enjoyment.  A taffy-pull after dinner and then a
+jolly hour of coasting on the hill field before supper were on our
+programme.  But disappointment was our portion.  We did manage to
+get the taffy made but before we could sample the result
+satisfactorily, and just as the girls were finishing with the
+washing of the dishes, Felicity glanced out of the window and
+exclaimed in tones of dismay,
+
+"Oh, dear me, here's Great-aunt Eliza coming up the lane!  Now,
+isn't that too mean?"
+
+We all looked out to see a tall, gray-haired lady approaching the
+house, looking about her with the slightly puzzled air of a
+stranger.  We had been expecting Great-aunt Eliza's advent for
+some weeks, for she was visiting relatives in Markdale.  We knew
+she was liable to pounce down on us any time, being one of those
+delightful folk who like to "surprise" people, but we had never
+thought of her coming that particular day.  It must be confessed
+that we did not look forward to her visit with any pleasure.  None
+of us had ever seen her, but we knew she was very deaf, and had
+very decided opinions as to the way in which children should
+behave.
+
+"Whew!" whistled Dan.  "We're in for a jolly afternoon.  She's
+deaf as a post and we'll have to split our throats to make her
+hear at all.  I've a notion to skin out."
+
+"Oh, don't talk like that, Dan," said Cecily reproachfully. 
+"She's old and lonely and has had a great deal of trouble.  She
+has buried three husbands.  We must be kind to her and do the best
+we can to make her visit pleasant."
+
+"She's coming to the back door," said Felicity, with an agitated
+glance around the kitchen.  "I told you, Dan, that you should have
+shovelled the snow away from the front door this morning.  Cecily,
+set those pots in the pantry quick--hide those boots, Felix--shut
+the cupboard door, Peter--Sara, straighten up the lounge.  She's
+awfully particular and ma says her house is always as neat as
+wax."
+
+To do Felicity justice, while she issued orders to the rest of us,
+she was flying busily about herself, and it was amazing how much
+was accomplished in the way of putting the kitchen in perfect
+order during the two minutes in which Great-aunt Eliza was
+crossing the yard.
+
+"Fortunately the sitting-room is tidy and there's plenty in the
+pantry," said Felicity, who could face anything undauntedly with a
+well-stocked larder behind her.
+
+Further conversation was cut short by a decided rap at the door. 
+Felicity opened it.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Aunt Eliza?" she said loudly.
+
+A slightly bewildered look appeared on Aunt Eliza's face. 
+Felicity perceived she had not spoken loudly enough.
+
+"How do you do, Aunt Eliza," she repeated at the top of her voice. 
+"Come in--we are glad to see you.  We've been looking for you for
+ever so long."
+
+"Are your father and mother at home?" asked Aunt Eliza, slowly.
+
+"No, they went to town today.  But they'll be home this evening."
+
+"I'm sorry they're away," said Aunt Eliza, coming in, "because I
+can stay only a few hours."
+
+"Oh, that's too bad," shouted poor Felicity, darting an angry
+glance at the rest of us, as if to demand why we didn't help her
+out.  "Why, we've been thinking you'd stay a week with us anyway. 
+You MUST stay over Sunday."
+
+"I really can't.  I have to go to Charlottetown tonight," returned
+Aunt Eliza.
+
+"Well, you'll take off your things and stay to tea, at least,"
+urged Felicity, as hospitably as her strained vocal chords would
+admit.
+
+"Yes, I think I'll do that.  I want to get acquainted with my--my
+nephews and nieces," said Aunt Eliza, with a rather pleasant
+glance around our group.  If I could have associated the thought
+of such a thing with my preconception of Great-aunt Eliza I could
+have sworn there was a twinkle in her eye.  But of course it was
+impossible.  "Won't you introduce yourselves, please?"
+
+Felicity shouted our names and Great-aunt Eliza shook hands all
+round.  She performed the duty grimly and I concluded I must have
+been mistaken about the twinkle.  She was certainly very tall and
+dignified and imposing--altogether a great-aunt to be respected.
+
+Felicity and Cecily took her to the spare room and then left her
+in the sitting-room while they returned to the kitchen, to discuss
+the matter in family conclave.
+
+"Well, and what do you think of dear Aunt Eliza?" asked Dan.
+
+"S-s-s-sh," warned Cecily, with a glance at the half-open hall door.
+
+"Pshaw," scoffed Dan, "she can't hear us.  There ought to be a law
+against anyone being as deaf as that."
+
+"She's not so old-looking as I expected," said Felix.  "If her
+hair wasn't so white she wouldn't look much older than your mother."
+
+"You don't have to be very old to be a great-aunt," said Cecily. 
+"Kitty Marr has a great-aunt who is just the same age as her
+mother.  I expect it was burying so many husbands turned her hair
+white.  But Aunt Eliza doesn't look just as I expected she would
+either."
+
+"She's dressed more stylishly than I expected," said Felicity.  "I
+thought she'd be real old-fashioned, but her clothes aren't too
+bad at all."
+
+"She wouldn't be bad-looking if 'tweren't for her nose," said
+Peter.  "It's too long, and crooked besides."
+
+"You needn't criticize our relations like that," said Felicity
+tartly.
+
+"Well, aren't you doing it yourselves?" expostulated Peter.
+
+"That's different," retorted Felicity.  "Never you mind Great-aunt
+Eliza's nose."
+
+"Well, don't expect me to talk to her," said Dan, "'cause I won't."
+
+"I'm going to be very polite to her," said Felicity.  "She's rich. 
+But how are we to entertain her, that's the question."
+
+"What does the Family Guide say about entertaining your rich, deaf
+old aunt?" queried Dan ironically.
+
+"The Family Guide says we should be polite to EVERYBODY," said
+Cecily, with a reproachful look at Dan.
+
+"The worst of it is," said Felicity, looking worried, "that there
+isn't a bit of old bread in the house and she can't eat new, I've
+heard father say.  It gives her indigestion.  What will we do?"
+
+"Make a pan of rusks and apologize for having no old bread,"
+suggested the Story Girl, probably by way of teasing Felicity. 
+The latter, however, took it in all good faith.
+
+"The Family Guide says we should never apologize for things we
+can't help.  It says it's adding insult to injury to do it.  But
+you run over home for a loaf of stale bread, Sara, and it's a good
+idea about the rusks.  I'll make a panful."
+
+"Let me make them," said the Story Girl, eagerly.  "I can make
+real good rusks now."
+
+"No, it wouldn't do to trust you," said Felicity mercilessly. 
+"You might make some queer mistake and Aunt Eliza would tell it
+all over the country.  She's a fearful old gossip.  I'll make the
+rusks myself.  She hates cats, so we mustn't let Paddy be seen. 
+And she's a Methodist, so mind nobody says anything against
+Methodists to her."
+
+"Who's going to say anything, anyhow?" asked Peter belligerently.
+
+"I wonder if I might ask her for her name for my quilt square?"
+speculated Cecily.  "I believe I will.  She looks so much
+friendlier than I expected.  Of course she'll choose the five-cent
+section.  She's an estimable old lady, but very economical."
+
+"Why don't you say she's so mean she'd skin a flea for its hide
+and tallow?" said Dan.  "That's the plain truth."
+
+"Well, I'm going to see about getting tea," said Felicity, "so the
+rest of you will have to entertain her.  You better go in and show
+her the photographs in the album.  Dan, you do it."
+
+"Thank you, that's a girl's job," said Dan.  "I'd look nice
+sitting up to Aunt Eliza and yelling out that this was Uncle Jim
+and 'tother Cousin Sarah's twins, wouldn't I?  Cecily or the Story
+Girl can do it."
+
+"I don't know all the pictures in your album," said the Story Girl
+hastily.
+
+"I s'pose I'll have to do it, though I don't like to," sighed
+Cecily.  "But we ought to go in.  We've left her alone too long
+now.  She'll think we have no manners."
+
+Accordingly we all filed in rather reluctantly.  Great-aunt Eliza
+was toasting her toes--clad, as we noted, in very smart and
+shapely shoes--at the stove and looking quite at her ease. 
+Cecily, determined to do her duty even in the face of such fearful
+odds as Great-aunt Eliza's deafness, dragged a ponderous, plush-
+covered album from its corner and proceeded to display and explain
+the family photographs.  She did her brave best but she could not
+shout like Felicity, and half the time, as she confided to me
+later on, she felt that Great-aunt Eliza did not hear one word she
+said, because she didn't seem to take in who the people were,
+though, just like all deaf folks, she wouldn't let on.  Great-aunt
+Eliza certainly didn't talk much; she looked at the photographs in
+silence, but she smiled now and then.  That smile bothered me.  It
+was so twinkly and so very un-great-aunt-Elizaish.  But I felt
+indignant with her.  I thought she might have shown a little more
+appreciation of Cecily's gallant efforts to entertain.
+
+It was very dull for the rest of us.  The Story Girl sat rather
+sulkily in her corner; she was angry because Felicity would not
+let her make the rusks, and also, perhaps, a little vexed because
+she could not charm Great-aunt Eliza with her golden voice and
+story-telling gift.  Felix and I looked at each other and wished
+ourselves out in the hill field, careering gloriously adown its
+gleaming crust.
+
+But presently a little amusement came our way.  Dan, who was
+sitting behind Great-aunt Eliza, and consequently out of her view,
+began making comments on Cecily's explanation of this one and that
+one among the photographs.  In vain Cecily implored him to stop. 
+It was too good fun to give up.  For the next half-hour the
+dialogue ran after this fashion, while Peter and Felix and I, and
+even the Story Girl, suffered agonies trying to smother our bursts
+of laughter--for Great-aunt Eliza could see if she couldn't hear:
+
+CECILY, SHOUTING:--"That is Mr. Joseph Elliott of Markdale, a
+second cousin of mother's."
+
+DAN:--"Don't brag of it, Sis.  He's the man who was asked if
+somebody else said something in sincerity and old Joe said 'No, he
+said it in my cellar.'"
+
+CECILY:--"This isn't anybody in our family.  It's little Xavy
+Gautier who used to be hired with Uncle Roger."
+
+DAN:--"Uncle Roger sent him to fix a gate one day and scolded him
+because he didn't do it right, and Xavy was mad as hops and said
+'How you 'spect me to fix dat gate?  I never learned jogerfy.'"
+
+CECILY, WITH AN ANGUISHED GLANCE AT DAN:--"This is Great-uncle
+Robert King."
+
+DAN:--"He's been married four times.  Don't you think that's often
+enough, dear great-aunty?"
+
+CECILY:--"(Dan!!) This is a nephew of Mr. Ambrose Marr's.  He
+lives out west and teaches school."
+
+DAN:--"Yes, and Uncle Roger says he doesn't know enough not to
+sleep in a field with the gate open."
+
+CECILY:--"This is Miss Julia Stanley, who used to teach in
+Carlisle a few years ago."
+
+DAN:--"When she resigned the trustees had a meeting to see if
+they'd ask her to stay and raise her supplement.  Old Highland
+Sandy was alive then and he got up and said, 'If she for go let
+her for went.  Perhaps she for marry.'"
+
+CECILY, WITH THE AIR OF A MARTYR:--"This is Mr. Layton, who used
+to travel around selling Bibles and hymn books and Talmage's
+sermons."
+
+DAN:--"He was so thin Uncle Roger used to say he always mistook
+him for a crack in the atmosphere.  One time he stayed here all
+night and went to prayer meeting and Mr. Marwood asked him to lead
+in prayer.  It had been raining 'most every day for three weeks,
+and it was just in haymaking time, and everybody thought the hay
+was going to be ruined, and old Layton got up and prayed that God
+would send gentle showers on the growing crops, and I heard Uncle
+Roger whisper to a fellow behind me, 'If somebody don't choke him
+off we won't get the hay made this summer.'"
+
+CECILY, IN EXASPERATION:--"(Dan, shame on you for telling such
+irreverent stories.) This is Mrs. Alexander Scott of Markdale. 
+She has been very sick for a long time."
+
+DAN:--"Uncle Roger says all that keeps her alive is that she's
+scared her husband will marry again."
+
+CECILY:--"This is old Mr. James MacPherson who used to live behind
+the graveyard."
+
+DAN:--"He's the man who told mother once that he always made his
+own iodine out of strong tea and baking soda."
+
+CECILY:--"This is Cousin Ebenezer MacPherson on the Markdale
+road."
+
+DAN:--"Great temperance man!  He never tasted rum in his life.  He
+took the measles when he was forty-five and was crazy as a loon
+with them, and the doctor ordered them to give him a dose of
+brandy.  When he swallowed it he looked up and says, solemn as an
+owl, 'Give it to me oftener and more at a time.'"
+
+CECILY, IMPLORINGLY:--"(Dan, do stop.  You make me so nervous I
+don't know what I'm doing.) This is Mr. Lemuel Goodridge.  He is a
+minister."
+
+DAN:--"You ought to see his mouth.  Uncle Roger says the drawing
+string has fell out of it.  It just hangs loose--so fashion."
+
+Dan, whose own mouth was far from being beautiful, here gave an
+imitation of the Rev. Lemuel's, to the utter undoing of Peter,
+Felix, and myself.  Our wild guffaws of laughter penetrated even
+Great-aunt Eliza's deafness, and she glanced up with a startled
+face.  What we would have done I do not know had not Felicity at
+that moment appeared in the doorway with panic-stricken eyes and
+exclaimed,
+
+"Cecily, come here for a moment."
+
+Cecily, glad of even a temporary respite, fled to the kitchen and
+we heard her demanding what was the matter.
+
+"Matter!" exclaimed Felicity, tragically.  "Matter enough!  Some of
+you left a soup plate with molasses in it on the pantry table and
+Pat got into it and what do you think?  He went into the spare room
+and walked all over Aunt Eliza's things on the bed.  You can see
+his tracks plain as plain.  What in the world can we do?  She'll be
+simply furious."
+
+I looked apprehensively at Great-aunt Eliza; but she was gazing
+intently at a picture of Aunt Janet's sister's twins, a most
+stolid, uninteresting pair; but evidently Great-aunt Eliza found
+them amusing for she was smiling widely over them.
+
+"Let us take a little clean water and a soft bit of cotton," came
+Cecily's clear voice from the kitchen, "and see if we can't clean
+the molasses off.  The coat and hat are both cloth, and molasses
+isn't like grease."
+
+"Well, we can try, but I wish the Story Girl would keep her cat
+home," grumbled Felicity.
+
+The Story Girl here flew out to defend her pet, and we four boys
+sat on, miserably conscious of Great-aunt Eliza, who never said a
+word to us, despite her previously expressed desire to become
+acquainted with us.  She kept on looking at the photographs and
+seemed quite oblivious of our presence.
+
+Presently the girls returned, having, as transpired later, been so
+successful in removing the traces of Paddy's mischief that it was
+not deemed necessary to worry Great-aunt Eliza with any account of
+it.  Felicity announced tea and, while Cecily conveyed Great-aunt
+Eliza out to the dining-room, lingered behind to consult with us
+for a moment.
+
+"Ought we to ask her to say grace?" she wanted to know.
+
+"I know a story," said the Story Girl, "about Uncle Roger when he
+was just a young man.  He went to the house of a very deaf old
+lady and when they sat down to the table she asked him to say
+grace.  Uncle Roger had never done such a thing in his life and he
+turned as red as a beet and looked down and muttered, 'E-r-r,
+please excuse me--I--I'm not accustomed to doing that.' Then he
+looked up and the old lady said 'Amen,' loudly and cheerfully. 
+She thought Uncle Roger was saying grace all the time."
+
+"I don't think it's right to tell funny stories about such
+things," said Felicity coldly.  "And I asked for your opinion, not
+for a story."
+
+"If we don't ask her, Felix must say it, for he's the only one who
+can, and we must have it, or she'd be shocked."
+
+"Oh, ask her--ask her," advised Felix hastily.
+
+She was asked accordingly and said grace without any hesitation,
+after which she proceeded to eat heartily of the excellent supper
+Felicity had provided.  The rusks were especially good and Great-
+aunt Eliza ate three of them and praised them.  Apart from that
+she said little and during the first part of the meal we sat in
+embarrassed silence.  Towards the last, however, our tongues were
+loosened, and the Story Girl told us a tragic tale of old
+Charlottetown and a governor's wife who had died of a broken heart
+in the early days of the colony.
+
+"They say that story isn't true," said Felicity.  "They say what
+she really died of was indigestion.  The Governor's wife who lives
+there now is a relation of our own.  She is a second cousin of
+father's but we've never seen her.  Her name was Agnes Clark.  And
+mind you, when father was a young man he was dead in love with her
+and so was she with him."
+
+"Who ever told you that?" exclaimed Dan.
+
+"Aunt Olivia.  And I've heard ma teasing father about it, too.  Of
+course, it was before father got acquainted with mother."
+
+"Why didn't your father marry her?" I asked.
+
+"Well, she just simply wouldn't marry him in the end.  She got
+over being in love with him.  I guess she was pretty fickle.  Aunt
+Olivia said father felt awful about it for awhile, but he got over
+it when he met ma.  Ma was twice as good-looking as Agnes Clark. 
+Agnes was a sight for freckles, so Aunt Olivia says.  But she and
+father remained real good friends.  Just think, if she had married
+him we would have been the children of the Governor's wife."
+
+"But she wouldn't have been the Governor's wife then," said Dan.
+
+"I guess it's just as good being father's wife," declared Cecily
+loyally.
+
+"You might think so if you saw the Governor," chuckled Dan. 
+"Uncle Roger says it would be no harm to worship him because he
+doesn't look like anything in the heavens above or on the earth
+beneath or the waters under the earth."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Roger just says that because he's on the opposite side
+of politics," said Cecily.  "The Governor isn't really so very
+ugly.  I saw him at the Markdale picnic two years ago.  He's very
+fat and bald and red-faced, but I've seen far worse looking men."
+
+"I'm afraid your seat is too near the stove, Aunt Eliza," shouted
+Felicity.
+
+Our guest, whose face was certainly very much flushed, shook her
+head.
+
+"Oh, no, I'm very comfortable," she said.  But her voice had the
+effect of making us uncomfortable.  There was a queer, uncertain
+little sound in it.  Was Great-aunt Eliza laughing at us?  We
+looked at her sharply but her face was very solemn.  Only her eyes
+had a suspicious appearance.  Somehow, we did not talk much more
+the rest of the meal.
+
+When it was over Great-aunt Eliza said she was very sorry but she
+must really go.  Felicity politely urged her to stay, but was much
+relieved when Great-aunt Eliza adhered to her intention of going. 
+When Felicity took her to the spare room Cecily slipped upstairs
+and presently came back with a little parcel in her hand.
+
+"What have you got there?" demanded Felicity suspiciously.
+
+"A--a little bag of rose-leaves," faltered Cecily.  "I thought I'd
+give them to Aunt Eliza."
+
+"The idea!  Don't you do such a thing," said Felicity
+contemptuously.  "She'd think you were crazy."
+
+"She was awfully nice when I asked her for her name for the
+quilt," protested Cecily, "and she took a ten-cent section after
+all.  So I'd like to give her the rose-leaves--and I'm going to,
+too, Miss Felicity."
+
+Great-aunt Eliza accepted the little gift quite graciously, bade
+us all good-bye, said she had enjoyed herself very much, left
+messages for father and mother, and finally betook herself away. 
+We watched her cross the yard, tall, stately, erect, and disappear
+down the lane.  Then, as often aforetime, we gathered together in
+the cheer of the red hearth-flame, while outside the wind of a
+winter twilight sang through fair white valleys brimmed with a
+reddening sunset, and a faint, serene, silver-cold star glimmered
+over the willow at the gate.
+
+"Well," said Felicity, drawing a relieved breath, "I'm glad she's
+gone.  She certainly is queer, just as mother said."
+
+"It's a different kind of queerness from what I expected, though,"
+said the Story Girl meditatively.  "There's something I can't
+quite make out about Aunt Eliza.  I don't think I altogether like
+her."
+
+"I'm precious sure I don't," said Dan.
+
+"Oh, well, never mind.  She's gone now and that's the last of it,"
+said Cecily comfortingly .
+
+But it wasn't the last of it--not by any manner of means was it!
+When our grown-ups returned almost the first words Aunt Janet said
+were,
+
+"And so you had the Governor's wife to tea?"
+
+We all stared at her.
+
+"I don't know what you mean," said Felicity.  "We had nobody to
+tea except Great-aunt Eliza.  She came this afternoon and--"
+
+"Great-aunt Eliza?  Nonsense," said Aunt Janet.  "Aunt Eliza was in
+town today.  She had tea with us at Aunt Louisa's.  But wasn't
+Mrs. Governor Lesley here?  We met her on her way back to
+Charlottetown and she told us she was.  She said she was visiting
+a friend in Carlisle and thought she'd call to see father for old
+acquaintance sake.  What in the world are all you children staring
+like that for?  Your eyes are like saucers."
+
+"There was a lady here to tea," said Felicity miserably, "but we
+thought it was Great-aunt Eliza--she never SAID she wasn't--I
+thought she acted queer--and we all yelled at her as if she was
+deaf--and said things to each other about her nose--and Pat
+running over her clothes--"
+
+"She must have heard all you said while I was showing her the
+photographs, Dan," cried Cecily.
+
+"And about the Governor at tea time," chuckled unrepentant Dan.
+
+"I want to know what all this means," said Aunt Janet sternly.
+
+She knew in due time, after she had pieced the story together from
+our disjointed accounts.  She was horrified, and Uncle Alec was
+mildly disturbed, but Uncle Roger roared with laughter and Aunt
+Olivia echoed it.
+
+"To think you should have so little sense!" said Aunt Janet in a
+disgusted tone.
+
+"I think it was real mean of her to pretend she was deaf," said
+Felicity, almost on the verge of tears.
+
+"That was Agnes Clark all over," chuckled Uncle Roger.  "How she
+must have enjoyed this afternoon!"
+
+She had enjoyed it, as we learned the next day, when a letter came
+from her.
+
+"Dear Cecily and all the rest of you," wrote the Governor's wife,
+"I want to ask you to forgive me for pretending to be Aunt Eliza. 
+I suspect it was a little horrid of me, but really I couldn't
+resist the temptation, and if you will forgive me for it I will
+forgive you for the things you said about the Governor, and we
+will all be good friends.  You know the Governor is a very nice
+man, though he has the misfortune not to be handsome.
+
+"I had just a splendid time at your place, and I envy your Aunt
+Eliza her nephews and nieces.  You were all so nice to me, and I
+didn't dare to be a bit nice to you lest I should give myself
+away.  But I'll make up for that when you come to see me at
+Government House, as you all must the very next time you come to
+town.  I'm so sorry I didn't see Paddy, for I love pussy cats,
+even if they do track molasses over my clothes.  And, Cecily,
+thank you ever so much for that little bag of pot-pourri.  It
+smells like a hundred rose gardens, and I have put it between the
+sheets for my very sparest room bed, where you shall sleep when
+you come to see me, you dear thing.  And the Governor wants you to
+put his name on the quilt square, too, in the ten-cent section.
+
+"Tell Dan I enjoyed his comments on the photographs very much. 
+They were quite a refreshing contrast to the usual explanations of
+'who's who.' And Felicity, your rusks were perfection.  Do send me
+your recipe for them, there's a darling.
+
+"Yours most cordially,
+
+                                AGNES CLARK LESLEY.
+
+
+"Well, it was decent of her to apologize, anyhow," commented Dan.
+
+"If we only hadn't said that about the Governor," moaned Felicity.
+
+"How did you make your rusks?" asked Aunt Janet.  "There was no
+baking-powder in the house, and I never could get them right with
+soda and cream of tartar."
+
+"There was plenty of baking-powder in the pantry," said Felicity.
+
+"No, there wasn't a particle.  I used the last making those
+cookies Thursday morning."
+
+"But I found another can nearly full, away back on the top shelf,
+ma,--the one with the yellow label.  I guess you forgot it was
+there."
+
+Aunt Janet stared at her pretty daughter blankly.  Then amazement
+gave place to horror.
+
+"Felicity King!" she exclaimed.  "You don't mean to tell me that
+you raised those rusks with the stuff that was in that old yellow can?"
+
+"Yes, I did," faltered Felicity, beginning to look scared.  "Why,
+ma, what was the matter with it?"
+
+"Matter!  That stuff was TOOTH-POWDER, that's what it was.  Your
+Cousin Myra broke the bottle her tooth-powder was in when she was
+here last winter and I gave her that old can to keep it in.  She
+forgot to take it when she went away and I put it on that top
+shelf.  I declare you must all have been bewitched yesterday."
+
+Poor, poor Felicity!  If she had not always been so horribly vain
+over her cooking and so scornfully contemptuous of other people's
+aspirations and mistakes along that line, I could have found it in
+my heart to pity her.
+
+The Story Girl would have been more than human if she had not
+betrayed a little triumphant amusement, but Peter stood up for his
+lady manfully.
+
+"The rusks were splendid, anyhow, so what difference does it make
+what they were raised with?"
+
+Dan, however, began to taunt Felicity with her tooth-powder rusks,
+and kept it up for the rest of his natural life.
+
+"Don't forget to send the Governor's wife the recipe for them," he
+said.
+
+Felicity, with eyes tearful and cheeks crimson from mortification,
+rushed from the room, but never, never did the Governor's wife get
+the recipe for those rusks.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WE VISIT COUSIN MATTIE'S
+
+
+One Saturday in March we walked over to Baywater, for a long-
+talked-of visit to Cousin Mattie Dilke.  By the road, Baywater was
+six miles away, but there was a short cut across hills and fields
+and woods which was scantly three.  We did not look forward to our
+visit with any particular delight, for there was nobody at Cousin
+Mattie's except grown-ups who had been grown up so long that it
+was rather hard for them to remember they had ever been children. 
+But, as Felicity told us, it was necessary to visit Cousin Mattie
+at least once a year, or else she would be "huffed," so we
+concluded we might as well go and have it over.
+
+"Anyhow, we'll get a splendiferous dinner," said Dan.  "Cousin
+Mattie's a great cook and there's nothing stingy about her."
+
+"You are always thinking of your stomach," said Felicity
+pleasantly.
+
+"Well, you know I couldn't get along very well without it,
+darling," responded Dan who, since New Year's, had adopted a new
+method of dealing with Felicity--whether by way of keeping his
+resolution or because he had discovered that it annoyed Felicity
+far more than angry retorts, deponent sayeth not.  He invariably
+met her criticisms with a good-natured grin and a flippant remark
+with some tender epithet tagged on to it.  Poor Felicity used to
+get hopelessly furious over it.
+
+Uncle Alec was dubious about our going that day.  He looked abroad
+on the general dourness of gray earth and gray air and gray sky,
+and said a storm was brewing.  But Cousin Mattie had been sent
+word that we were coming, and she did not like to be disappointed,
+so he let us go, warning us to stay with Cousin Mattie all night
+if the storm came on while we were there.
+
+We enjoyed our walk--even Felix enjoyed it, although he had been
+appointed to write up the visit for Our Magazine and was rather
+weighed down by the responsibility of it.  What mattered it though
+the world were gray and wintry?  We walked the golden road and
+carried spring time in our hearts, and we beguiled our way with
+laughter and jest, and the tales the Story Girl told us--myths and
+legends of elder time.
+
+The walking was good, for there had lately been a thaw and
+everything was frozen.  We went over fields, crossed by spidery
+trails of gray fences, where the withered grasses stuck forlornly
+up through the snow; we lingered for a time in a group of hill
+pines, great, majestic tree-creatures, friends of evening stars;
+and finally struck into the belt of fir and maple which intervened
+between Carlisle and Baywater.  It was in this locality that Peg
+Bowen lived, and our way lay near her house though not directly in
+sight of it.  We hoped we would not meet her, for since the affair
+of the bewitchment of Paddy we did not know quite what to think of
+Peg; the boldest of us held his breath as we passed her haunts,
+and drew it again with a sigh of relief when they were safely left
+behind.
+
+The woods were full of the brooding stillness that often precedes
+a storm, and the wind crept along their white, cone-sprinkled
+floors with a low, wailing cry.  Around us were solitudes of snow,
+arcades picked out in pearl and silver, long avenues of untrodden
+marble whence sprang the cathedral columns of the firs.  We were
+all sorry when we were through the woods and found ourselves
+looking down into the snug, commonplace, farmstead-dotted
+settlement of Baywater.
+
+"There's Cousin Mattie's house--that big white one at the turn of
+the road," said the Story Girl.  "I hope she has that dinner
+ready, Dan.  I'm hungry as a wolf after our walk."
+
+"I wish Cousin Mattie's husband was still alive," said Dan.  "He
+was an awful nice old man.  He always had his pockets full of nuts
+and apples.  I used to like going there better when he was alive. 
+Too many old women don't suit me."
+
+"Oh, Dan, Cousin Mattie and her sisters-in-law are just as nice
+and kind as they can be," reproached Cecily.
+
+"Oh, they're kind enough, but they never seem to see that a fellow
+gets over being five years old if he only lives long enough,"
+retorted Dan.
+
+"I know a story about Cousin Mattie's husband," said the Story
+Girl.  "His name was Ebenezer, you know--"
+
+"Is it any wonder he was thin and stunted looking?" said Dan.
+
+"Ebenezer is just as nice a name as Daniel," said Felicity.
+
+"Do you REALLY think so, my angel?" inquired Dan, in honey-sweet
+tones.
+
+"Go on.  Remember your second resolution," I whispered to the
+Story Girl, who was stalking along with an outraged expression.
+
+The Story Girl swallowed something and went on.
+
+"Cousin Ebenezer had a horror of borrowing.  He thought it was
+simply a dreadful disgrace to borrow ANYTHING.  Well, you know he
+and Cousin Mattie used to live in Carlisle, where the Rays now
+live.  This was when Grandfather King was alive.  One day Cousin
+Ebenezer came up the hill and into the kitchen where all the
+family were.  Uncle Roger said he looked as if he had been
+stealing sheep.  He sat for a whole hour in the kitchen and hardly
+spoke a word, but just looked miserable.  At last he got up and
+said in a desperate sort of way, 'Uncle Abraham, can I speak with
+you in private for a minute?' 'Oh, certainly,' said grandfather,
+and took him into the parlour.  Cousin Ebenezer shut the door,
+looked all around him and then said imploringly, 'MORE PRIVATE
+STILL.' So grandfather took him into the spare room and shut that
+door.  He was getting frightened.  He thought something terrible
+must have happened Cousin Ebenezer.  Cousin Ebenezer came right up
+to grandfather, took hold of the lapel of his coat, and said in a
+whisper, 'Uncle Abraham, CAN--YOU--LEND--ME--AN--AXE?'"
+
+"He needn't have made such a mystery about it," said Cecily, who
+had missed the point entirely, and couldn't see why the rest of us
+were laughing.  But Cecily was such a darling that we did not mind
+her lack of a sense of humour.
+
+"It's kind of mean to tell stories like that about people who are
+dead," said Felicity.
+
+"Sometimes it's safer than when they're alive though, sweetheart,"
+commented Dan.
+
+We had our expected good dinner at Cousin Mattie's--may it be
+counted unto her for righteousness.  She and her sisters-in-law,
+Miss Louisa Jane and Miss Caroline, were very kind to us.  We had
+quite a nice time, although I understood why Dan objected to them
+when they patted us all on the head and told us whom we resembled
+and gave us peppermint lozenges.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WE VISIT PEG BOWEN
+
+
+We left Cousin Mattie's early, for it still looked like a storm,
+though no more so than it had in the morning.  We intended to go
+home by a different path--one leading through cleared land
+overgrown with scrub maple, which had the advantage of being
+farther away from Peg Bowen's house.  We hoped to be home before
+it began to storm, but we had hardly reached the hill above the
+village when a fine, driving snow began to fall.  It would have
+been wiser to have turned back even then; but we had already come
+a mile and we thought we would have ample time to reach home
+before it became really bad.  We were sadly mistaken; by the time
+we had gone another half-mile we were in the thick of a
+bewildering, blinding snowstorm.  But it was by now just as far
+back to Cousin Mattie's as it was to Uncle Alec's, so we struggled
+on, growing more frightened at every step.  We could hardly face
+the stinging snow, and we could not see ten feet ahead of us.  It
+had turned bitterly cold and the tempest howled all around us in
+white desolation under the fast-darkening night.  The narrow path
+we were trying to follow soon became entirely obliterated and we
+stumbled blindly on, holding to each other, and trying to peer
+through the furious whirl that filled the air.  Our plight had
+come upon us so suddenly that we could not realize it.  Presently
+Peter, who was leading the van because he was supposed to know the
+path best, stopped.
+
+"I can't see the road any longer," he shouted.  "I don't know
+where we are."
+
+We all stopped and huddled together in a miserable group.  Fear
+filled our hearts.  It seemed ages ago that we had been snug and
+safe and warm at Cousin Mattie's.  Cecily began to cry with cold. 
+Dan, in spite of her protests, dragged off his overcoat and made
+her put it on.
+
+"We can't stay here," he said.  "We'll all freeze to death if we
+do.  Come on--we've got to keep moving.  The snow ain't so deep
+yet.  Take hold of my hand, Cecily.  We must all hold together. 
+Come, now."
+
+"It won't be nice to be frozen to death, but if we get through
+alive think what a story we'll have to tell," said the Story Girl
+between her chattering teeth.
+
+In my heart I did not believe we would ever get through alive.  It
+was almost pitch dark now, and the snow grew deeper every moment. 
+We were chilled to the heart.  I thought how nice it would be to
+lie down and rest; but I remembered hearing that that was fatal,
+and I endeavoured to stumble on with the others.  It was wonderful
+how the girls kept up, even Cecily.  It occurred to me to be
+thankful that Sara Ray was not with us.
+
+But we were wholly lost now.  All around us was a horror of great
+darkness.  Suddenly Felicity fell.  We dragged her up, but she
+declared she could not go on--she was done out.
+
+"Have you any idea where we are?" shouted Dan to Peter.
+
+"No," Peter shouted back, "the wind is blowing every which way.  I
+haven't any idea where home is."
+
+Home!  Would we ever see it again?  We tried to urge Felicity on,
+but she only repeated drowsily that she must lie down and rest. 
+Cecily, too, was reeling against me.  The Story Girl still stood
+up staunchly and counselled struggling on, but she was numb with
+cold and her words were hardly distinguishable.  Some wild idea
+was in my mind that we must dig a hole in the snow and all creep
+into it.  I had read somewhere that people had thus saved their
+lives in snowstorms.  Suddenly Felix gave a shout.
+
+"I see a light," he cried.
+
+"Where?  Where?"  We all looked but could see nothing.
+
+"I don't see it now but I saw it a moment ago," shouted Felix. 
+"I'm sure I did.  Come on--over in this direction."
+
+Inspired with fresh hope we hurried after him.  Soon we all saw
+the light--and never shone a fairer beacon.  A few more steps and,
+coming into the shelter of the woodland on the further side, we
+realized where we were.
+
+"That's Peg Bowen's house," exclaimed Peter, stopping short in
+dismay.
+
+"I don't care whose house it is," declared Dan.  "We've got to go
+to it."
+
+"I s'pose so," acquiesced Peter ruefully.  "We can't freeze to
+death even if she is a witch."
+
+"For goodness' sake don't say anything about witches so close to
+her house," gasped Felicity.  "I'll be thankful to get in
+anywhere."
+
+We reached the house, climbed the flight of steps that led to that
+mysterious second story door, and Dan rapped.  The door opened
+promptly and Peg Bowen stood before us, in what seemed exactly the
+same costume she had worn on the memorable day when we had come,
+bearing gifts, to propitiate her in the matter of Paddy.
+
+"Behind her was a dim room scantly illumined by the one small
+candle that had guided us through the storm; but the old Waterloo
+stove was colouring the gloom with tremulous, rose-red whorls of
+light, and warm and cosy indeed seemed Peg's retreat to us snow-
+covered, frost-chilled, benighted wanderers.
+
+"Gracious goodness, where did yez all come from?" exclaimed Peg. 
+"Did they turn yez out?"
+
+"We've been over to Baywater, and we got lost in the storm coming
+back," explained Dan.  "We didn't know where we were till we saw
+your light.  I guess we'll have to stay here till the storm is
+over--if you don't mind."
+
+"And if it won't inconvenience you," said Cecily timidly.
+
+"Oh, it's no inconvenience to speak of.  Come in.  Well, yez HAVE
+got some snow on yez.  Let me get a broom.  You boys stomp your
+feet well and shake your coats.  You girls give me your things and
+I'll hang them up.  Guess yez are most froze.  Well, sit up to the
+stove and git het up."
+
+Peg bustled away to gather up a dubious assortment of chairs, with
+backs and rungs missing, and in a few minutes we were in a circle
+around her roaring stove, getting dried and thawed out.  In our
+wildest flights of fancy we had never pictured ourselves as guests
+at the witch's hearth-stone.  Yet here we were; and the witch
+herself was actually brewing a jorum of ginger tea for Cecily, who
+continued to shiver long after the rest of us were roasted to the
+marrow.  Poor Sis drank that scalding draught, being in too great
+awe of Peg to do aught else.
+
+"That'll soon fix your shivers," said our hostess kindly.  "And
+now I'll get yez all some tea."
+
+"Oh, please don't trouble," said the Story Girl hastily.
+
+"'Tain't any trouble," said Peg briskly; then, with one of the
+sudden changes to fierceness which made her such a terrifying
+personage, "Do yez think my vittels ain't clean?"
+
+"Oh, no, no," cried Felicity quickly, before the Story Girl could
+speak, "none of us would ever think THAT.  Sara only meant she
+didn't want you to go to any bother on our account."
+
+"It ain't any bother," said Peg, mollified.  "I'm spry as a
+cricket this winter, though I have the realagy sometimes.  Many a
+good bite I've had in your ma's kitchen.  I owe yez a meal."
+
+No more protests were made.  We sat in awed silence, gazing with
+timid curiosity about the room, the stained, plastered walls of
+which were well-nigh covered with a motley assortment of pictures,
+chromos, and advertisements, pasted on without much regard for
+order or character.
+
+We had heard much of Peg's pets and now we saw them.  Six cats
+occupied various cosy corners; one of them, the black goblin which
+had so terrified us in the summer, blinked satirically at us from
+the centre of Peg's bed.  Another, a dilapidated, striped beastie,
+with both ears and one eye gone, glared at us from the sofa in the
+corner.  A dog, with only three legs, lay behind the stove; a crow
+sat on a roost above our heads, in company with a matronly old
+hen; and on the clock shelf were a stuffed monkey and a grinning
+skull.  We had heard that a sailor had given Peg the monkey.  But
+where had she got the skull?  And whose was it?  I could not help
+puzzling over these gruesome questions.
+
+Presently tea was ready and we gathered around the festal board--a
+board literally as well as figuratively, for Peg's table was the
+work of her own unskilled hands.  The less said about the viands
+of that meal, and the dishes they were served in, the better.  But
+we ate them--bless you, yes!--as we would have eaten any witch's
+banquet set before us.  Peg might or might not be a witch--common
+sense said not; but we knew she was quite capable of turning every
+one of us out of doors in one of her sudden fierce fits if we
+offended her; and we had no mind to trust ourselves again to that
+wild forest where we had fought a losing fight with the demon
+forces of night and storm.
+
+But it was not an agreeable meal in more ways than one.  Peg was
+not at all careful of anybody's feelings.  She hurt Felix's
+cruelly as she passed him his cup of tea.
+
+"You've gone too much to flesh, boy.  So the magic seed didn't
+work, hey?"
+
+How in the world had Peg found out about that magic seed?  Felix
+looked uncommonly foolish.
+
+"If you'd come to me in the first place I'd soon have told you how
+to get thin," said Peg, nodding wisely.
+
+"Won't you tell me now?" asked Felix eagerly, his desire to melt
+his too solid flesh overcoming his dread and shame.
+
+"No, I don't like being second fiddle," answered Peg with a crafty
+smile.  "Sara, you're too scrawny and pale--not much like your ma. 
+I knew her well.  She was counted a beauty, but she made no great
+things of a match.  Your father had some money but he was a tramp
+like meself.  Where is he now?"
+
+"In Rome," said the Story Girl rather shortly.
+
+"People thought your ma was crazy when she took him.  But she'd a
+right to please herself.  Folks is too ready to call other folks
+crazy.  There's people who say I'M not in my right mind.  Did yez
+ever"--Peg fixed Felicity with a piercing glance--"hear anything
+so ridiculous?"
+
+"Never," said Felicity, white to the lips.
+
+"I wish everybody was as sane as I am," said Peg scornfully.  Then
+she looked poor Felicity over critically.  "You're good-looking
+but proud.  And your complexion won't wear.  It'll be like your
+ma's yet--too much red in it."
+
+"Well, that's better than being the colour of mud," muttered
+Peter, who wasn't going to hear his lady traduced, even by a
+witch.  All the thanks he got was a furious look from Felicity,
+but Peg had not heard him and now she turned her attention to
+Cecily.
+
+"You look delicate.  I daresay you'll never live to grow up."
+
+Cecily's lip trembled and Dan's face turned crimson.
+
+"Shut up," he said to Peg.  "You've no business to say such things
+to people."
+
+I think my jaw dropped.  I know Peter's and Felix's did.  Felicity
+broke in wildly.
+
+"Oh, don't mind him, Miss Bowen.  He's got SUCH a temper--that's
+just the way he talks to us all at home.  PLEASE excuse him."
+
+"Bless you, I don't mind him," said Peg, from whom the unexpected
+seemed to be the thing to expect.  "I like a lad of spurrit.  And
+so your father run away, did he, Peter?  He used to be a beau of
+mine--he seen me home three times from singing school when we was
+young.  Some folks said he did it for a dare.  There's such a lot
+of jealousy in the world, ain't there?  Do you know where he is
+now?"
+
+"No," said Peter.
+
+"Well, he's coming home before long," said Peg mysteriously.
+
+"Who told you that?" cried Peter in amazement.
+
+"Better not ask," responded Peg, looking up at the skull.
+
+If she meant to make the flesh creep on our bones she succeeded. 
+But now, much to our relief, the meal was over and Peg invited us
+to draw our chairs up to the stove again.
+
+"Make yourselves at home," she said, producing her pipe from her
+pocket.  "I ain't one of the kind who thinks their houses too good
+to live in.  Guess I won't bother washing the dishes.  They'll do
+yez for breakfast if yez don't forget your places.  I s'pose none
+of yez smokes."
+
+"No," said Felicity, rather primly.
+
+"Then yez don't know what's good for yez," retorted Peg, rather
+grumpily.  But a few whiffs of her pipe placated her and,
+observing Cecily sigh, she asked her kindly what was the matter.
+
+"I'm thinking how worried they'll be at home about us," explained
+Cecily.
+
+"Bless you, dearie, don't be worrying over that.  I'll send them
+word that yez are all snug and safe here."
+
+"But how can you?" cried amazed Cecily.
+
+"Better not ask," said Peg again, with another glance at the
+skull.
+
+An uncomfortable silence followed, finally broken by Peg, who
+introduced her pets to us and told how she had come by them.  The
+black cat was her favourite.
+
+"That cat knows more than I do, if yez'll believe it," she said
+proudly.  "I've got a rat too, but he's a bit shy when strangers
+is round.  Your cat got all right again that time, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Thought he would," said Peg, nodding sagely.  "I seen to that. 
+Now, don't yez all be staring at the hole in my dress."
+
+"We weren't," was our chorus of protest.
+
+"Looked as if yez were.  I tore that yesterday but I didn't mend
+it.  I was brought up to believe that a hole was an accident but a
+patch was a disgrace.  And so your Aunt Olivia is going to be
+married after all?"
+
+This was news to us.  We felt and looked dazed.
+
+"I never heard anything of it," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Oh, it's true enough.  She's a great fool.  I've no faith in
+husbands.  But one good thing is she ain't going to marry that
+Henry Jacobs of Markdale.  He wants her bad enough.  Just like his
+presumption,--thinking himself good enough for a King.  His father
+is the worst man alive.  He chased me off his place with his dog
+once.  But I'll get even with him yet."
+
+Peg looked very savage, and visions of burned barns floated
+through our minds.
+
+"He'll be punished in hell, you know," said Peter timidly.
+
+"But I won't be there to see that," rejoined Peg.  "Some folks say
+I'll go there because I don't go to church oftener.  But I don't
+believe it."
+
+"Why don't you go?" asked Peter, with a temerity that bordered on
+rashness.
+
+"Well, I've got so sunburned I'm afraid folks might take me for an
+Injun," explained Peg, quite seriously.  "Besides, your minister
+makes such awful long prayers.  Why does he do it?"
+
+"I suppose he finds it easier to talk to God than to people,"
+suggested Peter reflectively.
+
+"Well, anyway, I belong to the round church," said Peg
+comfortably, "and so the devil can't catch ME at the corners.  I
+haven't been to Carlisle church for over three years.  I thought
+I'd a-died laughing the last time I was there.  Old Elder Marr
+took up the collection that day.  He'd on a pair of new boots and
+they squeaked all the way up and down the aisles.  And every time
+the boots squeaked the elder made a face, like he had toothache. 
+It was awful funny.  How's your missionary quilt coming on,
+Cecily?"
+
+Was there anything Peg didn't know?
+
+"Very well," said Cecily.
+
+"You can put my name on it, if you want to."
+
+"Oh, thank you.  Which section--the five-cent one or the ten-cent
+one?" asked Cecily timidly.
+
+"The ten-cent one, of course.  The best is none too good for me. 
+I'll give you the ten cents another time.  I'm short of change
+just now--not being as rich as Queen Victory.  There's her picture
+up there--the one with the blue sash and diamint crown and the
+lace curting on her head.  Can any of yez tell me this--is Queen
+Victory a married woman?"
+
+"Oh, yes, but her husband is dead," answered the Story Girl.
+
+"Well, I s'pose they couldn't have called her an old maid, seeing
+she was a queen, even if she'd never got married.  Sometimes I sez
+to myself, 'Peg, would you like to be Queen Victory?' But I never
+know what to answer.  In summer, when I can roam anywhere in the
+woods and the sunshine--I wouldn't be Queen Victory for anything. 
+But when it's winter and cold and I can't git nowheres--I feel as
+if I wouldn't mind changing places with her."
+
+Peg put her pipe back in her mouth and began to smoke fiercely. 
+The candle wick burned long, and was topped by a little cap of
+fiery red that seemed to wink at us like an impish gnome.  The
+most grotesque shadow of Peg flickered over the wall behind her. 
+The one-eyed cat remitted his grim watch and went to sleep. 
+Outside the wind screamed like a ravening beast at the window. 
+Suddenly Peg removed her pipe from her mouth, bent forward,
+gripped my wrist with her sinewy fingers until I almost cried out
+with pain, and gazed straight into my face.  I felt horribly
+frightened of her.  She seemed an entirely different creature.  A
+wild light was in her eyes, a furtive, animal-like expression was
+on her face.  When she spoke it was in a different voice and in
+different language.
+
+"Do you hear the wind?" she asked in a thrilling whisper.  "What
+IS the wind?  What IS the wind?"
+
+"I--I--don't know," I stammered.
+
+"No more do I," said Peg, "and nobody knows.  Nobody knows what
+the wind is.  I wish I could find out.  I mightn't be so afraid of
+the wind if I knew what it was.  I am afraid of it.  When the
+blasts come like that I want to crouch down and hide me.  But I
+can tell you one thing about the wind--it's the only free thing in
+the world--THE--ONLY--FREE--THING.  Everything else is subject to
+some law, but the wind is FREE.  It bloweth where it listeth and
+no man can tame it.  It's free--that's why I love it, though I'm
+afraid of it.  It's a grand thing to be free--free free--free!"
+
+Peg's voice rose almost to a shriek.  We were dreadfully
+frightened, for we knew there were times when she was quite crazy
+and we feared one of her "spells" was coming on her.  But with a
+swift movement she turned the man's coat she wore up over her
+shoulders and head like a hood, completely hiding her face.  Then
+she crouched forward, elbows on knees, and relapsed into silence. 
+None of us dared speak or move.  We sat thus for half an hour. 
+Then Peg jumped up and said briskly in her usual tone,
+
+"Well, I guess yez are all sleepy and ready for bed.  You girls
+can sleep in my bed over there, and I'll take the sofy.  Yez can
+put the cat off if yez like, though he won't hurt yez.  You boys
+can go downstairs.  There's a big pile of straw there that'll do
+yez for a bed, if yez put your coats on.  I'll light yez down, but
+I ain't going to leave yez a light for fear yez'd set fire to the
+place."
+
+Saying good-night to the girls, who looked as if they thought
+their last hour was come, we went to the lower room.  It was quite
+empty, save for a pile of fire wood and another of clean straw. 
+Casting a stealthy glance around, ere Peg withdrew the light, I
+was relieved to see that there were no skulls in sight.  We four
+boys snuggled down in the straw.  We did not expect to sleep, but
+we were very tired and before we knew it our eyes were shut, to
+open no more till morning.  The poor girls were not so fortunate. 
+They always averred they never closed an eye.  Four things
+prevented them from sleeping.  In the first place Peg snored
+loudly; in the second place the fitful gleams of firelight kept
+flickering over the skull for half the night and making gruesome
+effects on it; in the third place Peg's pillows and bedclothes
+smelled rankly of tobacco smoke; and in the fourth place they were
+afraid the rat Peg had spoken of might come out to make their
+acquaintance.  Indeed, they were sure they heard him skirmishing
+about several times.
+
+When we wakened in the morning the storm was over and a young
+morning was looking through rosy eyelids across a white world. 
+The little clearing around Peg's cabin was heaped with dazzling
+drifts, and we boys fell to and shovelled out a road to her well. 
+She gave us breakfast--stiff oatmeal porridge without milk, and a
+boiled egg apiece.  Cecily could NOT eat her porridge; she
+declared she had such a bad cold that she had no appetite; a cold
+she certainly had; the rest of us choked our messes down and after
+we had done so Peg asked us if we had noticed a soapy taste.
+
+"The soap fell into the porridge while I was making it," she said. 
+"But,"--smacking her lips,--"I'm going to make yez an Irish stew
+for dinner.  It'll be fine."
+
+An Irish stew concocted by Peg!  No wonder Dan said hastily,
+
+"You are very kind but we'll have to go right home."
+
+"Yez can't walk," said Peg.
+
+"Oh, yes, we can.  The drifts are so hard they'll carry, and the
+snow will be pretty well blown off the middle of the fields.  It's
+only three-quarters of a mile.  We boys will go home and get a
+pung and come back for you girls."
+
+But the girls wouldn't listen to this.  They must go with us, even
+Cecily.
+
+"Seems to me yez weren't in such a hurry to leave last night,"
+observed Peg sarcastically.
+
+"Oh, it's only because they'll be so anxious about us at home, and
+it's Sunday and we don't want to miss Sunday School," explained
+Felicity.
+
+"Well, I hope your Sunday School will do yez good," said Peg,
+rather grumpily.  But she relented again at the last and gave
+Cecily a wishbone.
+
+"Whatever you wish on that will come true," she said.  "But you
+only have the one wish, so don't waste it."
+
+"We're so much obliged to you for all your trouble," said the
+Story Girl politely.
+
+"Never mind the trouble.  The expense is the thing," retorted Peg
+grimly.
+
+"Oh!" Felicity hesitated.  "If you would let us pay you--give you
+something--"
+
+"No, thank yez," responded Peg loftily.  "There is people who take
+money for their hospitality, I've heerd, but I'm thankful to say I
+don't associate with that class.  Yez are welcome to all yez have
+had here, if yez ARE in a big hurry to get away."
+
+She shut the door behind us with something of a slam, and her
+black cat followed us so far, with stealthy, furtive footsteps,
+that we were frightened of it.  Eventually it turned back; then,
+and not till then, did we feel free to discuss our adventure.
+
+"Well, I'm thankful we're out of THAT," said Felicity, drawing a
+long breath.  "Hasn't it just been an awful experience?"
+
+"We might all have been found frozen stark and stiff this
+morning," remarked the Story Girl with apparent relish.
+
+"I tell you, it was a lucky thing we got to Peg Bowen's," said
+Dan.
+
+"Miss Marwood says there is no such thing as luck," protested
+Cecily.  "We ought to say it was Providence instead."
+
+"Well, Peg and Providence don't seem to go together very well,
+somehow," retorted Dan.  "If Peg is a witch it must be the Other
+One she's in co. with."
+
+"Dan, it's getting to be simply scandalous the way you talk," said
+Felicity.  "I just wish ma could hear you."
+
+"Is soap in porridge any worse than tooth-powder in rusks, lovely
+creature?" asked Dan.
+
+"Dan, Dan," admonished Cecily, between her coughs, "remember it's
+Sunday."
+
+"It seems hard to remember that," said Peter.  "It doesn't seem a
+mite like Sunday and it seems awful long since yesterday."
+
+"Cecily, you've got a dreadful cold," said the Story Girl
+anxiously.
+
+"In spite of Peg's ginger tea," added Felix.
+
+"Oh, that ginger tea was AWFUL," exclaimed poor Cecily.  "I
+thought I'd never get it down--it was so hot with ginger--and
+there was so much of it!  But I was so frightened of offending Peg
+I'd have tried to drink it all if there had been a bucketful.  Oh,
+yes, it's very easy for you all to laugh!  You didn't have to drink
+it."
+
+"We had to eat two meals, though," said Felicity with a shiver. 
+"And I don't know when those dishes of hers were washed.  I just
+shut my eyes and took gulps."
+
+"Did you notice the soapy taste in the porridge?" asked the Story Girl.
+
+"Oh, there were so many queer tastes about it I didn't notice one
+more than another," answered Felicity wearily.
+
+"What bothers me," remarked Peter absently, "is that skull.  Do
+you suppose Peg really finds things out by it?"
+
+"Nonsense!  How could she?" scoffed Felix, bold as a lion in daylight.
+
+"She didn't SAY she did, you know," I said cautiously.
+
+"Well, we'll know in time if the things she said were going to
+happen do," mused Peter.
+
+"Do you suppose your father is really coming home?" queried Felicity.
+
+"I hope not," answered Peter decidedly.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Felicity severely.
+
+"No, I oughtn't.  Father got drunk all the time he was home, and
+wouldn't work and was bad to mother," said Peter defiantly.  "She
+had to support him as well as herself and me.  I don't want to see
+any father coming home, and you'd better believe it.  Of course,
+if he was the right sort of a father it'd be different."
+
+"What I would like to know is if Aunt Olivia is going to be
+married," said the Story Girl absently.  "I can hardly believe it. 
+But now that I think of it--Uncle Roger has been teasing her ever
+since she was in Halifax last summer."
+
+"If she does get married you'll have to come and live with us,"
+said Cecily delightedly.
+
+Felicity did not betray so much delight and the Story Girl
+remarked with a weary little sigh that she hoped Aunt Olivia
+wouldn't.  We all felt rather weary, somehow.  Peg's predictions
+had been unsettling, and our nerves had all been more or less
+strained during our sojourn under her roof.  We were glad when we
+found ourselves at home.
+
+The folks had not been at all troubled about us, but it was
+because they were sure the storm had come up before we would think
+of leaving Cousin Mattie's and not because they had received any
+mysterious message from Peg's skull.  We were relieved at this,
+but on the whole, our adventure had not done much towards clearing
+up the vexed question of Peg's witchcraft.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+EXTRACTS FROM THE FEBRUARY AND MARCH NUMBERS OF Our Magazine
+
+
+RESOLUTION HONOUR ROLL
+
+Miss Felicity King.
+
+
+HONOURABLE MENTION
+
+Mr. Felix King.
+Mr. Peter Craig.
+Miss Sara Ray.
+
+
+EDITORIAL
+
+The editor wishes to make a few remarks about the Resolution
+Honour Roll.  As will be seen, only one name figures on it. 
+Felicity says she has thought a beautiful thought every morning
+before breakfast without missing one morning, not even the one we
+were at Peg Bowen's.  Some of our number think it not fair that
+Felicity should be on the honour roll (FELICITY, ASIDE:  "That's
+Dan, of course.") when she only made one resolution and won't tell
+us what any of the thoughts were.  So we have decided to give
+honourable mention to everybody who has kept one resolution
+perfect.  Felix has worked all his arithmetic problems by himself. 
+He complains that he never got more than a third of them right and
+the teacher has marked him away down; but one cannot keep
+resolutions without some inconvenience.  Peter has never played
+tit-tat-x in church or got drunk and says it wasn't as bad as he
+expected.  (PETER, INDIGNANTLY:  "I never said it."  CECILY,
+SOOTHINGLY:  "Now, Peter, Bev only meant that as a joke.") Sara Ray
+has never talked any mean gossip, but does not find conversation
+as interesting as it used to be.  (SARA RAY, WONDERINGLY:  "I don't
+remember of saying that.")
+
+Felix did not eat any apples until March, but forgot and ate seven
+the day we were at Cousin Mattie's.  (FELIX:  "I only ate five!")
+He soon gave up trying to say what he thought always.  He got into
+too much trouble.  We think Felix ought to change to old
+Grandfather King's rule.  It was, "Hold your tongue when you can,
+and when you can't tell the truth." Cecily feels she has not read
+all the good books she might, because some she tried to read were
+very dull and the Pansy books were so much more interesting.  And
+it is no use trying not to feel bad because her hair isn't curly
+and she has marked that resolution out.  The Story Girl came very
+near to keeping her resolution to have all the good times
+possible, but she says she missed two, if not three, she might
+have had.  Dan refuses to say anything about his resolutions and
+so does the editor.
+
+
+
+PERSONALS
+
+We regret that Miss Cecily King is suffering from a severe cold.
+
+Mr. Alexander Marr of Markdale died very suddenly last week.  We
+never heard of his death till he was dead.
+
+Miss Cecily King wishes to state that she did not ask the question
+about "Holy Moses" and the other word in the January number.  Dan
+put it in for a mean joke.
+
+The weather has been cold and fine.  We have only had one bad
+storm.  The coasting on Uncle Roger's hill continues good.
+
+Aunt Eliza did not favour us with a visit after all.  She took
+cold and had to go home.  We were sorry that she had a cold but
+glad that she had to go home.  Cecily said she thought it wicked
+of us to be glad.  But when we asked her "cross her heart" if she
+wasn't glad herself she had to say she was.
+
+Miss Cecily King has got three very distinguished names on her
+quilt square.  They are the Governor and his wife and a witch's.
+
+The King family had the honour of entertaining the Governor's wife
+to tea on February the seventeenth.  We are all invited to visit
+Government House but some of us think we won't go.
+
+A tragic event occurred last Tuesday.  Mrs. James Frewen came to
+tea and there was no pie in the house.  Felicity has not yet fully
+recovered.
+
+A new boy is coming to school.  His name is Cyrus Brisk and his
+folks moved up from Markdale.  He says he is going to punch Willy
+Fraser's head if Willy keeps on thinking he is Miss Cecily King's
+beau.
+
+(CECILY:  "I haven't ANY beau!  I don't mean to think of such a
+thing for at least eight years yet!")
+
+Miss Alice Reade of Charlottetown Royalty has come to Carlisle to
+teach music.  She boards at Mr. Peter Armstrong's.  The girls are
+all going to take music lessons from her.  Two descriptions of her
+will be found in another column.  Felix wrote one, but the girls
+thought he did not do her justice, so Cecily wrote another one. 
+She admits she copied most of the description out of Valeria H. 
+Montague's story Lord Marmaduke's First, Last, and Only Love; or
+the Bride of the Castle by the Sea, but says they fit Miss Reade
+better than anything she could make up.
+
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENT
+
+Always keep the kitchen tidy and then you needn't mind if company
+comes unexpectedly.
+
+ANXIOUS INQUIRER:  We don't know anything that will take the stain
+out of a silk dress when a soft-boiled egg is dropped on it. 
+Better not wear your silk dress so often, especially when boiling
+eggs.
+
+Ginger tea is good for colds.
+
+OLD HOUSEKEEPER:  Yes, when the baking-powder gives out you can use
+tooth-powder instead.
+
+(FELICITY:  "I never wrote that!  I don't care, I don't think it's
+fair for other people to be putting things in my department!")
+
+Our apples are not keeping well this year.  They are rotting; and
+besides father says we eat an awful lot of them.
+
+PERSEVERANCE:  I will give you the recipe for dumplings you ask
+for.  But remember it is not everyone who can make dumplings, even
+from the recipe.  There's a knack in it.
+
+If the soap falls into the porridge do not tell your guests about
+it until they have finished eating it because it might take away
+their appetite.
+
+                              FELICITY KING.
+
+
+
+ETIQUETTE DEPARTMENT
+
+P-r C-g:--Do not criticize people's noses unless you are sure they
+can't hear you, and don't criticize your best girl's great-aunt's
+nose in any case.
+
+(FELICITY, TOSSING HER HEAD:  "Oh, my!  I s'pose Dan thought that
+was extra smart.")
+
+C-y K-g:--When my most intimate friend walks with another girl and
+exchanges lace patterns with her, what ought I to do?  Ans.  Adopt
+a dignified attitude.
+
+F-y K-g:--It is better not to wear your second best hat to church,
+but if your mother says you must it is not for me to question her
+decision.
+
+(FELICITY:  "Dan just copied that word for word out of the Family
+Guide, except about the hat part.")
+
+P-r C-g:--Yes, it would be quite proper to say good evening to the
+family ghost if you met it.
+
+F-x K-g:--No, it is not polite to sleep with your mouth open. 
+What's more, it isn't safe.  Something might fall into it.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+
+FASHION NOTES
+
+Crocheted watch pockets are all the rage now.  If you haven't a
+watch they do to carry your pencil in or a piece of gum.
+
+It is stylish to have hair ribbons to match your dress.  But it is
+hard to match gray drugget.  I like scarlet for that.
+
+It is stylish to pin a piece of ribbon on your coat the same
+colour as your chum wears in her hair.  Mary Martha Cowan saw them
+doing it in town and started us doing it here.  I always wear
+Kitty's ribbon and Kitty wears mine, but the Story Girl thinks it
+is silly.
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+
+AN ACCOUNT OF OUR VISIT TO COUSIN MATTIE'S
+
+We all walked over to Cousin Mattie's last week.  They were all
+well there and we had a fine dinner.  On our way back a snow-storm
+came up and we got lost in the woods.  We didn't know where we
+were or nothing.  If we hadn't seen a light I guess we'd all have
+been frozen and snowed over, and they would never have found us
+till spring and that would be very sad.  But we saw a light and
+made for it and it was Peg Bowen's.  Some people think she is a
+witch and it's hard to tell, but she was real hospitable and took
+us all in.  Her house was very untidy but it was warm.  She has a
+skull.  I mean a loose skull, not her own.  She lets on it tells
+her things, but Uncle Alec says it couldn't because it was only an
+Indian skull that old Dr. Beecham had and Peg stole it when he
+died, but Uncle Roger says he wouldn't trust himself with Peg's
+skull for anything.  She gave us supper.  It was a horrid meal. 
+The Story Girl says I must not tell what I found in the bread and
+butter because it would be too disgusting to read in Our Magazine
+but it don't matter because we were all there, except Sara Ray,
+and know what it was.  We stayed all night and us boys slept in
+straw.  None of us had ever slept on straw before.  We got home in
+the morning.  That is all I can write about our visit to Cousin
+Mattie's.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+
+MY WORST ADVENTURE
+
+It's my turn to write it so I suppose I must.  I guess my worst
+adventure was two years ago when a whole lot of us were coasting
+on Uncle Rogers hill.  Charlie Cowan and Fred Marr had started,
+but half-way down their sled got stuck and I run down to shove
+them off again.  Then I stood there just a moment to watch them
+with my back to the top of the hill.  While I was standing there
+Rob Marr started Kitty and Em Frewen off on his sled.  His sled
+had a wooden tongue in it and it slanted back over the girls'
+heads.  I was right in the way and they yelled to me to get out,
+but just as I heard them it struck me.  The sled took me between
+the legs and I was histed back over the tongue and dropped in a
+heap behind before I knew what had happened to me.  I thought a
+tornado had struck me.  The girls couldn't stop though they
+thought I was killed, but Rob came tearing down and helped me up. 
+He was awful scared but I wasn't killed nor my back wasn't broken
+but my nose bled something awful and kept on bleeding for three
+days.  Not all the time but by spells.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF HOW CARLISLE GOT ITS NAME
+
+This is a true story to.  Long ago there was a girl lived in
+charlotte town.  I dont know her name so I cant right it and maybe
+it is just as well for Felicity might think it wasnt romantik like
+Miss Jemima Parrs.  She was awful pretty and a young englishman
+who had come out to make his fortune fell in love with her and
+they were engaged to be married the next spring.  His name was Mr.
+Carlisle.  In the winter he started off to hunt cariboo for a
+spell.  Cariboos lived on the island then.  There aint any here
+now.  He got to where it is Carlisle now.  It wasn't anything then
+only woods and a few indians.  He got awful sick and was sick for
+ever so long in a indian camp and only an old micmac squaw to wait
+on him.  Back in town they all thought he was dead and his girl
+felt bad for a little while and then got over it and took up with
+another beau.  The girls say that wasnt romantik but I think it
+was sensible but if it had been me that died I'd have felt bad if
+she forgot me so soon.  But he hadnt died and when he got back to
+town he went right to her house and walked in and there she was
+standing up to be married to the other fellow.  Poor Mr. Carlisle
+felt awful.  He was sick and week and it went to his head.  He
+just turned and run and run till he got back to the old micmac's
+camp and fell in front of it.  But the indians had gone because it
+was spring and it didnt matter because he really was dead this
+time and people come looking for him from town and found him and
+buryed him there and called the place after him.  They say the
+girl was never happy again and that was hard lines on her but
+maybe she deserved it.
+
+                                       PETER CRAIG.
+
+
+
+MISS ALICE READE
+
+Miss Alice Reade is a very pretty girl.  She has kind of curly
+blackish hair and big gray eyes and a pale face.  She is tall and
+thin but her figure is pretty fair and she has a nice mouth and a
+sweet way of speaking.  The girls are crazy about her and talk
+about her all the time.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+
+BEAUTIFUL ALICE
+
+That is what we girls call Miss Reade among ourselves.  She is
+divinely beautiful.  Her magnificent wealth of raven hair flows
+back in glistening waves from her sun-kissed brow.  (DAN:  "If
+Felix had said she was sunburned you'd have all jumped on him."
+(CECILY, COLDLY:  "Sun-kissed doesn't mean sunburned."  DAN:  "What
+does it mean then?"  CECILY, EMBARRASSED:  "I--I don't know.  But
+Miss Montague says the Lady Geraldine's brow was sun-kissed and of
+course an earl's daughter wouldn't be sunburned.  "THE STORY GIRL:
+"Oh, don't interrupt the reading like this.  It spoils it.") Her
+eyes are gloriously dark and deep, like midnight lakes mirroring
+the stars of heaven.  Her features are like sculptured marble and
+her mouth is a trembling, curving Cupid's bow.  (PETER, ASIDE:
+"What kind of a thing is that?") Her creamy skin is as fair and
+flawless as the petals of a white lily.  Her voice is like the
+ripple of a woodland brook and her slender form is matchless in
+its symmetry.  (DAN:  "That's Valeria's way of putting it, but
+Uncle Roger says she don't show her feed much."  FELICITY:  "Dan!
+if Uncle Roger is vulgar you needn't be!") Her hands are like a
+poet's dreams.  She dresses so nicely and looks so stylish in her
+clothes.  Her favourite colour is blue.  Some people think she is
+stiff and some say she is stuck-up, but she isn't a bit.  It's
+just that she is different from them and they don't like it.  She
+is just lovely and we adore her.
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DISAPPEARANCE OF PADDY
+
+
+
+As I remember, the spring came late that year in Carlisle.  It was
+May before the weather began to satisfy the grown-ups.  But we
+children were more easily pleased, and we thought April a splendid
+month because the snow all went early and left gray, firm, frozen
+ground for our rambles and games.  As the days slipped by they
+grew more gracious; the hillsides began to look as if they were
+thinking of mayflowers; the old orchard was washed in a bath of
+tingling sunshine and the sap stirred in the big trees; by day the
+sky was veiled with delicate cloud drift, fine and filmy as woven
+mist; in the evenings a full, low moon looked over the valleys, as
+pallid and holy as some aureoled saint; a sound of laughter and
+dream was on the wind and the world grew young with the mirth of
+April breezes.
+
+"It's so nice to be alive in the spring," said the Story Girl one
+twilight as we swung on the boughs of Uncle Stephen's walk.
+
+"It's nice to be alive any time," said Felicity, complacently.
+
+"But it's nicer in the spring," insisted the Story Girl.  "When
+I'm dead I think I'll FEEL dead all the rest of the year, but when
+spring comes I'm sure I'll feel like getting up and being alive
+again."
+
+"You do say such queer things," complained Felicity.  "You won't
+be really dead any time.  You'll be in the next world.  And I
+think it's horrid to talk about people being dead anyhow."
+
+"We've all got to die," said Sara Ray solemnly, but with a certain
+relish.  It was as if she enjoyed looking forward to something in
+which nothing, neither an unsympathetic mother, nor the cruel fate
+which had made her a colourless little nonentity, could prevent
+her from being the chief performer.
+
+"I sometimes think," said Cecily, rather wearily, "that it isn't
+so dreadful to die young as I used to suppose."
+
+She prefaced her remark with a slight cough, as she had been all
+too apt to do of late, for the remnants of the cold she had caught
+the night we were lost in the storm still clung to her.
+
+"Don't talk such nonsense, Cecily," cried the Story Girl with
+unwonted sharpness, a sharpness we all understood.  All of us, in
+our hearts, though we never spoke of it to each other, thought
+Cecily was not as well as she ought to be that spring, and we
+hated to hear anything said which seemed in any way to touch or
+acknowledge the tiny, faint shadow which now and again showed
+itself dimly athwart our sunshine.
+
+"Well, it was you began talking of being dead," said Felicity
+angrily.  "I don't think it's right to talk of such things. 
+Cecily, are you sure your feet ain't damp?  We ought to go in
+anyhow--it's too chilly out here for you."
+
+"You girls had better go," said Dan, "but I ain't going in till
+old Isaac Frewen goes.  I've no use for him."
+
+"I hate him, too," said Felicity, agreeing with Dan for once in
+her life.  "He chews tobacco all the time and spits on the floor--
+the horrid pig!"
+
+"And yet his brother is an elder in the church," said Sara Ray
+wonderingly.
+
+"I know a story about Isaac Frewen," said the Story Girl.  "When
+he was young he went by the name of Oatmeal Frewen and he got it
+this way.  He was noted for doing outlandish things.  He lived at
+Markdale then and he was a great, overgrown, awkward fellow, six
+feet tall.  He drove over to Baywater one Saturday to visit his
+uncle there and came home the next afternoon, and although it was
+Sunday he brought a big bag of oatmeal in the wagon with him. 
+When he came to Carlisle church he saw that service was going on
+there, and he concluded to stop and go in.  But he didn't like to
+leave his oatmeal outside for fear something would happen to it,
+because there were always mischievous boys around, so he hoisted
+the bag on his back and walked into church with it and right to
+the top of the aisle to Grandfather King's pew.  Grandfather King
+used to say he would never forget it to his dying day.  The
+minister was preaching and everything was quiet and solemn when he
+heard a snicker behind him.  Grandfather King turned around with a
+terrible frown--for you know in those days it was thought a
+dreadful thing to laugh in church--to rebuke the offender; and
+what did he see but that great, hulking young Isaac stalking up
+the aisle, bending a little forward under the weight of a big bag
+of oatmeal?  Grandfather King was so amazed he couldn't laugh, but
+almost everyone else in the church was laughing, and grandfather
+said he never blamed them, for no funnier sight was ever seen. 
+Young Isaac turned into grandfather's pew and thumped the bag of
+oatmeal down on the seat with a thud that cracked it.  Then he
+plumped down beside it, took off his hat, wiped his face, and
+settled back to listen to the sermon, just as if it was all a
+matter of course.  When the service was over he hoisted his bag up
+again, marched out of church, and drove home.  He could never
+understand why it made so much talk; but he was known by the name
+of Oatmeal Frewen for years."
+
+Our laughter, as we separated, rang sweetly through the old
+orchard and across the far, dim meadows.  Felicity and Cecily went
+into the house and Sara Ray and the Story Girl went home, but
+Peter decoyed me into the granary to ask advice.
+
+"You know Felicity has a birthday next week," he said, "and I want
+to write her an ode."
+
+"A--a what?" I gasped.
+
+"An ode," repeated Peter, gravely.  "It's poetry, you know.  I'll
+put it in Our Magazine."
+
+"But you can't write poetry, Peter," I protested.
+
+"I'm going to try," said Peter stoutly.  "That is, if you think
+she won't be offended at me."
+
+"She ought to feel flattered," I replied.
+
+"You never can tell how she'll take things," said Peter gloomily. 
+"Of course I ain't going to sign my name, and if she ain't pleased
+I won't tell her I wrote it.  Don't you let on."
+
+I promised I wouldn't and Peter went off with a light heart.  He
+said he meant to write two lines every day till he got it done.
+
+Cupid was playing his world-old tricks with others than poor Peter
+that spring.  Allusion has been made in these chronicles to one,
+Cyrus Brisk, and to the fact that our brown-haired, soft-voiced
+Cecily had found favour in the eyes of the said Cyrus.  Cecily did
+not regard her conquest with any pride.  On the contrary, it
+annoyed her terribly to be teased about Cyrus.  She declared she
+hated both him and his name.  She was as uncivil to him as sweet
+Cecily could be to anyone, but the gallant Cyrus was nothing
+daunted.  He laid determined siege to Cecily's young heart by all
+the methods known to love-lorn swains.  He placed delicate
+tributes of spruce gum, molasses taffy, "conversation" candies and
+decorated slate pencils on her desk; he persistently "chose" her
+in all school games calling for a partner; he entreated to be
+allowed to carry her basket from school; he offered to work her
+sums for her; and rumour had it that he had made a wild statement
+to the effect that he meant to ask if he might see her home some
+night from prayer meeting.  Cecily was quite frightened that he
+would; she confided to me that she would rather die than walk home
+with him, but that if he asked her she would be too bashful to say
+no.  So far, however, Cyrus had not molested her out of school,
+nor had he as yet thumped Willy Fraser--who was reported to be
+very low in his spirits over the whole affair.
+
+And now Cyrus had written Cecily a letter--a love letter, mark
+you.  Moreover, he had sent it through the post-office, with a
+real stamp on it.  Its arrival made a sensation among us.  Dan
+brought it from the office and, recognizing the handwriting of
+Cyrus, gave Cecily no peace until she showed us the letter.  It
+was a very sentimental and rather ill-spelled epistle in which the
+inflammable Cyrus reproached her in heart-rending words for her
+coldness, and begged her to answer his letter, saying that if she
+did he would keep the secret "in violets."  Cyrus probably meant
+"inviolate" but Cecily thought it was intended for a poetical
+touch.  He signed himself "your troo lover, Cyrus Brisk" and added
+in a postcript that he couldn't eat or sleep for thinking of her.
+
+"Are you going to answer it?" asked Dan.
+
+"Certainly not," said Cecily with dignity.
+
+"Cyrus Brisk wants to be kicked," growled Felix, who never seemed
+to be any particular friend of Willy Fraser's either.  "He'd
+better learn how to spell before he takes to writing love
+letters."
+
+"Maybe Cyrus will starve to death if you don't," suggested Sara
+Ray.
+
+"I hope he will," said Cecily cruelly.  She was truly vexed over
+the letter; and yet, so contradictory a thing is the feminine
+heart, even at twelve years old, I think she was a little
+flattered by it also.  It was her first love letter and she
+confided to me that it gives you a very queer feeling to get it. 
+At all events--the letter, though unanswered, was not torn up.  I
+feel sure Cecily preserved it.  But she walked past Cyrus next
+morning at school with a frozen countenance, evincing not the
+slightest pity for his pangs of unrequited affection.  Cecily
+winced when Pat caught a mouse, visited a school chum the day the
+pigs were killed that she might not hear their squealing, and
+would not have stepped on a caterpillar for anything; yet she did
+not care at all how much she made the brisk Cyrus suffer.
+
+Then, suddenly, all our spring gladness and Maytime hopes were
+blighted as by a killing frost.  Sorrow and anxiety pervaded our
+days and embittered our dreams by night.  Grim tragedy held sway
+in our lives for the next fortnight.
+
+Paddy disappeared.  One night he lapped his new milk as usual at
+Uncle Roger's dairy door and then sat blandly on the flat stone
+before it, giving the world assurance of a cat, sleek sides
+glistening, plumy tail gracefully folded around his paws,
+brilliant eyes watching the stir and flicker of bare willow boughs
+in the twilight air above him.  That was the last seen of him.  In
+the morning he was not.
+
+At first we were not seriously alarmed.  Paddy was no roving
+Thomas, but occasionally he vanished for a day or so.  But when
+two days passed without his return we became anxious, the third
+day worried us greatly, and the fourth found us distracted.
+
+"Something has happened to Pat," the Story Girl declared
+miserably.  "He never stayed away from home more than two days in
+his life."
+
+"What could have happened to him?" asked Felix.
+
+"He's been poisoned--or a dog has killed him," answered the Story 
+Girl in tragic tones.
+
+Cecily began to cry at this; but tears were of no avail.  Neither
+was anything else, apparently.  We searched every nook and cranny
+of barns and out-buildings and woods on both the King farms; we
+inquired far and wide; we roved over Carlisle meadows calling
+Paddy's name, until Aunt Janet grew exasperated and declared we
+must stop making such exhibitions of ourselves.  But we found and
+heard no trace of our lost pet.  The Story Girl moped and refused
+to be comforted; Cecily declared she could not sleep at night for
+thinking of poor Paddy dying miserably in some corner to which he
+had dragged his failing body, or lying somewhere mangled and torn
+by a dog.  We hated every dog we saw on the ground that he might
+be the guilty one.
+
+"It's the suspense that's so hard," sobbed the Story Girl.  "If I
+just knew what had happened to him it wouldn't be QUITE so hard. 
+But I don't know whether he's dead or alive.  He may be living and
+suffering, and every night I dream that he has come home and when
+I wake up and find it's only a dream it just breaks my heart."
+
+"It's ever so much worse than when he was so sick last fall," said
+Cecily drearily.  "Then we knew that everything was done for him
+that could be done."
+
+We could not appeal to Peg Bowen this time.  In our desperation we
+would have done it, but Peg was far away.  With the first breath
+of spring she was up and off, answering to the lure of the long
+road.  She had not been seen in her accustomed haunts for many a
+day.  Her pets were gaining their own living in the woods and her
+house was locked up.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE WITCH'S WISHBONE
+
+
+When a fortnight had elapsed we gave up all hope.
+
+"Pat is dead," said the Story Girl hopelessly, as we returned one
+evening from a bootless quest to Andrew Cowan's where a strange
+gray cat had been reported--a cat which turned out to be a
+yellowish brown nondescript, with no tail to speak of.
+
+"I'm afraid so," I acknowledged at last.
+
+"If only Peg Bowen had been at home she could have found him for
+us," asserted Peter.  "Her skull would have told her where he
+was."
+
+"I wonder if the wishbone she gave me would have done any good,"
+cried Cecily suddenly.  "I'd forgotten all about it.  Oh, do you
+suppose it's too late yet?"
+
+"There's nothing in a wishbone," said Dan impatiently.
+
+"You can't be sure.  She TOLD me I'd get the wish I made on it. 
+I'm going to try whenever I get home."
+
+"It can't do any harm, anyhow," said Peter, "but I'm afraid you've
+left it too late.  If Pat is dead even a witch's wishbone can't
+bring him back to life."
+
+"I'll never forgive myself for not thinking about it before,"
+mourned Cecily.
+
+As soon as we got home she flew to the little box upstairs where
+she kept her treasures, and brought therefrom the dry and brittle
+wishbone.
+
+"Peg told me how it must be done.  I'm to hold the wishbone with
+both hands, like this, and walk backward, repeating the wish nine
+times.  And when I've finished the ninth time I'm to turn around
+nine times, from right to left, and then the wish will come true
+right away."
+
+"Do you expect to see Pat when you finish turning?" said Dan
+skeptically.
+
+None of us had any faith in the incantation except Peter, and, by
+infection, Cecily.  You never could tell what might happen. 
+Cecily took the wishbone in her trembling little hands and began
+her backward pacing, repeating solemnly, "I wish that we may find
+Paddy alive, or else his body, so that we can bury him decently."
+By the time Cecily had repeated this nine times we were all
+slightly infected with the desperate hope that something might
+come of it; and when she had made her nine gyrations we looked
+eagerly down the sunset lane, half expecting to see our lost pet. 
+But we saw only the Awkward Man turning in at the gate.  This was
+almost as surprising as the sight of Pat himself would have been;
+but there was no sign of Pat and hope flickered out in every
+breast but Peter's.
+
+"You've got to give the spell time to work," he expostulated.  "If
+Pat was miles away when it was wished it wouldn't be reasonable to
+expect to see him right off."
+
+But we of little faith had already lost that little, and it was a
+very disconsolate group which the Awkward Man presently joined.
+
+He was smiling--his rare, beautiful smile which only children ever
+saw--and he lifted his hat to the girls with no trace of the
+shyness and awkwardness for which he was notorious.
+
+"Good evening," he said.  "Have you little people lost a cat lately?"
+
+We stared.  Peter said "I knew it!" in a triumphant pig's whisper. 
+The Story Girl started eagerly forward.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Dale, can you tell us anything of Paddy?" she cried.
+
+"A silver gray cat with black points and very fine marking?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"Alive?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, doesn't that beat the Dutch!" muttered Dan.
+
+But we were all crowding about the Awkward Man, demanding where
+and when he had found Paddy.
+
+"You'd better come over to my place and make sure that it really
+is your cat," suggested the Awkward Man, "and I'll tell you all
+about finding him on the way.  I must warn you that he is pretty
+thin--but I think he'll pull through."
+
+We obtained permission to go without much difficulty, although the
+spring evening was wearing late, for Aunt Janet said she supposed
+none of us would sleep a wink that night if we didn't.  A joyful
+procession followed the Awkward Man and the Story Girl across the
+gray, star-litten meadows to his home and through his pine-guarded
+gate.
+
+"You know that old barn of mine back in the woods?" said the
+Awkward Man.  "I go to it only about once in a blue moon.  There
+was an old barrel there, upside down, one side resting on a block
+of wood.  This morning I went to the barn to see about having some
+hay hauled home, and I had occasion to move the barrel.  I noticed
+that it seemed to have been moved slightly since my last visit,
+and it was now resting wholly on the floor.  I lifted it up--and
+there was a cat lying on the floor under it.  I had heard you had
+lost yours and I took it this was your pet.  I was afraid he was
+dead at first.  He was lying there with his eyes closed; but when
+I bent over him he opened them and gave a pitiful little mew; or
+rather his mouth made the motion of a mew, for he was too weak to
+utter a sound."
+
+"Oh, poor, poor Paddy," said tender-hearted Cecily tearfully.
+
+"He couldn't stand, so I carried him home and gave him just a
+little milk.  Fortunately he was able to lap it.  I gave him a
+little more at intervals all day, and when I left he was able to
+crawl around.  I think he'll be all right, but you'll have to be
+careful how you feed him for a few days.  Don't let your hearts
+run away with your judgment and kill him with kindness."
+
+"Do you suppose any one put him under that barrel?" asked the
+Story Girl.
+
+"No.  The barn was locked.  Nothing but a cat could get in.  I
+suppose he went under the barrel, perhaps in pursuit of a mouse,
+and somehow knocked it off the block and so imprisoned himself."
+
+Paddy was sitting before the fire in the Awkward Man's clean, bare
+kitchen.  Thin!  Why, he was literally skin and bone, and his fur
+was dull and lustreless.  It almost broke our hearts to see our
+beautiful Paddy brought so low.
+
+"Oh, how he must have suffered!" moaned Cecily.
+
+"He'll be as prosperous as ever in a week or two," said the
+Awkward Man kindly.
+
+The Story Girl gathered Paddy up in her arms.  Most mellifluously
+did he purr as we crowded around to stroke him; with friendly joy
+he licked our hands with his little red tongue; poor Paddy was a
+thankful cat; he was no longer lost, starving, imprisoned,
+helpless; he was with his comrades once more and he was going
+home--home to his old familiar haunts of orchard and dairy and
+granary, to his daily rations of new milk and cream, to the cosy
+corner of his own fireside.  We trooped home joyfully, the Story
+Girl in our midst carrying Paddy hugged against her shoulder. 
+Never did April stars look down on a happier band of travellers on
+the golden road.  There was a little gray wind out in the meadows
+that night, and it danced along beside us on viewless, fairy feet,
+and sang a delicate song of the lovely, waiting years, while the
+night laid her beautiful hands of blessing over the world.
+
+"You see what Peg's wishbone did," said Peter triumphantly.
+
+"Now, look here, Peter, don't talk nonsense," expostulated Dan. 
+"The Awkward Man found Paddy this morning and had started to bring
+us word before Cecily ever thought of the wishbone.  Do you mean
+to say you believe he wouldn't have come walking up our lane just
+when he did if she had never thought of it?"
+
+"I mean to say that I wouldn't mind if I had several wishbones of
+the same kind," retorted Peter stubbornly.
+
+"Of course I don't think the wishbone had really anything to do
+with our getting Paddy back, but I'm glad I tried it, for all
+that," remarked Cecily in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+"Well, anyhow, we've got Pat and that's the main thing," said
+Felix.
+
+"And I hope it will be a lesson to him to stay home after this,"
+commented Felicity.
+
+"They say the barrens are full of mayflowers," said the Story
+Girl.  "Let us have a mayflower picnic tomorrow to celebrate
+Paddy's safe return."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+FLOWERS O' MAY
+
+
+Accordingly we went a-maying, following the lure of dancing winds
+to a certain westward sloping hill lying under the spirit-like
+blue of spring skies, feathered over with lisping young pines and
+firs, which cupped little hollows and corners where the sunshine
+got in and never got out again, but stayed there and grew mellow,
+coaxing dear things to bloom long before they would dream of
+waking up elsewhere.
+
+'Twas there we found our mayflowers, after faithful seeking. 
+Mayflowers, you must know, never flaunt themselves; they must be
+sought as becomes them, and then they will yield up their
+treasures to the seeker--clusters of star-white and dawn-pink that
+have in them the very soul of all the springs that ever were, re-
+incarnated in something it seems gross to call perfume, so
+exquisite and spiritual is it.
+
+We wandered gaily over the hill, calling to each other with
+laughter and jest, getting parted and delightfully lost in that
+little pathless wilderness, and finding each other unexpectedly in
+nooks and dips and sunny silences, where the wind purred and
+gentled and went softly.  When the sun began to hang low, sending
+great fan-like streamers of radiance up to the zenith, we
+foregathered in a tiny, sequestered valley, full of young green
+fern, lying in the shadow of a wooded hill.  In it was a shallow
+pool--a glimmering green sheet of water on whose banks nymphs
+might dance as blithely as ever they did on Argive hill or in
+Cretan dale.  There we sat and stripped the faded leaves and stems
+from our spoil, making up the blossoms into bouquets to fill our
+baskets with sweetness.  The Story Girl twisted a spray of
+divinest pink in her brown curls, and told us an old legend of a
+beautiful Indian maiden who died of a broken heart when the first
+snows of winter were falling, because she believed her long-absent
+lover was false.  But he came back in the spring time from his
+long captivity; and when he heard that she was dead he sought her
+grave to mourn her, and lo, under the dead leaves of the old year
+he found sweet sprays of a blossom never seen before, and knew
+that it was a message of love and remembrance from his dark-eyed
+sweet-heart.
+
+"Except in stories Indian girls are called squaws," remarked
+practical Dan, tying his mayflowers together in one huge, solid,
+cabbage-like bunch.  Not for Dan the bother of filling his basket
+with the loose sprays, mingled with feathery elephant's-ears and
+trails of creeping spruce, as the rest of us, following the Story
+Girl's example, did.  Nor would he admit that ours looked any
+better than his.
+
+"I like things of one kind together.  I don't like them mixed," he
+said.
+
+"You have no taste," said Felicity.
+
+"Except in my mouth, best beloved," responded Dan.
+
+"You do think you are so smart," retorted Felicity, flushing with
+anger.
+
+"Don't quarrel this lovely day," implored Cecily.
+
+"Nobody's quarrelling, Sis.  I ain't a bit mad.  It's Felicity. 
+What on earth is that at the bottom of your basket, Cecily?"
+
+"It's a History of the Reformation in France," confessed poor
+Cecily, "by a man named D-a-u-b-i-g-n-y.  I can't pronounce it.  I
+heard Mr. Marwood saying it was a book everyone ought to read, so
+I began it last Sunday.  I brought it along today to read when I
+got tired picking flowers.  I'd ever so much rather have brought
+Ester Reid.  There's so much in the history I can't understand,
+and it is so dreadful to read of people being burned to death. 
+But I felt I OUGHT to read it."
+
+"Do you really think your mind has improved any?" asked Sara Ray
+seriously, wreathing the handle of her basket with creeping
+spruce.
+
+"No, I'm afraid it hasn't one bit," answered Cecily sadly.  "I
+feel that I haven't succeeded very well in keeping my
+resolutions."
+
+"I've kept mine," said Felicity complacently.
+
+"It's easy to keep just one," retorted Cecily, rather resentfully.
+
+"It's not so easy to think beautiful thoughts," answered Felicity.
+
+"It's the easiest thing in the world," said the Story Girl,
+tiptoeing to the edge of the pool to peep at her own arch
+reflection, as some nymph left over from the golden age might do. 
+"Beautiful thoughts just crowd into your mind at times."
+
+"Oh, yes, AT TIMES.  But that's different from thinking one
+REGULARLY at a given hour.  And mother is always calling up the
+stairs for me to hurry up and get dressed, and it's VERY hard
+sometimes."
+
+"That's so," conceded the Story Girl.  "There ARE times when I
+can't think anything but gray thoughts.  Then, other days, I think
+pink and blue and gold and purple and rainbow thoughts all the
+time."
+
+"The idea!  As if thoughts were coloured," giggled Felicity.
+
+"Oh, they are!" cried the Story Girl.  "Why, I can always SEE the
+colour of any thought I think.  Can't you?"
+
+"I never heard of such a thing," declared Felicity, "and I don't
+believe it.  I believe you are just making that up."
+
+"Indeed I'm not.  Why, I always supposed everyone thought in
+colours.  It must be very tiresome if you don't."
+
+"When you think of me what colour is it?" asked Peter curiously.
+
+"Yellow," answered the Story Girl promptly.  "And Cecily is a
+sweet pink, like those mayflowers, and Sara Ray is very pale blue,
+and Dan is red and Felix is yellow, like Peter, and Bev is
+striped."
+
+"What colour am I?" asked Felicity, amid the laughter at my
+expense.
+
+"You're--you're like a rainbow," answered the Story Girl rather
+reluctantly.  She had to be honest, but she would rather not have
+complimented Felicity.  "And you needn't laugh at Bev.  His
+stripes are beautiful.  It isn't HE that is striped.  It's just
+the THOUGHT of him.  Peg Bowen is a queer sort of yellowish green
+and the Awkward Man is lilac.  Aunt Olivia is pansy-purple mixed
+with gold, and Uncle Roger is navy blue."
+
+"I never heard such nonsense," declared Felicity.  The rest of us
+were rather inclined to agree with her for once.  We thought the
+Story Girl was making fun of us.  But I believe she really had a
+strange gift of thinking in colours.  In later years, when we were
+grown up, she told me of it again.  She said that everything had
+colour in her thought; the months of the year ran through all the
+tints of the spectrum, the days of the week were arrayed as
+Solomon in his glory, morning was golden, noon orange, evening
+crystal blue, and night violet.  Every idea came to her mind robed
+in its own especial hue.  Perhaps that was why her voice and words
+had such a charm, conveying to the listeners' perception such fine
+shadings of meaning and tint and music.
+
+"Well, let's go and have something to eat," suggested Dan.  "What
+colour is eating, Sara?"
+
+"Golden brown, just the colour of a molasses cooky," laughed the
+Story Girl.
+
+We sat on the ferny bank of the pool and ate of the generous
+basket Aunt Janet had provided, with appetites sharpened by the
+keen spring air and our wilderness rovings.  Felicity had made
+some very nice sandwiches of ham which we all appreciated except
+Dan, who declared he didn't like things minced up and dug out of
+the basket a chunk of boiled pork which he proceeded to saw up
+with a jack-knife and devour with gusto.
+
+"I told ma to put this in for me.  There's some CHEW to it," he
+said.
+
+"You are not a bit refined," commented Felicity.
+
+"Not a morsel, my love," grinned Dan.
+
+"You make me think of a story I heard Uncle Roger telling about
+Cousin Annetta King," said the Story Girl.  "Great-uncle Jeremiah
+King used to live where Uncle Roger lives now, when Grandfather
+King was alive and Uncle Roger was a boy.  In those days it was
+thought rather coarse for a young lady to have too hearty an
+appetite, and she was more admired if she was delicate about what
+she ate.  Cousin Annetta set out to be very refined indeed.  She
+pretended to have no appetite at all.  One afternoon she was
+invited to tea at Grandfather King's when they had some special
+company--people from Charlottetown.  Cousin Annetta said she could
+hardly eat anything.  'You know, Uncle Abraham,' she said, in a
+very affected, fine-young-lady voice, 'I really hardly eat enough
+to keep a bird alive.  Mother says she wonders how I continue to
+exist.' And she picked and pecked until Grandfather King declared
+he would like to throw something at her.  After tea Cousin Annetta
+went home, and just about dark Grandfather King went over to Uncle
+Jeremiah's on an errand.  As he passed the open, lighted pantry
+window he happened to glance in, and what do you think he saw?
+Delicate Cousin Annetta standing at the dresser, with a big loaf
+of bread beside her and a big platterful of cold, boiled pork in
+front of her; and Annetta was hacking off great chunks, like Dan
+there, and gobbling them down as if she was starving.  Grandfather
+King couldn't resist the temptation.  He stepped up to the window
+and said, 'I'm glad your appetite has come back to you, Annetta. 
+Your mother needn't worry about your continuing to exist as long
+as you can tuck away fat, salt pork in that fashion.'
+
+"Cousin Annetta never forgave him, but she never pretended to be
+delicate again."
+
+"The Jews don't believe in eating pork," said Peter.
+
+"I'm glad I'm not a Jew and I guess Cousin Annetta was too," said
+Dan.
+
+"I like bacon, but I can never look at a pig without wondering if
+they were ever intended to be eaten," remarked Cecily naively.
+
+When we finished our lunch the barrens were already wrapping
+themselves in a dim, blue dusk and falling upon rest in dell and
+dingle.  But out in the open there was still much light of a fine
+emerald-golden sort and the robins whistled us home in it.  "Horns
+of Elfland" never sounded more sweetly around hoary castle and
+ruined fane than those vesper calls of the robins from the
+twilight spruce woods and across green pastures lying under the
+pale radiance of a young moon.
+
+When we reached home we found that Miss Reade had been up to the
+hill farm on an errand and was just leaving.  The Story Girl went
+for a walk with her and came back with an important expression on
+her face.
+
+"You look as if you had a story to tell," said Felix.
+
+"One is growing.  It isn't a whole story yet," answered the Story
+Girl mysteriously.
+
+"What is it?" asked Cecily.
+
+"I can't tell you till it's fully grown," said the Story Girl. 
+"But I'll tell you a pretty little story the Awkward Man told us--
+told me--tonight.  He was walking in his garden as we went by,
+looking at his tulip beds.  His tulips are up ever so much higher
+than ours, and I asked him how he managed to coax them along so
+early.  And he said HE didn't do it--it was all the work of the
+pixies who lived in the woods across the brook.  There were more
+pixy babies than usual this spring, and the mothers were in a
+hurry for the cradles.  The tulips are the pixy babies' cradles,
+it seems.  The mother pixies come out of the woods at twilight and
+rock their tiny little brown babies to sleep in the tulip cups. 
+That is the reason why tulip blooms last so much longer than other
+blossoms.  The pixy babies must have a cradle until they are grown
+up.  They grow very fast, you see, and the Awkward Man says on a
+spring evening, when the tulips are out, you can hear the
+sweetest, softest, clearest, fairy music in his garden, and it is
+the pixy folk singing as they rock the pixy babies to sleep."
+
+"Then the Awkward Man says what isn't true," said Felicity
+severely.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A SURPRISING ANNOUNCEMENT
+
+
+"Nothing exciting has happened for ever so long," said the Story
+Girl discontentedly, one late May evening, as we lingered under
+the wonderful white bloom of the cherry trees.  There was a long
+row of them in the orchard, with a Lombardy poplar at either end,
+and a hedge of lilacs behind.  When the wind blew over them all
+the spicy breezes of Ceylon's isle were never sweeter.
+
+It was a time of wonder and marvel, of the soft touch of silver
+rain on greening fields, of the incredible delicacy of young
+leaves, of blossom in field and garden and wood.  The whole world
+bloomed in a flush and tremor of maiden loveliness, instinct with
+all the evasive, fleeting charm of spring and girlhood and young
+morning.  We felt and enjoyed it all without understanding or
+analyzing it.  It was enough to be glad and young with spring on
+the golden road.
+
+"I don't like excitement very much," said Cecily.  "It makes one
+so tired.  I'm sure it was exciting enough when Paddy was missing,
+but we didn't find that very pleasant."
+
+"No, but it was interesting," returned the Story Girl
+thoughtfully.  "After all, I believe I'd rather be miserable than
+dull."
+
+"I wouldn't then," said Felicity decidedly.  "And you need never
+be dull when you have work to do.  'Satan finds some mischief
+still for idle hands to do!'"
+
+"Well, mischief is interesting," laughed the Story Girl.  "And I
+thought you didn't think it lady-like to speak of that person,
+Felicity?"
+
+"It's all right if you call him by his polite name," said Felicity
+stiffly.
+
+"Why does the Lombardy poplar hold its branches straight up in the
+air like that, when all the other poplars hold theirs out or hang
+them down?" interjected Peter, who had been gazing intently at the
+slender spire showing darkly against the fine blue eastern sky.
+
+"Because it grows that way," said Felicity.
+
+"Oh I know a story about that," cried the Story Girl.  "Once upon
+a time an old man found the pot of gold at the rainbow's end. 
+There IS a pot there, it is said, but it is very hard to find
+because you can never get to the rainbow's end before it vanishes
+from your sight.  But this old man found it, just at sunset, when
+Iris, the guardian of the rainbow gold, happened to be absent.  As
+he was a long way from home, and the pot was very big and heavy,
+he decided to hide it until morning and then get one of his sons
+to go with him and help him carry it.  So he hid it under the
+boughs of the sleeping poplar tree.
+
+"When Iris came back she missed the pot of gold and of course she
+was in a sad way about it.  She sent Mercury, the messenger of the
+gods, to look for it, for she didn't dare leave the rainbow again,
+lest somebody should run off with that too.  Mercury asked all the
+trees if they had seen the pot of gold, and the elm, oak and pine
+pointed to the poplar and said,
+
+"'The poplar can tell you where it is.'
+
+"'How can I tell you where it is?' cried the poplar, and she held
+up all her branches in surprise, just as we hold up our hands--and
+down tumbled the pot of gold.  The poplar was amazed and
+indignant, for she was a very honest tree.  She stretched her
+boughs high above her head and declared that she would always hold
+them like that, so that nobody could hide stolen gold under them
+again.  And she taught all the little poplars she knew to stand
+the same way, and that is why Lombardy poplars always do.  But the
+aspen poplar leaves are always shaking, even on the very calmest
+day.  And do you know why?"
+
+And then she told us the old legend that the cross on which the
+Saviour of the world suffered was made of aspen poplar wood and so
+never again could its poor, shaken, shivering leaves know rest or
+peace.  There was an aspen in the orchard, the very embodiment of
+youth and spring in its litheness and symmetry.  Its little leaves
+were hanging tremulously, not yet so fully blown as to hide its
+development of bough and twig, making poetry against the spiritual
+tints of a spring sunset.
+
+"It does look sad," said Peter, "but it is a pretty tree, and it
+wasn't its fault."
+
+"There's a heavy dew and it's time we stopped talking nonsense and
+went in," decreed Felicity.  "If we don't we'll all have a cold,
+and then we'll be miserable enough, but it won't be very
+exciting."
+
+"All the same, I wish something exciting would happen," finished
+the Story Girl, as we walked up through the orchard, peopled with
+its nun-like shadows.
+
+"There's a new moon tonight, so may be you'll get your wish," said
+Peter.  "My Aunt Jane didn't believe there was anything in the
+moon business, but you never can tell."
+
+The Story Girl did get her wish.  Something happened the very next
+day.  She joined us in the afternoon with a quite indescribable
+expression on her face, compounded of triumph, anticipation, and
+regret.  Her eyes betrayed that she had been crying, but in them
+shone a chastened exultation.  Whatever the Story Girl mourned
+over it was evident she was not without hope.
+
+"I have some news to tell you," she said importantly.  "Can you
+guess what it is?"
+
+We couldn't and wouldn't try.
+
+"Tell us right off," implored Felix.  "You look as if it was
+something tremendous."
+
+"So it is.  Listen--Aunt Olivia is going to be married."
+
+We stared in blank amazement.  Peg Bowen's hint had faded from our
+minds and we had never put much faith in it.
+
+"Aunt Olivia!  I don't believe it," cried Felicity flatly.  "Who
+told you?"
+
+"Aunt Olivia herself.  So it is perfectly true.  I'm awfully sorry
+in one way--but oh, won't it be splendid to have a real wedding in
+the family?  She's going to have a big wedding--and I am to be
+bridesmaid."
+
+"I shouldn't think you were old enough to be a bridesmaid," said
+Felicity sharply.
+
+"I'm nearly fifteen.  Anyway, Aunt Olivia says I have to be."
+
+"Who's she going to marry?" asked Cecily, gathering herself
+together after the shock, and finding that the world was going on
+just the same.
+
+"His name is Dr. Seton and he is a Halifax man.  She met him when
+she was at Uncle Edward's last summer.  They've been engaged ever
+since.  The wedding is to be the third week in June."
+
+"And our school concert comes off the next week," complained
+Felicity.  "Why do things always come together like that?  And what
+are you going to do if Aunt Olivia is going away?"
+
+"I'm coming to live at your house," answered the Story Girl rather
+timidly.  She did not know how Felicity might like that.  But
+Felicity took it rather well.
+
+"You've been here most of the time anyhow, so it'll just be that
+you'll sleep and eat here, too.  But what's to become of Uncle
+Roger?"
+
+"Aunt Olivia says he'll have to get married, too.  But Uncle Roger
+says he'd rather hire a housekeeper than marry one, because in the
+first case he could turn her off if he didn't like her, but in the
+second case he couldn't."
+
+"There'll be a lot of cooking to do for the wedding," reflected
+Felicity in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+"I s'pose Aunt Olivia will want some rusks made.  I hope she has
+plenty of tooth-powder laid in," said Dan.
+
+"It's a pity you don't use some of that tooth-powder you're so
+fond of talking about yourself," retorted Felicity.  "When anyone 
+has a mouth the size of yours the teeth show so plain."
+
+"I brush my teeth every Sunday," asseverated Dan.
+
+"Every Sunday!  You ought to brush them every DAY."
+
+"Did anyone ever hear such nonsense?" demanded Dan sincerely.
+
+"Well, you know, it really does say so in the Family Guide," said
+Cecily quietly.
+
+"Then the Family Guide people must have lots more spare time than
+I have," retorted Dan contemptuously.
+
+"Just think, the Story Girl will have her name in the papers if
+she's bridesmaid," marvelled Sara Ray.
+
+"In the Halifax papers, too," added Felix, "since Dr. Seton is a
+Halifax man.  What is his first name?"
+
+"Robert."
+
+"And will we have to call him Uncle Robert?"
+
+"Not until he's married to her.  Then we will, of course."
+
+"I hope your Aunt Olivia won't disappear before the ceremony,"
+remarked Sara Ray, who was surreptitiously reading "The Vanquished
+Bride," by Valeria H. Montague in the Family Guide.
+
+"I hope Dr. Seton won't fail to show up, like your cousin Rachel
+Ward's beau," said Peter.
+
+"That makes me think of another story I read the other day about
+Great-uncle Andrew King and Aunt Georgina," laughed the Story
+Girl.  "It happened eighty years ago.  It was a very stormy winter
+and the roads were bad.  Uncle Andrew lived in Carlisle, and Aunt
+Georgina--she was Miss Georgina Matheson then--lived away up west,
+so he couldn't get to see her very often.  They agreed to be
+married that winter, but Georgina couldn't set the day exactly
+because her brother, who lived in Ontario, was coming home for a
+visit, and she wanted to be married while he was home.  So it was
+arranged that she was to write Uncle Andrew and tell him what day
+to come.  She did, and she told him to come on a Tuesday.  But her
+writing wasn't very good and poor Uncle Andrew thought she wrote
+Thursday.  So on Thursday he drove all the way to Georgina's home
+to be married.  It was forty miles and a bitter cold day.  But it
+wasn't any colder than the reception he got from Georgina.  She
+was out in the porch, with her head tied up in a towel, picking
+geese.  She had been all ready Tuesday, and her friends and the
+minister were there, and the wedding supper prepared.  But there
+was no bridegroom and Georgina was furious.  Nothing Uncle Andrew
+could say would appease her.  She wouldn't listen to a word of
+explanation, but told him to go, and never show his nose there
+again.  So poor Uncle Andrew had to go ruefully home, hoping that
+she would relent later on, because he was really very much in love
+with her."
+
+"And did she?" queried Felicity.
+
+"She did.  Thirteen years exactly from that day they were married. 
+It took her just that long to forgive him."
+
+"It took her just that long to find out she couldn't get anybody
+else," said Dan, cynically.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A PRODIGAL RETURNS
+
+
+Aunt Olivia and the Story Girl lived in a whirlwind of dressmaking
+after that, and enjoyed it hugely.  Cecily and Felicity also had
+to have new dresses for the great event, and they talked of little
+else for a fortnight.  Cecily declared that she hated to go to
+sleep because she was sure to dream that she was at Aunt Olivia's
+wedding in her old faded gingham dress and a ragged apron.
+
+"And no shoes or stockings," she added, "and I can't move, and
+everyone walks past and looks at my feet."
+
+"That's only in a dream," mourned Sara Ray, "but I may have to
+wear my last summer's white dress to the wedding.  It's too short,
+but ma says it's plenty good for this summer.  I'll be so
+mortified if I have to wear it."
+
+"I'd rather not go at all than wear a dress that wasn't nice,"
+said Felicity pleasantly.
+
+"I'd go to the wedding if I had to go in my school dress," cried
+Sara Ray.  "I've never been to anything.  I wouldn't miss it for
+the world."
+
+"My Aunt Jane always said that if you were neat and tidy it didn't
+matter whether you were dressed fine or not," said Peter.
+
+"I'm sick and tired of hearing about your Aunt Jane," said
+Felicity crossly.
+
+Peter looked grieved but held his peace.  Felicity was very hard
+on him that spring, but his loyalty never wavered.  Everything she
+said or did was right in Peter's eyes.
+
+"It's all very well to be neat and tidy," said Sara Ray, "but I
+like a little style too."
+
+"I think you'll find your mother will get you a new dress after
+all," comforted Cecily.  "Anyway, nobody will notice you because
+everyone will be looking at the bride.  Aunt Olivia will make a
+lovely bride.  Just think how sweet she'll look in a white silk
+dress and a floating veil."
+
+"She says she is going to have the ceremony performed out here in
+the orchard under her own tree," said the Story Girl.  "Won't that
+be romantic?  It almost makes me feel like getting married myself."
+
+"What a way to talk," rebuked Felicity, "and you only fifteen."
+
+"Lots of people have been married at fifteen," laughed the Story
+Girl.  "Lady Jane Gray was."
+
+"But you are always saying that Valeria H.  Montague's stories are
+silly and not true to life, so that is no argument," retorted
+Felicity, who knew more about cooking than about history, and
+evidently imagined that the Lady Jane Gray was one of Valeria's
+titled heroines.
+
+The wedding was a perennial source of conversation among us in
+those days; but presently its interest palled for a time in the
+light of another quite tremendous happening.  One Saturday night
+Peter's mother called to take him home with her for Sunday.  She
+had been working at Mr. James Frewen's, and Mr. Frewen was driving
+her home.  We had never seen Peter's mother before, and we looked
+at her with discreet curiosity.  She was a plump, black-eyed
+little woman, neat as a pin, but with a rather tired and care-worn
+face that looked as if it should have been rosy and jolly.  Life
+had been a hard battle for her, and I rather think that her curly-
+headed little lad was all that had kept heart and spirit in her. 
+Peter went home with her and returned Sunday evening.  We were in
+the orchard sitting around the Pulpit Stone, where we had,
+according to the custom of the households of King, been learning
+our golden texts and memory verses for the next Sunday School
+lesson.  Paddy, grown sleek and handsome again, was sitting on the
+stone itself, washing his jowls.
+
+Peter joined us with a very queer expression on his face.  He
+seemed bursting with some news which he wanted to tell and yet
+hardly liked to.
+
+"Why are you looking so mysterious, Peter?" demanded the Story Girl.
+
+"What do you think has happened?" asked Peter solemnly.
+
+"What has?"
+
+"My father has come home," answered Peter.
+
+The announcement produced all the sensation he could have wished. 
+We crowded around him in excitement.
+
+"Peter!  When did he come back?"
+
+"Saturday night.  He was there when ma and I got home.  It give
+her an awful turn.  I didn't know him at first, of course."
+
+"Peter Craig, I believe you are glad your father has come back,"
+cried the Story Girl.
+
+"'Course I'm glad," retorted Peter.
+
+"And after you saying you didn't want ever to see him again," said
+Felicity.
+
+"You just wait.  You haven't heard my story yet.  I wouldn't have
+been glad to see father if he'd come back the same as he went
+away.  But he is a changed man.  He happened to go into a revival
+meeting one night this spring and he got converted.  And he's come
+home to stay, and he says he's never going to drink another drop,
+but he's going to look after his family.  Ma isn't to do any more
+washing for nobody but him and me, and I'm not to be a hired boy
+any longer.  He says I can stay with your Uncle Roger till the
+fall 'cause I promised I would, but after that I'm to stay home
+and go to school right along and learn to be whatever I'd like to
+be.  I tell you it made me feel queer.  Everything seemed to be
+upset.  But he gave ma forty dollars--every cent he had--so I
+guess he really is converted."
+
+"I hope it will last, I'm sure," said Felicity.  She did not say
+it nastily, however.  We were all glad for Peter's sake, though a
+little dizzy over the unexpectedness of it all.
+
+"This is what I'D like to know," said Peter.  "How did Peg Bowen
+know my father was coming home?  Don't you tell me she isn't a
+witch after that."
+
+"And she knew about your Aunt Olivia's wedding, too," added Sara
+Ray.
+
+"Oh, well, she likely heard that from some one.  Grown up folks
+talk things over long before they tell them to children," said
+Cecily.
+
+"Well, she couldn't have heard father was coming home from any
+one," answered Peter.  "He was converted up in Maine, where nobody
+knew him, and he never told a soul he was coming till he got here. 
+No, you can believe what you like, but I'm satisfied at last that
+Peg is a witch and that skull of hers does tell her things.  She
+told me father was coming home and he come!"
+
+"How happy you must be," sighed Sara Ray romantically.  "It's just
+like that story in the Family Guide, where the missing earl comes
+home to his family just as the Countess and Lady Violetta are
+going to be turned out by the cruel heir."
+
+Felicity sniffed.
+
+"There's some difference, I guess.  The earl had been imprisoned
+for years in a loathsome dungeon."
+
+Perhaps Peter's father had too, if we but realized it--imprisoned
+in the dungeon of his own evil appetites and habits, than which
+none could be more loathsome.  But a Power, mightier than the
+forces of evil, had struck off his fetters and led him back to his
+long-forfeited liberty and light.  And no countess or lady of high
+degree could have welcomed a long-lost earl home more joyfully
+than the tired little washerwoman had welcomed the erring husband
+of her youth.
+
+But in Peter's ointment of joy there was a fly or two.  So very,
+very few things are flawless in this world, even on the golden
+road.
+
+"Of course I'm awful glad that father has come back and that ma
+won't have to wash any more," he said with a sigh, "but there are
+two things that kind of worry me.  My Aunt Jane always said that
+it didn't do any good to worry, and I s'pose it don't, but it's
+kind of a relief."
+
+"What's worrying you?" asked Felix.
+
+"Well, for one thing I'll feel awful bad to go away from you all. 
+I'll miss you just dreadful, and I won't even be able to go to the
+same school.  I'll have to go to Markdale school."
+
+"But you must come and see us often," said Felicity graciously. 
+"Markdale isn't so far away, and you could spend every other
+Saturday afternoon with us anyway."
+
+Peter's black eyes filled with adoring gratitude.
+
+"That's so kind of you, Felicity.  I'll come as often as I can, of
+course; but it won't be the same as being around with you all the
+time.  The other thing is even worse.  You see, it was a Methodist
+revival father got converted in, and so of course he joined the
+Methodist church.  He wasn't anything before.  He used to say he
+was a Nothingarian and lived up to it--kind of bragging like.  But
+he's a strong Methodist now, and is going to go to Markdale
+Methodist church and pay to the salary.  Now what'll he say when I
+tell him I'm a Presbyterian?"
+
+"You haven't told him, yet?" asked the Story Girl.
+
+"No, I didn't dare.  I was scared he'd say I'd have to be a Methodist."
+
+"Well, Methodists are pretty near as good as Presbyterians," said
+Felicity, with the air of one making a great concession.
+
+"I guess they're every bit as good," retorted Peter.  "But that
+ain't the point.  I've got to be a Presbyterian, 'cause I stick to
+a thing when I once decide it.  But I expect father will be mad
+when he finds out."
+
+"If he's converted he oughtn't to get mad," said Dan.
+
+"Well, lots o' people do.  But if he isn't mad he'll be sorry, and
+that'll be even worse, for a Presbyterian I'm bound to be.  But I
+expect it will make things unpleasant."
+
+"You needn't tell him anything about it," advised Felicity.  "Just
+keep quiet and go to the Methodist church until you get big, and
+then you can go where you please."
+
+"No, that wouldn't be honest," said Peter sturdily.  "My Aunt Jane
+always said it was best to be open and above board in everything,
+and especially in religion.  So I'll tell father right out, but
+I'll wait a few weeks so as not to spoil things for ma too soon if
+he acts up."
+
+Peter was not the only one who had secret cares.  Sara Ray was
+beginning to feel worried over her looks.  I heard her and Cecily
+talking over their troubles one evening while I was weeding the
+onion bed and they were behind the hedge knitting lace.  I did not
+mean to eavesdrop.  I supposed they knew I was there until Cecily
+overwhelmed me with indignation later on.
+
+"I'm so afraid, Cecily, that I'm going to be homely all my life,"
+said poor Sara with a tremble in her voice.  "You can stand being
+ugly when you are young if you have any hope of being better
+looking when you grow up.  But I'm getting worse.  Aunt Mary says
+I'm going to be the very image of Aunt Matilda.  And Aunt Matilda
+is as homely as she can be.  It isn't"--and poor Sara sighed--"a
+very cheerful prospect.  If I am ugly nobody will ever want to
+marry me, and," concluded Sara candidly, "I don't want to be an
+old maid."
+
+"But plenty of girls get married who aren't a bit pretty,"
+comforted Cecily.  "Besides, you are real nice looking at times,
+Sara.  I think you are going to have a nice figure."
+
+"But just look at my hands," moaned Sara.  "They're simply covered
+with warts."
+
+"Oh, the warts will all disappear before you grow up," said
+Cecily.
+
+"But they won't disappear before the school concert.  How am I to
+get up there and recite?  You know there is one line in my
+recitation, 'She waved her lily-white hand,' and I have to wave
+mine when I say it.  Fancy waving a lily-white hand all covered
+with warts.  I've tried every remedy I ever heard of, but nothing
+does any good.  Judy Pineau said if I rubbed them with toad-spit
+it would take them away for sure.  But how am I to get any toad-
+spit?"
+
+"It doesn't sound like a very nice remedy, anyhow," shuddered
+Cecily.  "I'd rather have the warts.  But do you know, I believe
+if you didn't cry so much over every little thing, you'd be ever
+so much better looking.  Crying spoils your eyes and makes the end
+of your nose red."
+
+"I can't help crying," protested Sara.  "My feelings are so very
+sensitive.  I've given up trying to keep THAT resolution."
+
+"Well, men don't like cry-babies," said Cecily sagely.  Cecily had
+a good deal of Mother Eve's wisdom tucked away in that smooth,
+brown head of hers.
+
+"Cecily, do you ever intend to be married?" asked Sara in a
+confidential tone.
+
+"Goodness!" cried Cecily, quite shocked.  "It will be time enough
+when I grow up to think of that, Sara."
+
+"I should think you'd have to think of it now, with Cyrus Brisk as
+crazy after you as he is."
+
+"I wish Cyrus Brisk was at the bottom of the Red Sea," exclaimed
+Cecily, goaded into a spurt of temper by mention of the detested
+name.
+
+"What has Cyrus been doing now?" asked Felicity, coming around the
+corner of the hedge.
+
+"Doing NOW!  It's ALL the time.  He just worries me to death,"
+returned Cecily angrily.  "He keeps writing me letters and putting
+them in my desk or in my reader.  I never answer one of them, but
+he keeps on.  And in the last one, mind you, he said he'd do
+something desperate right off if I wouldn't promise to marry him
+when we grew up."
+
+"Just think, Cecily, you've had a proposal already," said Sara Ray
+in an awe-struck tone.
+
+"But he hasn't done anything desperate yet, and that was last
+week," commented Felicity, with a toss of her head.
+
+"He sent me a lock of his hair and wanted one of mine in
+exchange," continued Cecily indignantly.  "I tell you I sent his
+back to him pretty quick."
+
+"Did you never answer any of his letters?" asked Sara Ray.
+
+"No, indeed!  I guess not!"
+
+"Do you know," said Felicity, "I believe if you wrote him just
+once and told him your exact opinion of him in good plain English
+it would cure him of his nonsense."
+
+"I couldn't do that.  I haven't enough spunk," confessed Cecily
+with a blush.  "But I'll tell you what I did do once.  He wrote me
+a long letter last week.  It was just awfully SOFT, and every
+other word was spelled wrong.  He even spelled baking soda, 'bacon
+soda!'"
+
+"What on earth had he to say about baking soda in a love-letter?"
+asked Felicity.
+
+"Oh, he said his mother sent him to the store for some and he
+forgot it because he was thinking about me.  Well, I just took his
+letter and wrote in all the words, spelled right, above the wrong
+ones, in red ink, just as Mr. Perkins makes us do with our
+dictation exercises, and sent it back to him.  I thought maybe
+he'd feel insulted and stop writing to me."
+
+"And did he?"
+
+"No, he didn't.  It is my opinion you can't insult Cyrus Brisk. 
+He is too thick-skinned.  He wrote another letter, and thanked me
+for correcting his mistakes, and said it made him feel glad
+because it showed I was beginning to take an interest in him when
+I wanted him to spell better.  Did you ever?  Miss Marwood says it
+is wrong to hate anyone, but I don't care, I hate Cyrus Brisk."
+
+"Mrs. Cyrus Brisk WOULD be an awful name," giggled Felicity.
+
+"Flossie Brisk says Cyrus is ruining all the trees on his father's
+place cutting your name on them," said Sara Ray.  "His father told
+him he would whip him if he didn't stop, but Cyrus keeps right on. 
+He told Flossie it relieved his feelings.  Flossie says he cut
+yours and his together on the birch tree in front of the parlour
+window, and a row of hearts around them."
+
+"Just where every visitor can see them, I suppose," lamented
+Cecily.  "He just worries my life out.  And what I mind most of
+all is, he sits and looks at me in school with such melancholy,
+reproachful eyes when he ought to be working sums.  I won't look
+at him, but I FEEL him staring at me, and it makes me so nervous."
+
+"They say his mother was out of her mind at one time," said
+Felicity.
+
+I do not think Felicity was quite well pleased that Cyrus should
+have passed over her rose-red prettiness to set his affections on
+that demure elf of a Cecily.  She did not want the allegiance of
+Cyrus in the least, but it was something of a slight that he had
+not wanted her to want it.
+
+"And he sends me pieces of poetry he cuts out of the papers,"
+Cecily went on, "with lots of the lines marked with a lead pencil. 
+Yesterday he put one in his letter, and this is what he marked:
+
+
+  "'If you will not relent to me
+   Then must I learn to know
+   Darkness alone till life be flown.
+
+Here--I have the piece in my sewing-bag--I'll read it all to you."
+
+Those three graceless girls read the sentimental rhyme and giggled
+over it.  Poor Cyrus!  His young affections were sadly misplaced. 
+But after all, though Cecily never relented towards him, he did
+not condemn himself to darkness alone till life was flown.  Quite
+early in life he wedded a stout, rosy, buxom lass, the very
+antithesis of his first love; he prospered in his undertakings,
+raised a large and respectable family, and was eventually
+appointed a Justice of the Peace.  Which was all very sensible of
+Cyrus.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE RAPE OF THE LOCK
+
+
+June was crowded full of interest that year.  We gathered in with
+its sheaf of fragrant days the choicest harvest of childhood. 
+Things happened right along.  Cecily declared she hated to go to
+sleep for fear she might miss something.  There were so many dear
+delights along the golden road to give us pleasure--the earth
+dappled with new blossom, the dance of shadows in the fields, the
+rustling, rain-wet ways of the woods, the faint fragrance in
+meadow lanes, liltings of birds and croon of bees in the old
+orchard, windy pipings on the hills, sunset behind the pines,
+limpid dews filling primrose cups, crescent moons through
+darklings boughs, soft nights alight with blinking stars.  We
+enjoyed all these boons, unthinkingly and light-heartedly, as
+children do.  And besides these, there was the absorbing little
+drama of human life which was being enacted all around us, and in
+which each of us played a satisfying part--the gay preparations
+for Aunt Olivia's mid-June wedding, the excitement of practising
+for the concert with which our school-teacher, Mr. Perkins, had
+elected to close the school year, and Cecily's troubles with Cyrus
+Brisk, which furnished unholy mirth for the rest of us, though
+Cecily could not see the funny side of it at all.
+
+Matters went from bad to worse in the case of the irrepressible
+Cyrus.  He continued to shower Cecily with notes, the spelling of
+which showed no improvement; he worried the life out of her by
+constantly threatening to fight Willy Fraser--although, as
+Felicity sarcastically pointed out, he never did it.
+
+"But I'm always afraid he will," said Cecily, "and it would be
+such a DISGRACE to have two boys fighting over me in school."
+
+"You must have encouraged Cyrus a little in the beginning or he'd
+never have been so persevering," said Felicity unjustly.
+
+"I never did!" cried outraged Cecily.  "You know very well,
+Felicity King, that I hated Cyrus Brisk ever since the very first
+time I saw his big, fat, red face.  So there!"
+
+"Felicity is just jealous because Cyrus didn't take a notion to
+her instead of you, Sis," said Dan.
+
+"Talk sense!" snapped Felicity.
+
+"If I did you wouldn't understand me, sweet little sister,"
+rejoined aggravating Dan.
+
+Finally Cyrus crowned his iniquities by stealing the denied lock
+of Cecily's hair.  One sunny afternoon in school, Cecily and Kitty
+Marr asked and received permission to sit out on the side bench
+before the open window, where the cool breeze swept in from the
+green fields beyond.  To sit on this bench was always considered a
+treat, and was only allowed as a reward of merit; but Cecily and
+Kitty had another reason for wishing to sit there.  Kitty had read
+in a magazine that sun-baths were good for the hair; so both she
+and Cecily tossed their long braids over the window-sill and let
+them hang there in the broiling sun-shine.  And while Cecily sat
+thus, diligently working a fraction sum on her slate, that base
+Cyrus asked permission to go out, having previously borrowed a
+pair of scissors from one of the big girls who did fancy work at
+the noon recess.  Outside, Cyrus sneaked up close to the window
+and cut off a piece of Cecily's hair.
+
+This rape of the lock did not produce quite such terrible
+consequences as the more famous one in Pope's poem, but Cecily's
+soul was no less agitated than Belinda's.  She cried all the way
+home from school about it, and only checked her tears when Dan
+declared he'd fight Cyrus and make him give it up.
+
+"Oh, no, You mustn't." said Cecily, struggling with her sobs.  "I
+won't have you fighting on my account for anything.  And besides,
+he'd likely lick you--he's so big and rough.  And the folks at
+home might find out all about it, and Uncle Roger would never give
+me any peace, and mother would be cross, for she'd never believe
+it wasn't my fault.  It wouldn't be so bad if he'd only taken a
+little, but he cut a great big chunk right off the end of one of
+the braids.  Just look at it.  I'll have to cut the other to make
+them fair--and they'll look so awful stubby."
+
+But Cyrus' acquirement of the chunk of hair was his last triumph. 
+His downfall was near; and, although it involved Cecily in a most
+humiliating experience, over which she cried half the following
+night, in the end she confessed it was worth undergoing just to
+get rid of Cyrus.
+
+Mr. Perkins was an exceedingly strict disciplinarian.  No
+communication of any sort was permitted between his pupils during
+school hours.  Anyone caught violating this rule was promptly
+punished by the infliction of one of the weird penances for which
+Mr. Perkins was famous, and which were generally far worse than
+ordinary whipping.
+
+One day in school Cyrus sent a letter across to Cecily.  Usually
+he left his effusions in her desk, or between the leaves of her
+books; but this time it was passed over to her under cover of the
+desk through the hands of two or three scholars.  Just as Em
+Frewen held it over the aisle Mr. Perkins wheeled around from his
+station before the blackboard and caught her in the act.
+
+"Bring that here, Emmeline," he commanded.
+
+Cyrus turned quite pale.  Em carried the note to Mr. Perkins.  He
+took it, held it up, and scrutinized the address.
+
+"Did you write this to Cecily, Emmeline?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Who wrote it then?"
+
+Em said quite shamelessly that she didn't know--it had just been
+passed over from the next row.
+
+"And I suppose you have no idea where it came from?" said Mr.
+Perkins, with his frightful, sardonic grin.  "Well, perhaps Cecily
+can tell us.  You may take your seat, Emmeline, and you will
+remain at the foot of your spelling class for a week as punishment
+for passing the note.  Cecily, come here."
+
+Indignant Em sat down and poor, innocent Cecily was haled forth to
+public ignominy.  She went with a crimson face.
+
+"Cecily," said her tormentor, "do you know who wrote this letter
+to you?"
+
+Cecily, like a certain renowned personage, could not tell a lie.
+
+"I--I think so, sir," she murmured faintly.
+
+"Who was it?"
+
+"I can't tell you that," stammered Cecily, on the verge of tears.
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Perkins politely.  "Well, I suppose I could easily
+find out by opening it.  But it is very impolite to open other
+people's letters.  I think I have a better plan.  Since you refuse
+to tell me who wrote it, open it yourself, take this chalk, and
+copy the contents on the blackboard that we may all enjoy them. 
+And sign the writer's name at the bottom."
+
+"Oh," gasped Cecily, choosing the lesser of two evils, "I'll tell
+you who wrote it--it was--
+
+"Hush!"  Mr. Perkins checked her with a gentle motion of his hand. 
+He was always most gentle when most inexorable.  "You did not obey
+me when I first ordered you to tell me the writer.  You cannot
+have the privilege of doing so now.  Open the note, take the
+chalk, and do as I command you."
+
+Worms will turn, and even meek, mild, obedient little souls like
+Cecily may be goaded to the point of wild, sheer rebellion.
+
+"I--I won't!" she cried passionately.
+
+Mr. Perkins, martinet though he was, would hardly, I think, have
+inflicted such a punishment on Cecily, who was a favourite of his,
+had he known the real nature of that luckless missive.  But, as he
+afterwards admitted, he thought it was merely a note from some
+other girl, of such trifling sort as school-girls are wont to
+write; and moreover, he had already committed himself to the
+decree, which, like those of Mede and Persian, must not alter.  To
+let Cecily off, after her mad defiance, would be to establish a
+revolutionary precedent.
+
+"So you really think you won't?" he queried smilingly.  "Well, on
+second thoughts, you may take your choice.  Either you will do as
+I have bidden you, or you will sit for three days with"--Mr.
+Perkins' eye skimmed over the school-room to find a boy who was
+sitting alone--"with Cyrus Brisk."
+
+This choice of Mr. Perkins, who knew nothing of the little drama
+of emotions that went on under the routine of lessons and
+exercises in his domain, was purely accidental, but we took it at
+the time as a stroke of diabolical genius.  It left Cecily no
+choice.  She would have done almost anything before she would have
+sat with Cyrus Brisk.  With flashing eyes she tore open the
+letter, snatched up the chalk, and dashed at the blackboard.
+
+In a few minutes the contents of that letter graced the expanse
+usually sacred to more prosaic compositions.  I cannot reproduce
+it verbatim, for I had no after opportunity of refreshing my
+memory.  But I remember that it was exceedingly sentimental and
+exceedingly ill-spelled--for Cecily mercilessly copied down poor
+Cyrus' mistakes.  He wrote her that he wore her hare over his
+hart--"and he stole it," Cecily threw passionately over her
+shoulder at Mr. Perkins--that her eyes were so sweet and lovely
+that he couldn't find words nice enuf to describ them, that he
+could never forget how butiful she had looked in prar meeting the
+evening before, and that some meels he couldn't eat for thinking
+of her, with more to the same effect and he signed it "yours till
+deth us do part, Cyrus Brisk."
+
+As the writing proceeded we scholars exploded into smothered
+laughter, despite our awe of Mr. Perkins.  Mr. Perkins himself
+could not keep a straight face.  He turned abruptly away and
+looked out of the window, but we could see his shoulders shaking. 
+When Cecily had finished and had thrown down the chalk with bitter
+vehemence, he turned around with a very red face.
+
+"That will do.  You may sit down.  Cyrus, since it seems you are
+the guilty person, take the eraser and wipe that off the board. 
+Then go stand in the corner, facing the room, and hold your arms
+straight above your head until I tell you to take them down."
+
+Cyrus obeyed and Cecily fled to her seat and wept, nor did Mr.
+Perkins meddle with her more that day.  She bore her burden of
+humiliation bitterly for several days, until she was suddenly
+comforted by a realization that Cyrus had ceased to persecute her. 
+He wrote no more letters, he gazed no longer in rapt adoration, he
+brought no more votive offerings of gum and pencils to her shrine. 
+At first we thought he had been cured by the unmerciful chaffing
+he had to undergo from his mates, but eventually his sister told
+Cecily the true reason.  Cyrus had at last been driven to believe
+that Cecily's aversion to him was real, and not merely the defence
+of maiden coyness.  If she hated him so intensely that she would
+rather write that note on the blackboard than sit with him, what
+use was it to sigh like a furnace longer for her?  Mr. Perkins had
+blighted love's young dream for Cyrus with a killing frost. 
+Thenceforth sweet Cecily kept the noiseless tenor of her way
+unvexed by the attentions of enamoured swains.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+AUNT UNA'S STORY
+
+
+Felicity, and Cecily, Dan, Felix, Sara Ray and I were sitting one
+evening on the mossy stones in Uncle Roger's hill pasture, where
+we had sat the morning the Story Girl told us the tale of the
+Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess.  But it was evening now and
+the valley beneath us was brimmed up with the glow of the
+afterlight.  Behind us, two tall, shapely spruce trees rose up
+against the sunset, and through the dark oriel of their sundered
+branches an evening star looked down.  We sat on a little strip of
+emerald grassland and before us was a sloping meadow all white
+with daisies.
+
+We were waiting for Peter and the Story Girl.  Peter had gone to
+Markdale after dinner to spend the afternoon with his reunited
+parents because it was his birthday.  He had left us grimly
+determined to confess to his father the dark secret of his
+Presbyterianism, and we were anxious to know what the result had
+been.  The Story Girl had gone that morning with Miss Reade to
+visit the latter's home near Charlottetown, and we expected soon
+to see her coming gaily along over the fields from the Armstrong
+place.
+
+Presently Peter came jauntily stepping along the field path up the
+hill.
+
+"Hasn't Peter got tall?" said Cecily.
+
+"Peter is growing to be a very fine looking boy," decreed
+Felicity.
+
+"I notice he's got ever so much handsomer since his father came
+home," said Dan, with a killing sarcasm that was wholly lost on
+Felicity, who gravely responded that she supposed it was because
+Peter felt so much freer from care and responsibility.
+
+"What luck, Peter?" yelled Dan, as soon as Peter was within earshot.
+
+"Everything's all right," he shouted jubilantly.  "I told father
+right off, licketty-split, as soon as I got home," he added when
+he reached us.  "I was anxious to have it over with.  I says,
+solemn-like, 'Dad, there's something I've got to tell you, and I
+don't know how you'll take it, but it can't be helped,' I says. 
+Dad looked pretty sober, and he says, says he, 'What have you been
+up to, Peter?  Don't be afraid to tell me.  I've been forgiven to
+seventy times seven, so surely I can forgive a little, too?'
+'Well,' I says, desperate-like, 'the truth is, father, I'm a
+Presbyterian.  I made up my mind last summer, the time of the
+Judgment Day, that I'd be a Presbyterian, and I've got to stick to
+it.  I'm sorry I can't be a Methodist, like you and mother and
+Aunt Jane, but I can't and that's all there is to it,' I says. 
+Then I waited, scared-like.  But father, he just looked relieved
+and he says, says he, 'Goodness, boy, you can be a Presbyterian or
+anything else you like, so long as it's Protestant.  I'm not
+caring,' he says.  'The main thing is that you must be good and do
+what's right.' I tell you," concluded Peter emphatically, "father
+is a Christian all right."
+
+"Well, I suppose your mind will be at rest now," said Felicity. 
+"What's that you have in your buttonhole?"
+
+"That's a four-leaved clover," answered Peter exultantly.  "That
+means good luck for the summer.  I found it in Markdale.  There
+ain't much clover in Carlisle this year of any kind of leaf.  The
+crop is going to be a failure.  Your Uncle Roger says it's because
+there ain't enough old maids in Carlisle.  There's lots of them in
+Markdale, and that's the reason, he says, why they always have
+such good clover crops there."
+
+"What on earth have old maids to do with it?" cried Cecily.
+
+"I don't believe they've a single thing to do with it, but Mr.
+Roger says they have, and he says a man called Darwin proved it. 
+This is the rigmarole he got off to me the other day.  The clover
+crop depends on there being plenty of bumble-bees, because they
+are the only insects with tongues long enough to--to--fer--
+fertilize--I think he called it the blossoms.  But mice eat
+bumble-bees and cats eat mice and old maids keep cats.  So your
+Uncle Roger says the more old maids the more cats, and the more
+cats the fewer field-mice, and the fewer field-mice the more
+bumble-bees, and the more bumble-bees the better clover crops."
+
+"So don't worry if you do get to be old maids, girls," said Dan. 
+"Remember, you'll be helping the clover crops."
+
+"I never heard such stuff as you boys talk," said Felicity, "and
+Uncle Roger is no better."
+
+"There comes the Story Girl," cried Cecily eagerly.  "Now we'll
+hear all about Beautiful Alice's home."
+
+The Story Girl was bombarded with eager questions as soon as she
+arrived.  Miss Reade's home was a dream of a place, it appeared. 
+The house was just covered with ivy and there was a most
+delightful old garden--"and," added the Story Girl, with the joy
+of a connoisseur who has found a rare gem, "the sweetest little
+story connected with it.  And I saw the hero of the story too."
+
+"Where was the heroine?" queried Cecily.
+
+"She is dead."
+
+"Oh, of course she'd have to die," exclaimed Dan in disgust.  "I'd
+like a story where somebody lived once in awhile."
+
+"I've told you heaps of stories where people lived," retorted the
+Story Girl.  "If this heroine hadn't died there wouldn't have been
+any story.  She was Miss Reade's aunt and her name was Una, and I
+believe she must have been just like Miss Reade herself.  Miss
+Reade told me all about her.  When we went into the garden I saw
+in one corner of it an old stone bench arched over by a couple of
+pear trees and all grown about with grass and violets.  And an old
+man was sitting on it--a bent old man with long, snow-white hair
+and beautiful sad blue eyes.  He seemed very lonely and sorrowful
+and I wondered that Miss Reade didn't speak to him.  But she never
+let on she saw him and took me away to another part of the garden. 
+After awhile he got up and went away and then Miss Reade said,
+'Come over to Aunt Una's seat and I will tell you about her and
+her lover--that man who has just gone out.'
+
+"'Oh, isn't he too old for a lover?' I said.
+
+"Beautiful Alice laughed and said it was forty years since he had
+been her Aunt Una's lover.  He had been a tall, handsome young man
+then, and her Aunt Una was a beautiful girl of nineteen.
+
+"We went over and sat down and Miss Reade told me all about her. 
+She said that when she was a child she had heard much of her Aunt
+Una--that she seemed to have been one of those people who are not
+soon forgotten, whose personality seems to linger about the scenes
+of their lives long after they have passed away."
+
+"What is a personality?  Is it another word for ghost?" asked Peter.
+
+"No," said the Story Girl shortly.  "I can't stop in a story to
+explain words."
+
+"I don't believe you know what it is yourself," said Felicity.
+
+The Story Girl picked up her hat, which she had thrown down on the
+grass, and placed it defiantly on her brown curls.
+
+"I'm going in," she announced.  "I have to help Aunt Olivia ice a
+cake tonight, and you all seem more interested in dictionaries
+than stories."
+
+"That's not fair," I exclaimed.  "Dan and Felix and Sara Ray and
+Cecily and I have never said a word.  It's mean to punish us for
+what Peter and Felicity did.  We want to hear the rest of the
+story.  Never mind what a personality is but go on--and, Peter,
+you young ass, keep still."
+
+"I only wanted to know," muttered Peter sulkily.
+
+"I DO know what personality is, but it's hard to explain," said
+the Story Girl, relenting.  "It's what makes you different from
+Dan, Peter, and me different from Felicity or Cecily.  Miss
+Reade's Aunt Una had a personality that was very uncommon.  And
+she was beautiful, too, with white skin and night-black eyes and
+hair--a 'moonlight beauty,' Miss Reade called it.  She used to
+keep a kind of a diary, and Miss Reade's mother used to read parts
+of it to her.  She wrote verses in it and they were lovely; and
+she wrote descriptions of the old garden which she loved very
+much.  Miss Reade said that everything in the garden, plot or
+shrub or tree, recalled to her mind some phrase or verse of her
+Aunt Una's, so that the whole place seemed full of her, and her
+memory haunted the walks like a faint, sweet perfume.
+
+"Una had, as I've told you, a lover; and they were to have been
+married on her twentieth birthday.  Her wedding dress was to have
+been a gown of white brocade with purple violets in it.  But a
+little while before it she took ill with fever and died; and she
+was buried on her birthday instead of being married.  It was just
+in the time of opening roses.  Her lover has been faithful to her
+ever since; he has never married, and every June, on her birthday,
+he makes a pilgrimage to the old garden and sits for a long time
+in silence on the bench where he used to woo her on crimson eves
+and moonlight nights of long ago.  Miss Reade says she always
+loves to see him sitting there because it gives her such a deep
+and lasting sense of the beauty and strength of love which can
+thus outlive time and death.  And sometimes, she says, it gives
+her a little eerie feeling, too, as if her Aunt Una were really
+sitting there beside him, keeping tryst, although she has been in
+her grave for forty years."
+
+"It would be real romantic to die young and have your lover make a
+pilgrimage to your garden every year," reflected Sara Ray.
+
+"It would be more comfortable to go on living and get married to
+him," said Felicity.  "Mother says all those sentimental ideas are
+bosh and I expect they are.  It's a wonder Beautiful Alice hasn't
+a beau herself.  She is so pretty and lady-like."
+
+"The Carlisle fellows all say she is too stuck up," said Dan.
+
+"There's nobody in Carlisle half good enough for her," cried the
+Story Girl, "except--ex-cept--"
+
+"Except who?" asked Felix.
+
+"Never mind," said the Story Girl mysteriously.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+AUNT OLIVIA'S WEDDING
+
+
+What a delightful, old-fashioned, wholesome excitement there was
+about Aunt Olivia's wedding!  The Monday and Tuesday preceding it
+we did not go to school at all, but were all kept home to do
+chores and run errands.  The cooking and decorating and arranging
+that went on those two days was amazing, and Felicity was so happy
+over it all that she did not even quarrel with Dan--though she
+narrowly escaped it when he told her that the Governor's wife was
+coming to the wedding.
+
+"Mind you have some of her favourite rusks for her," he said.
+
+"I guess," said Felicity with dignity, "that Aunt Olivia's wedding
+supper will be good enough for even a Governor's wife."
+
+"I s'pose none of us except the Story Girl will get to the first
+table," said Felix, rather gloomily.
+
+"Never mind," comforted Felicity.  "There's a whole turkey to be
+kept for us, and a freezerful of ice cream.  Cecily and I are
+going to wait on the tables, and we'll put away a little of
+everything that's extra nice for our suppers."
+
+"I do so want to have my supper with you," sighed Sara Ray, "but I
+s'pose ma will drag me with her wherever she goes.  She won't
+trust me out of her sight a minute the whole evening--I know she
+won't."
+
+"I'll get Aunt Olivia to ask her to let you have your supper with
+us," said Cecily.  "She can't refuse the bride's request."
+
+"You don't know all ma can do," returned Sara darkly.  "No, I feel
+that I'll have to eat my supper with her.  But I suppose I ought
+to be very thankful I'm to get to the wedding at all, and that ma
+did get me a new white dress for it.  Even yet I'm so scared
+something will happen to prevent me from getting to it."
+
+Monday evening shrouded itself in clouds, and all night long the
+voice of the wind answered to the voice of the rain.  Tuesday the
+downpour continued.  We were quite frantic about it.  Suppose it
+kept on raining over Wednesday!  Aunt Olivia couldn't be married in
+the orchard then.  That would be too bad, especially when the late
+apple tree had most obligingly kept its store of blossom until
+after all the other trees had faded and then burst lavishly into
+bloom for Aunt Olivia's wedding.  That apple tree was always very
+late in blooming, and this year it was a week later than usual. 
+It was a sight to see--a great tree-pyramid with high, far-
+spreading boughs, over which a wealth of rosy snow seemed to have
+been flung.  Never had bride a more magnificent canopy.
+
+To our rapture, however, it cleared up beautifully Tuesday
+evening, and the sun, before setting in purple pomp, poured a
+flood of wonderful radiance over the whole great, green, diamond-
+dripping world, promising a fair morrow.  Uncle Alec drove off to
+the station through it to bring home the bridegroom and his best
+man.  Dan was full of a wild idea that we should all meet them at
+the gate, armed with cowbells and tin-pans, and "charivari" them
+up the lane.  Peter sided with him, but the rest of us voted down
+the suggestion.
+
+"Do you want Dr. Seton to think we are a pack of wild Indians?"
+asked Felicity severely.  "A nice opinion he'd have of our
+manners!"
+
+"Well, it's the only chance we'll have to chivaree them," grumbled
+Dan.  "Aunt Olivia wouldn't mind.  SHE can take a joke."
+
+"Ma would kill you if you did such a thing," warned Felicity. 
+"Dr. Seton lives in Halifax and they NEVER chivaree people there. 
+He would think it very vulgar."
+
+"Then he should have stayed in Halifax and got married there,"
+retorted Dan, sulkily.
+
+We were very curious to see our uncle-elect.  When he came and
+Uncle Alec took him into the parlour, we were all crowded into the
+dark corner behind the stairs to peep at him.  Then we fled to the
+moonlight world outside and discussed him at the dairy.
+
+"He's bald," said Cecily disappointedly.
+
+"And RATHER short and stout," said Felicity.
+
+"He's forty, if he's a day," said Dan.
+
+"Never you mind," cried the Story Girl loyally, "Aunt Olivia loves
+him with all her heart."
+
+"And more than that, he's got lots of money," added Felicity.
+
+"Well, he may be all right," said Peter, "but it's my opinion that
+your Aunt Olivia could have done just as well on the Island."
+
+"YOUR opinion doesn't matter very much to our family," said
+Felicity crushingly.
+
+But when we made the acquaintance of Dr. Seton next morning we
+liked him enormously, and voted him a jolly good fellow.  Even
+Peter remarked aside to me that he guessed Miss Olivia hadn't made
+much of a mistake after all, though it was plain he thought she
+was running a risk in not sticking to the Island.  The girls had
+not much time to discuss him with us.  They were all exceedingly
+busy and whisked about at such a rate that they seemed to possess
+the power of being in half a dozen places at once.  The importance
+of Felicity was quite terrible.  But after dinner came a lull.
+
+"Thank goodness, everything is ready at last," breathed Felicity
+devoutly, as we foregathered for a brief space in the fir wood. 
+"We've nothing more to do now but get dressed.  It's really a
+serious thing to have a wedding in the family."
+
+"I have a note from Sara Ray," said Cecily.  "Judy Pineau brought
+it up when she brought Mrs. Ray's spoons.  Just let me read it to
+you:--
+
+
+DEAREST CECILY:--A DREADFUL MISFORTUNE has happened to me.  Last
+night I went with Judy to water the cows and in the spruce bush we
+found a WASPS' NEST and Judy thought it was AN OLD ONE and she
+POKED IT WITH A STICK.  And it was a NEW ONE, full of wasps, and
+they all flew out and STUNG US TERRIBLY, on the face and hands. 
+My face is all swelled up and I can HARDLY SEE out of one eye. 
+The SUFFERING was awful but I didn't mind that as much as being
+scared ma wouldn't take me to the wedding.  But she says I can go
+and I'm going.  I know that I am a HARD-LOOKING SIGHT, but it
+isn't anything catching.  I am writing this so that you won't get
+a shock when you see me.  Isn't it SO STRANGE to think your dear
+Aunt Olivia is going away?  How you will miss her!  But your loss
+will be her gain.
+
+                  "'Au revoir,
+                       "'Your loving chum,
+                                   SARA RAY.'"
+
+
+"That poor child," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Well, all I hope is that strangers won't take her for one of the
+family," remarked Felicity in a disgusted tone.
+
+Aunt Olivia was married at five o'clock in the orchard under the
+late apple tree.  It was a pretty scene.  The air was full of the
+perfume of apple bloom, and the bees blundered foolishly and
+delightfully from one blossom to another, half drunken with
+perfume.  The old orchard was full of smiling guests in wedding
+garments.  Aunt Olivia was most beautiful amid the frost of her
+bridal veil, and the Story Girl, in an unusually long white dress,
+with her brown curls clubbed up behind, looked so tall and grown-
+up that we hardly recognized her.  After the ceremony--during
+which Sara Ray cried all the time--there was a royal wedding
+supper, and Sara Ray was permitted to eat her share of the feast
+with us.
+
+"I'm glad I was stung by the wasps after all," she said
+delightedly.  "If I hadn't been ma would never have let me eat
+with you.  She just got tired explaining to people what was the
+matter with my face, and so she was glad to get rid of me.  I know
+I look awful, but, oh, wasn't the bride a dream?"
+
+We missed the Story Girl, who, of course, had to have her supper
+at the bridal table; but we were a hilarious little crew and the
+girls had nobly kept their promise to save tid-bits for us.  By
+the time the last table was cleared away Aunt Olivia and our new
+uncle were ready to go.  There was an orgy of tears and
+leavetakings, and then they drove away into the odorous moonlight
+night.  Dan and Peter pursued them down the lane with a fiendish
+din of bells and pans, much to Felicity's wrath.  But Aunt Olivia
+and Uncle Robert took it in good part and waved their hands back
+to us with peals of laughter.
+
+"They're just that pleased with themselves that they wouldn't mind
+if there was an earthquake," said Felix, grinning.
+
+"It's been splendid and exciting, and everything went off well,"
+sighed Cecily, "but, oh dear, it's going to be so queer and
+lonesome without Aunt Olivia.  I just believe I'll cry all night."
+
+"You're tired to death, that's what's the matter with you," said
+Dan, returning.  "You girls have worked like slaves today."
+
+"Tomorrow will be even harder," said Felicity comfortingly. 
+"Everything will have to be cleaned up and put away."
+
+Peg Bowen paid us a call the next day and was regaled with a feast
+of fat things left over from the supper.
+
+"Well, I've had all I can eat," she said, when she had finished
+and brought out her pipe.  "And that doesn't happen to me every
+day.  There ain't been as much marrying as there used to be, and
+half the time they just sneak off to the minister, as if they were
+ashamed of it, and get married without any wedding or supper. 
+That ain't the King way, though.  And so Olivia's gone off at
+last.  She weren't in any hurry but they tell me she's done well. 
+Time'll show."
+
+"Why don't you get married yourself, Peg?" queried Uncle Roger
+teasingly.  We held our breath over his temerity.
+
+"Because I'm not so easy to please as your wife will be," retorted
+Peg.
+
+She departed in high good humour over her repartee.  Meeting Sara
+Ray on the doorstep she stopped and asked her what was the matter
+with her face.
+
+"Wasps," stammered Sara Ray, laconic from terror.
+
+"Humph!  And your hands?"
+
+"Warts."
+
+"I'll tell you what'll take them away.  You get a pertater and go
+out under the full moon, cut the pertater in two, rub your warts
+with one half and say, 'One, two, three, warts, go away from me.'
+Then rub them with the other half and say, 'One, two, three, four,
+warts, never trouble me more.' Then bury the pertater and never
+tell a living soul where you buried it.  You won't have no more
+warts.  Mind you bury the pertater, though.  If you don't, and
+anyone picks it up, she'll get your warts."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+SARA RAY HELPS OUT
+
+
+We all missed Aunt Olivia greatly; she had been so merry and
+companionable, and had possessed such a knack of understanding
+small fry.  But youth quickly adapts itself to changed conditions;
+in a few weeks it seemed as if the Story Girl had always been
+living at Uncle Alec's, and as if Uncle Roger had always had a
+fat, jolly housekeeper with a double chin and little, twinkling
+blue eyes.  I don't think Aunt Janet ever quite got over missing
+Aunt Olivia, or looked upon Mrs. Hawkins as anything but a
+necessary evil; but life resumed its even tenor on the King farm,
+broken only by the ripples of excitement over the school concert
+and letters from Aunt Olivia describing her trip through the land 
+of Evangeline.  We incorporated the letters in Our Magazine under
+the heading "From Our Special Correspondent" and were very proud
+of them.
+
+At the end of June our school concert came off and was a great
+event in our young lives.  It was the first appearance of most of
+us on any platform, and some of us were very nervous.  We all had
+recitations, except Dan, who had refused flatly to take any part
+and was consequently care-free.
+
+"I'm sure I shall die when I find myself up on that platform,
+facing people," sighed Sara Ray, as we talked the affair over in
+Uncle Stephen's Walk the night before the concert.
+
+"I'm afraid I'll faint," was Cecily's more moderate foreboding.
+
+"I'm not one single bit nervous," said Felicity complacently.
+
+"I'm not nervous this time," said the Story Girl, "but the first
+time I recited I was."
+
+"My Aunt Jane," remarked Peter, "used to say that an old teacher
+of hers told her that when she was going to recite or speak in
+public she must just get it firmly into her mind that it was only
+a lot of cabbage heads she had before her, and she wouldn't be
+nervous."
+
+"One mightn't be nervous, but I don't think there would be much
+inspiration in reciting to cabbage heads," said the Story Girl
+decidedly.  "I want to recite to PEOPLE, and see them looking
+interested and thrilled."
+
+"If I can only get through my piece without breaking down I don't
+care whether I thrill people or not," said Sara Ray.
+
+"I'm afraid I'll forget mine and get stuck," foreboded Felix. 
+"Some of you fellows be sure and prompt me if I do--and do it
+quick, so's I won't get worse rattled."
+
+"I know one thing," said Cecily resolutely, "and that is, I'm
+going to curl my hair for to-morrow night.  I've never curled it
+since Peter almost died, but I simply must tomorrow night, for all
+the other girls are going to have theirs in curls."
+
+"The dew and heat will take all the curl out of yours and then
+you'll look like a scarecrow," warned Felicity.
+
+"No, I won't.  I'm going to put my hair up in paper tonight and
+wet it with a curling-fluid that Judy Pineau uses.  Sara brought
+me up a bottle of it.  Judy says it is great stuff--your hair will
+keep in curl for days, no matter how damp the weather is.  I'll
+leave my hair in the papers till tomorrow evening, and then I'll
+have beautiful curls."
+
+"You'd better leave your hair alone," said Dan gruffly.  "Smooth
+hair is better than a lot of fly-away curls."
+
+But Cecily was not to be persuaded.  Curls she craved and curls
+she meant to have.
+
+"I'm thankful my warts have all gone, any-way," said Sara Ray.
+
+"So they have," exclaimed Felicity.  "Did you try Peg's recipe?"
+
+"Yes.  I didn't believe in it but I tried it.  For the first few
+days afterwards I kept watching my warts, but they didn't go away,
+and then I gave up and forgot them.  But one day last week I just
+happened to look at my hands and there wasn't a wart to be seen. 
+It was the most amazing thing."
+
+"And yet you'll say Peg Bowen isn't a witch," said Peter.
+
+"Pshaw, it was just the potato juice," scoffed Dan.
+
+"It was a dry old potato I had, and there wasn't much juice in
+it," said Sara Ray.  "One hardly knows what to believe.  But one
+thing is certain--my warts are gone."
+
+Cecily put her hair up in curl-papers that night, thoroughly
+soaked in Judy Pineau's curling-fluid.  It was a nasty job, for
+the fluid was very sticky, but Cecily persevered and got it done. 
+Then she went to bed with a towel tied over her head to protect
+the pillow.  She did not sleep well and had uncanny dreams, but
+she came down to breakfast with an expression of triumph.  The
+Story Girl examined her head critically and said,
+
+"Cecily, if I were you I'd take those papers out this morning."
+
+"Oh, no; if I do my hair will be straight again by night.  I mean
+to leave them in till the last minute."
+
+"I wouldn't do that--I really wouldn't," persisted the Story Girl. 
+"If you do your hair will be too curly and all bushy and fuzzy."
+
+Cecily finally yielded and went upstairs with the Story Girl. 
+Presently we heard a little shriek--then two little shrieks--then
+three.  Then Felicity came flying down and called her mother. 
+Aunt Janet went up and presently came down again with a grim
+mouth.  She filled a large pan with warm water and carried it
+upstairs.  We dared ask her no questions, but when Felicity came
+down to wash the dishes we bombarded her.
+
+"What on earth is the matter with Cecily?" demanded Dan.  "Is she sick?"
+
+"No, she isn't.  I warned her not to put her hair in curls but she
+wouldn't listen to me.  I guess she wishes she had now.  When
+people haven't natural curly hair they shouldn't try to make it
+curly.  They get punished if they do."
+
+"Look here, Felicity, never mind all that.  Just tell us what has
+happened Sis."
+
+"Well, this is what has happened her.  That ninny of a Sara Ray
+brought up a bottle of mucilage instead of Judy's curling-fluid,
+and Cecily put her hair up with THAT.  It's in an awful state."
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Dan.  "Look here, will she ever get it out?"
+
+"Goodness knows.  She's got her head in soak now.  Her hair is
+just matted together hard as a board.  That's what comes of
+vanity," said Felicity, than whom no vainer girl existed.
+
+Poor Cecily paid dearly enough for HER vanity.  She spent a bad
+forenoon, made no easier by her mother's severe rebukes.  For an
+hour she "soaked" her head; that is, she stood over a panful of
+warm water and kept dipping her head in with tightly shut eyes. 
+Finally her hair softened sufficiently to be disentangled from the
+curl papers; and then Aunt Janet subjected it to a merciless
+shampoo.  Eventually they got all the mucilage washed out of it
+and Cecily spent the remainder of the forenoon sitting before the
+open oven door in the hot kitchen drying her ill-used tresses. 
+She felt very down-hearted; her hair was of that order which,
+glossy and smooth normally, is dry and harsh and lustreless for
+several days after being shampooed.
+
+"I'll look like a fright tonight," said the poor child to me with
+trembling voice.  "The ends will be sticking out all over my
+head."
+
+"Sara Ray is a perfect idiot," I said wrathfully
+
+"Qh, don't be hard on poor Sara.  She didn't mean to bring me
+mucilage.  It's really all my own fault, I know.  I made a solemn
+vow when Peter was dying that I would never curl my hair again,
+and I should have kept it.  It isn't right to break solemn vows. 
+But my hair will look like dried hay tonight."
+
+Poor Sara Ray was quite overwhelmed when she came up and found
+what she had done.  Felicity was very hard on her, and Aunt Janet
+was coldly disapproving, but sweet Cecily forgave her
+unreservedly, and they walked to the school that night with their
+arms about each other's waists as usual.
+
+The school-room was crowded with friends and neighbours.  Mr.
+Perkins was flying about, getting things into readiness, and Miss
+Reade, who was the organist of the evening, was sitting on the
+platform, looking her sweetest and prettiest.  She wore a
+delightful white lace hat with a fetching little wreath of tiny
+forget-me-nots around the brim, a white muslin dress with sprays
+of blue violets scattered over it, and a black lace scarf.
+
+"Doesn't she look angelic?" said Cecily rapturously.
+
+"Mind you," said Sara Ray, "the Awkward Man is here--in the corner
+behind the door.  I never remember seeing him at a concert
+before."
+
+"I suppose he came to hear the Story Girl recite," said Felicity. 
+"He is such a friend of hers."
+
+The concert went off very well.  Dialogues, choruses and
+recitations followed each other in rapid succession.  Felix got
+through his without "getting stuck," and Peter did excellently,
+though he stuffed his hands in his trousers pockets--a habit of
+which Mr. Perkins had vainly tried to break him.  Peter's
+recitation was one greatly in vogue at that time, beginning,
+
+
+     "My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
+      My father feeds his flocks."
+
+
+At our first practice Peter had started gaily in, rushing through
+the first line with no thought whatever of punctuation--" My name
+is Norval on the Grampian Hills."
+
+"Stop, stop, Peter," quoth Mr. Perkins, sarcastically, "your name
+might be Norval if you were never on the Grampian Hills.  There's
+a semi-colon in that line, I wish you to remember."
+
+Peter did remember it.  Cecily neither fainted nor failed when it
+came her turn.  She recited her little piece very well, though
+somewhat mechanically.  I think she really did much better than if
+she had had her desired curls.  The miserable conviction that her
+hair, alone among that glossy-tressed bevy, was looking badly,
+quite blotted out all nervousness and self-consciousness from her
+mind.  Her hair apart, she looked very pretty.  The prevailing
+excitement had made bright her eye and flushed her cheeks rosily--
+too rosily, perhaps.  I heard a Carlisle woman behind me whisper
+that Cecily King looked consumptive, just like her Aunt Felicity;
+and I hated her fiercely for it.
+
+Sara Ray also managed to get through respectably, although she was
+pitiably nervous.  Her bow was naught but a short nod--"as if her
+head worked on wires," whispered Felicity uncharitably--and the
+wave of her lily-white hand more nearly resembled an agonized jerk
+than a wave.  We all felt relieved when she finished.  She was, in
+a sense, one of "our crowd," and we had been afraid she would
+disgrace us by breaking down.
+
+Felicity followed her and recited her selection without haste,
+without rest, and absolutely without any expression whatever.  But
+what mattered it how she recited?  To look at her was sufficient. 
+What with her splendid fleece of golden curls, her great,
+brilliant blue eyes, her exquisitely tinted face, her dimpled
+hands and arms, every member of the audience must have felt it was
+worth the ten cents he had paid merely to see her.
+
+The Story Girl followed.  An expectant silence fell over the room,
+and Mr. Perkins' face lost the look of tense anxiety it had worn
+all the evening.  Here was a performer who could be depended on. 
+No need to fear stage fright or forgetfulness on her part.  The
+Story Girl was not looking her best that night.  White never
+became her, and her face was pale, though her eyes were splendid. 
+But nobody thought about her appearance when the power and magic
+of her voice caught and held her listeners spellbound.
+
+Her recitation was an old one, figuring in one of the School
+Readers, and we scholars all knew it off by heart.  Sara Ray alone
+had not heard the Story Girl recite it.  The latter had not been
+drilled at practices as had the other pupils, Mr. Perkins choosing
+not to waste time teaching her what she already knew far better
+than he did.  The only time she had recited it had been at the
+"dress rehearsal" two nights before, at which Sara Ray had not
+been present.
+
+In the poem a Florentine lady of old time, wedded to a cold and
+cruel husband, had died, or was supposed to have died, and had
+been carried to "the rich, the beautiful, the dreadful tomb" of
+her proud family.  In the night she wakened from her trance and
+made her escape.  Chilled and terrified, she had made her way to
+her husband's door, only to be driven away brutally as a restless
+ghost by the horror-stricken inmates.  A similar reception awaited
+her at her father's.  Then she had wandered blindly through the
+streets of Florence until she had fallen exhausted at the door of
+the lover of her girlhood.  He, unafraid, had taken her in and
+cared for her.  On the morrow, the husband and father, having
+discovered the empty tomb, came to claim her.  She refused to
+return to them and the case was carried to the court of law.  The
+verdict given was that a woman who had been "to burial borne" and
+left for dead, who had been driven from her husband's door and
+from her childhood home, "must be adjudged as dead in law and
+fact," was no more daughter or wife, but was set free to form what
+new ties she would.  The climax of the whole selection came in the
+line,
+
+"The court pronounces the defendant--DEAD!" and the Story Girl was
+wont to render it with such dramatic intensity and power that the
+veriest dullard among her listeners could not have missed its
+force and significance.
+
+She swept along through the poem royally, playing on the emotions
+of her audience as she had so often played on ours in the old
+orchard.  Pity, terror, indignation, suspense, possessed her
+hearers in turn.  In the court scene she surpassed herself.  She
+was, in very truth, the Florentine judge, stern, stately,
+impassive.  Her voice dropped into the solemnity of the all-
+important line,
+
+"'The court pronounces the defendant--'"
+
+She paused for a breathless moment, the better to bring out the
+tragic import of the last word.
+
+"DEAD," piped up Sara Ray in her shrill, plaintive little voice.
+
+The effect, to use a hackneyed but convenient phrase, can better
+be imagined than described.  Instead of the sigh of relieved
+tension that should have swept over the audience at the conclusion
+of the line, a burst of laughter greeted it.  The Story Girl's
+performance was completely spoiled.  She dealt the luckless Sara a
+glance that would have slain her on the spot could glances kill,
+stumbled lamely and impotently through the few remaining lines of
+her recitation, and fled with crimson cheeks to hide her
+mortification in the little corner that had been curtained off for
+a dressing-room.  Mr. Perkins looked things not lawful to be
+uttered, and the audience tittered at intervals for the rest of
+the performance.
+
+Sara Ray alone remained serenely satisfied until the close of the
+concert, when we surrounded her with a whirlwind of reproaches.
+
+"Why," she stammered aghast, "what did I do?  I--I thought she was
+stuck and that I ought to prompt her quick."
+
+"You little fool, she just paused for effect," cried Felicity
+angrily.  Felicity might be rather jealous of the Story Girl's
+gift, but she was furious at beholding "one of our family" made
+ridiculous in such a fashion.  "You have less sense than anyone I
+ever heard of, Sara Ray."
+
+Poor Sara dissolved in tears.
+
+"I didn't know.  I thought she was stuck," she wailed again.
+
+She cried all the way home, but we did not try to comfort her.  We
+felt quite out of patience with her.  Even Cecily was seriously
+annoyed.  This second blunder of Sara's was too much even for her
+loyalty.  We saw her turn in at her own gate and go sobbing up her
+lane with no relenting.
+
+The Story Girl was home before us, having fled from the
+schoolhouse as soon as the programme was over.  We tried to
+sympathize with her but she would not be sympathized with.
+
+"Please don't ever mention it to me again," she said, with
+compressed lips.  "I never want to be reminded of it.  Oh, that
+little IDIOT!"
+
+"She spoiled Peter's sermon last summer and now she's spoiled your
+recitation," said Felicity. "I think it's time we gave up
+associating with Sara Ray."
+
+"Oh, don't be quite so hard on her," pleaded Cecily.  "Think of
+the life the poor child has to live at home.  I know she'll cry
+all night."
+
+"Oh, let's go to bed," growled Dan.  "I'm good and ready for it. 
+I've had enough of school concerts."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+BY WAY OF THE STARS
+
+
+But for two of us the adventures of the night were not yet over. 
+Silence settled down over the old house--the eerie, whisperful,
+creeping silence of night.  Felix and Dan were already sound
+asleep; I was drifting near the coast o' dreams when I was aroused
+by a light tap on the door.
+
+"Bev, are you asleep?" came in the Story Girl's whisper.
+
+"No, what is it?"
+
+"S-s-h.  Get up and dress and come out.  I want you."
+
+With a good deal of curiosity and some misgiving I obeyed.  What
+was in the wind now?  Outside in the hall I found the Story Girl,
+with a candle in her hand, and her hat and jacket.
+
+"Where are you going?" I whispered in amazement.
+
+"Hush.  I've got to go to the school and you must come with me.  I
+left my coral necklace there.  The clasp came loose and I was so
+afraid I'd lose it that I took it off and put it in the bookcase. 
+I was feeling so upset when the concert was over that I forgot all
+about it."
+
+The coral necklace was a very handsome one which had belonged to
+the Story Girl's mother.  She had never been permitted to wear it
+before, and it had only been by dint of much coaxing that she had
+induced Aunt Janet to let her wear it to the concert.
+
+"But there's no sense in going for it in the dead of night," I
+objected.  "It will be quite safe.  You can go for it in the
+morning."
+
+"Lizzie Paxton and her daughter are going to clean the school
+tomorrow, and I heard Lizzie say tonight she meant to be at it by
+five o'clock to get through before the heat of the day.  You know
+perfectly well what Liz Paxton's reputation is.  If she finds that
+necklace I'll never see it again.  Besides, if I wait till the
+morning, Aunt Janet may find out that I left it there and she'd
+never let me wear it again.  No, I'm going for it now.  If you're
+afraid," added the Story Girl with delicate scorn, "of course you
+needn't come."
+
+Afraid!  I'd show her!
+
+"Come on," I said.
+
+We slipped out of the house noiselessly and found ourselves in the
+unutterable solemnity and strangeness of a dark night.  It was a
+new experience, and our hearts thrilled and our nerves tingled to
+the charm of it.  Never had we been abroad before at such an hour. 
+The world around us was not the world of daylight.  'Twas an alien
+place, full of weird, evasive enchantment and magicry.
+
+Only in the country can one become truly acquainted with the
+night.  There it has the solemn calm of the infinite.  The dim
+wide fields lie in silence, wrapped in the holy mystery of
+darkness.  A wind, loosened from wild places far away, steals out
+to blow over dewy, star-lit, immemorial hills.  The air in the
+pastures is sweet with the hush of dreams, and one may rest here
+like a child on its mother's breast.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful?" breathed the Story Girl as we went down the
+long hill.  "Do you know, I can forgive Sara Ray now.  I thought
+tonight I never could--but now it doesn't matter any more.  I can
+even see how funny it was.  Oh, wasn't it funny?  'DEAD' in that
+squeaky little voice of Sara's!  I'll just behave to her tomorrow
+as if nothing had happened.  It seems so long ago now, here in the
+night."
+
+Neither of us ever forgot the subtle delight of that stolen walk. 
+A spell of glamour was over us.  The breezes whispered strange
+secrets of elf-haunted glens, and the hollows where the ferns grew
+were brimmed with mystery and romance.  Ghostlike scents crept out
+of the meadows to meet us, and the fir wood before we came to the
+church was a living sweetness of Junebells growing in abundance.
+
+Junebells have another and more scientific name, of course.  But
+who could desire a better name than Junebells?  They are so perfect
+in their way that they seem to epitomize the very scent and charm
+of the forest, as if the old wood's daintiest thoughts had
+materialized in blossom; and not all the roses by Bendameer's
+stream are as fragrant as a shallow sheet of Junebells under the
+boughs of fir.
+
+There were fireflies abroad that night, too, increasing the
+gramarye of it.  There is certainly something a little
+supernatural about fireflies.  Nobody pretends to understand them. 
+They are akin to the tribes of fairy, survivals of the elder time
+when the woods and hills swarmed with the little green folk.  It
+is still very easy to believe in fairies when you see those goblin
+lanterns glimmering among the fir tassels.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" said the Story Girl in rapture.  "I wouldn't
+have missed it for anything.  I'm glad I left my necklace.  And I
+am glad you are with me, Bev.  The others wouldn't understand so
+well.  I like you because I don't have to talk to you all the
+time.  It's so nice to walk with someone you don't have to talk
+to.  Here is the graveyard.  Are you frightened to pass it, Bev?"
+
+"No, I don't think I'm frightened," I answered slowly, "but I have
+a queer feeling."
+
+"So have I.  But it isn't fear.  I don't know what it is.  I feel
+as if something was reaching out of the graveyard to hold me--
+something that wanted life--I don't like it--let's hurry.  But
+isn't it strange to think of all the dead people in there who were
+once alive like you and me.  I don't feel as if I could EVER die. 
+Do you?"
+
+"No, but everybody must.  Of course we go on living afterwards,
+just the same.  Don't let's talk of such things here," I said
+hurriedly.
+
+When we reached the school I contrived to open a window.  We
+scrambled in, lighted a lamp and found the missing necklace.  The
+Story Girl stood on the platform and gave an imitation of the
+catastrophe of the evening that made me shout with laughter.  We
+prowled around for sheer delight over being there at an unearthly
+hour when everybody supposed we were sound asleep in our beds.  It
+was with regret that we left, and we walked home as slowly as we
+could to prolong the adventure.
+
+"Let's never tell anyone," said the Story Girl, as we reached
+home.  "Let's just have it as a secret between us for ever and
+ever--something that nobody else knows a thing about but you and
+me."
+
+"We'd better keep it a secret from Aunt Janet anyhow," I
+whispered, laughing.  "She'd think we were both crazy."
+
+"It's real jolly to be crazy once in a while," said the Story
+Girl.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+EXTRACTS FROM OUR MAGAZINE
+
+
+EDITORIAL
+
+As will be seen there is no Honour Roll in this number.  Even
+Felicity has thought all the beautiful thoughts that can be
+thought and cannot think any more.  Peter has never got drunk but,
+under existing circumstances, that is not greatly to his credit. 
+As for our written resolutions they have silently disappeared from
+our chamber walls and the place that once knew them knows them no
+more for ever.  (PETER, PERPLEXEDLY:  "Seems to me I've heard
+something like that before.") It is very sad but we will all make
+some new resolutions next year and maybe it will be easier to keep
+those.
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE LOCKET THAT WAS BAKED
+
+This was a story my Aunt Jane told me about her granma when she
+was a little girl.  Its funny to think of baking a locket, but it
+wasn't to eat.  She was my great granma but Ill call her granma
+for short.  It happened when she was ten years old.  Of course she
+wasent anybodys granma then.  Her father and mother and her were
+living in a new settlement called Brinsley.  Their nearest naybor
+was a mile away.  One day her Aunt Hannah from Charlottetown came
+and wanted her ma to go visiting with her.  At first granma's ma
+thought she couldent go because it was baking day and granma's pa
+was away.  But granma wasent afraid to stay alone and she knew how
+to bake the bread so she made her ma go and her Aunt Hannah took
+off the handsome gold locket and chain she was waring round her
+neck and hung it on granmas and told her she could ware it all
+day.  Granma was awful pleased for she had never had any jewelry. 
+She did all the chores and then was needing the loaves when she
+looked up and saw a tramp coming in and he was an awful villenus
+looking tramp.  He dident even pass the time of day but just set
+down on a chair.  Poor granma was awful fritened and she turned
+her back on him and went on needing the loaf cold and trembling--
+that is, granma was trembling not the loaf.  She was worried about
+the locket.  She didn't know how she could hide it for to get
+anywhere she would have to turn round and pass him.
+
+All of a suddent she thought she would hide it in the bread.  She
+put her hand up and pulled it hard and quick and broke the
+fastening and needed it right into the loaf.  Then she put the
+loaf in the pan and set it in the oven.
+
+The tramp hadent seen her do it and then he asked for something to
+eat.  Granma got him up a meal and when hed et it he began
+prowling about the kitchen looking into everything and opening the
+cubbord doors.  Then he went into granma's mas room and turned the
+buro drawers and trunk inside out and threw the things in them all
+about.  All he found was a purse with a dollar in it and he swore
+about it and took it and went away.  When granma was sure he was
+really gone she broke down and cried.  She forgot all about the
+bread and it burned as black as coal.  When she smelled it burning
+granma run and pulled it out.  She was awful scared the locket was
+spoiled but she sawed open the loaf and it was there safe and
+sound.  When her Aunt Hannah came back she said granma deserved
+the locket because she had saved it so clever and she gave it to
+her and grandma always wore it and was very proud of it.  And
+granma used to say that was the only loaf of bread she ever
+spoiled in her life.
+
+                                       PETER CRAIG.
+
+
+(FELICITY:  "Those stories are all very well but they are only true
+stories.  It's easy enough to write true stories.  I thought Peter
+was appointed fiction editor, but he has never written any fiction
+since the paper started.  That's not MY idea of a fiction editor. 
+He ought to make up stories out of his own head."  PETER,
+SPUNKILY:  "I can do it, too, and I will next time.  And it ain't
+easier to write true stories.  It's harder, 'cause you have to
+stick to facts."  FELICITY:  "I don't believe you could make up a
+story."  PETER:  "I'll show you!")
+
+
+MY MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE
+
+It's my turn to write it but I'm SO NERVOUS.  My worst adventure
+happened TWO YEARS AGO.  It was an awful one.  I had a striped
+ribbon, striped brown and yellow and I LOST IT.  I was very sorry
+for it was a handsome ribbon and all the girls in school were
+jealous of it.  (FELICITY:  "I wasn't.  I didn't think it one bit
+pretty."  CECILY:  "Hush!") I hunted everywhere but I couldn't find
+it.  Next day was Sunday and I was running into the house by the
+front door and I saw SOMETHING LYING ON THE STEP and I thought it
+was my ribbon and I made a grab at it as I passed.  But, oh, it
+was A SNAKE!  Oh, I can never describe how I felt when I felt that
+awful thing WRIGGLING IN MY HAND.  I let it go and SCREAMED AND
+SCREAMED, and ma was cross at me for yelling on Sunday and made me
+read seven chapters in the Bible but I didn't mind that much after
+what I had come through.  I would rather DIE than have SUCH AN
+EXPERIENCE again.
+
+                                         SARA RAY.
+
+
+         TO FELICITY ON HER BERTHDAY
+
+         Oh maiden fair with golden hair
+         And brow of purest white,
+         Id fight for you I'd die for you
+         Let me be your faithful knite.
+
+         This is your berthday blessed day
+         You are thirteen years old today
+         May you be happy and fair as you are now
+         Until your hair is gray.
+
+         I gaze into your shining eyes,
+         They are so blue and bright.
+         Id fight for you Id die for you
+         Let me be your faithful knite.
+
+                                     A FRIEND.
+
+
+(DAN:  "Great snakes, who got that up?  I'll bet it was Peter." 
+FELICITY, WITH DIGNITY:  "Well, it's more than YOU could do.  YOU
+couldn't write poetry to save your life."  PETER, ASIDE TO
+BEVERLEY:  "She seems quite pleased.  I'm glad I wrote it, but it
+was awful hard work.")
+
+
+PERSONALS
+
+Patrick Grayfur, Esq., caused his friends great anxiety recently
+by a prolonged absence from home.  When found he was very thin but
+is now as fat and conceited as ever.
+
+On Wednesday, June 20th, Miss Olivia King was united in the bonds
+of holy matrimony to Dr. Robert Seton of Halifax.  Miss Sara
+Stanley was bridesmaid, and Mr. Andrew Seton attended the groom. 
+The young couple received many handsome presents.  Rev. Mr.
+Marwood tied the nuptial knot.  After the ceremony a substantial
+repast was served in Mrs. Alex King's well-known style and the
+happy couple left for their new home in Nova Scotia.  Their many
+friends join in wishing them a very happy and prosperous journey
+through life.
+
+
+        A precious one from us is gone,
+        A voice we loved is stilled.
+        A place is vacant in our home
+        That never can be filled.
+
+
+(THE STORY GIRL:  "Goodness, that sounds as if somebody had died. 
+I've seen that verse on a tombstone.  WHO wrote that notice?"
+FELICITY, WHO WROTE IT:  "I think it is just as appropriate to a
+wedding as to a funeral!")
+
+Our school concert came off on the evening of June 29th and was a
+great success.  We made ten dollars for the library.
+
+We regret to chronicle that Miss Sara Ray met with a misfortune
+while taking some violent exercise with a wasps' nest recently. 
+The moral is that it is better not to monkey with a wasps' nest,
+new or old.
+
+Mrs. C. B. Hawkins of Baywater is keeping house for Uncle Roger. 
+She is a very large woman.  Uncle Roger says he has to spend too
+much time walking round her, but otherwise she is an excellent 
+housekeeper.
+
+It is reported that the school is haunted.  A mysterious light was
+seen there at two o'clock one night recently.
+
+(THE STORY GIRL AND I EXCHANGE KNOWING SMILES BEHIND THE OTHERS'
+BACKS.)
+
+Dan and Felicity had a fight last Tuesday--not with fists but with
+tongues.  Dan came off best--as usual.  (FELICITY LAUGHS
+SARCASTICALLY.)
+
+Mr. Newton Craig of Markdale returned home recently after a
+somewhat prolonged visit in foreign parts.  We are glad to welcome
+Mr. Craig back to our midst.
+
+Billy Robinson was hurt last week.  A cow kicked him.  I suppose
+it is wicked of us to feel glad but we all do feel glad because of
+the way he cheated us with the magic seed last summer.
+
+On April 1st Uncle Roger sent Mr. Peter Craig to the manse to
+borrow the biography of Adam's grandfather.  Mr. Marwood told
+Peter he didn't think Adam had any grandfather and advised him to
+go home and look at the almanac.  (PETER, SOURLY:  "Your Uncle
+Roger thought he was pretty smart."  FELICITY, SEVERELY:  "Uncle
+Roger IS smart.  It was so easy to fool you.")
+
+A pair of blue birds have built a nest in a hole in the sides of
+the well, just under the ferns.  We can see the eggs when we look
+down.  They are so cunning.
+
+Felix sat down on a tack one day in May.  Felix thinks house-
+cleaning is great foolishness.
+
+
+ADS.
+
+LOST--STOLEN--OR STRAYED--A HEART.  Finder will be rewarded by
+returning same to Cyrus E. Brisk, Desk 7, Carlisle School.
+
+LOST OR STOLEN.  A piece of brown hair about three inches long and
+one inch thick.  Finder will kindly return to Miss Cecily King,
+Desk 15, Carlisle School.
+
+(CECILY:  "Cyrus keeps my hair in his Bible for a bookmark, so
+Flossie tells me.  He says he means to keep it always for a
+remembrance though he has given up hope."  DAN:  "I'll steal it out
+of his Bible in Sunday School."  CECILY, BLUSHING:  "Oh, let him
+keep it if it is any comfort to him.  Besides, it isn't right to
+steal."  DAN:  "He stole it."  CECILY:  "But Mr. Marwood says two
+wrongs never make a right.")
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENT
+
+Aunt Olivia's wedding cake was said to be the best one of its kind
+ever tasted in Carlisle.  Me and mother made it.
+
+ANXIOUS INQUIRER:--It is not advisable to curl your hair with
+mucilage if you can get anything else.  Quince juice is better. 
+(CECILY, BITTERLY:  "I suppose I'll never hear the last of that
+mucilage."  DAN:  "Ask her who used tooth-powder to raise
+biscuits?")
+
+We had rhubarb pies for the first time this spring last week. 
+They were fine but hard on the cream.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+ETIQUETTE DEPARTMENT
+
+PATIENT SUFFERER:--What will I do when a young man steals a lock
+of my hair?  Ans.:--Grow some more.
+
+No, F-l-x, a little caterpillar is not called a kittenpillar. 
+(FELIX, ENRAGED:  "I never asked that!  Dan just makes that
+etiquette column up from beginning to end!"  FELICITY:  "I don't
+see what that kind of a question has to do with etiquette
+anyhow.")
+
+Yes, P-t-r, it is quite proper to treat a lady friend to ice cream
+twice if you can afford it.
+
+No, F-l-c-t-y, it is not ladylike to chew tobacco.  Better stick
+to spruce gum.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+FASHION NOTES
+
+Frilled muslin aprons will be much worn this summer.  It is no
+longer fashionable to trim them with knitted lace.  One pocket is
+considered smart.
+
+Clam-shells are fashionable keepsakes.  You write your name and
+the date inside one and your friend writes hers in the other and
+you exchange.
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+FUNNY PARAGRAPHS
+
+MR. PERKINS:--"Peter, name the large islands of the world."
+
+PETER:--"The Island, the British Isles and Australia." (PETER,
+DEFIANTLY:  "Well, Mr. Perkins said he guessed I was right, so you
+needn't laugh.")
+
+This is a true joke and really happened.  It's about Mr. Samuel
+Clask again.  He was once leading a prayer meeting and he looked
+through the window and saw the constable driving up and guessed he
+was after him because he was always in debt.  So in a great hurry
+he called on Brother Casey to lead in prayer and while Brother
+Casey was praying with his eyes shut and everybody else had their
+heads bowed Mr. Clask got out of the window and got away before
+the constable got in because he didn't like to come in till the
+prayer was finished.
+
+Uncle Roger says it was a smart trick on Mr. Clask's part, but I
+don't think there was much religion about it.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+PEG BOWEN COMES TO CHURCH
+
+
+When those of us who are still left of that band of children who
+played long years ago in the old orchard and walked the golden
+road together in joyous companionship, foregather now and again in
+our busy lives and talk over the events of those many merry moons--
+there are some of our adventures that gleam out more vividly in
+memory than the others, and are oftener discussed.  The time we
+bought God's picture from Jerry Cowan--the time Dan ate the poison
+berries--the time we heard the ghostly bell ring--the bewitchment
+of Paddy--the visit of the Governor's wife--and the night we were
+lost in the storm--all awaken reminiscent jest and laughter; but
+none more than the recollection of the Sunday Peg Bowen came to
+church and sat in our pew.  Though goodness knows, as Felicity
+would say, we did not think it any matter for laughter at the
+time--far from it.
+
+It was one Sunday evening in July.  Uncle Alec and Aunt Janet,
+having been out to the morning service, did not attend in the
+evening, and we small fry walked together down the long hill road,
+wearing Sunday attire and trying, more or less successfully, to
+wear Sunday faces also.  Those walks to church, through the golden
+completeness of the summer evenings, were always very pleasant to
+us, and we never hurried, though, on the other hand, we were very
+careful not to be late.
+
+This particular evening was particularly beautiful.  It was cool
+after a hot day, and wheat fields all about us were ripening to
+their harvestry.  The wind gossiped with the grasses along our
+way, and over them the buttercups danced, goldenly-glad.  Waves of
+sinuous shadow went over the ripe hayfields, and plundering bees
+sang a freebooting lilt in wayside gardens.
+
+"The world is so lovely tonight," said the Story Girl.  "I just
+hate the thought of going into the church and shutting all the
+sunlight and music outside.  I wish we could have the service
+outside in summer."
+
+"I don't think that would be very religious," said Felicity.
+
+"I'd feel ever so much more religious outside than in," retorted
+the Story Girl.
+
+"If the service was outside we'd have to sit in the graveyard and
+that wouldn't be very cheerful," said Felix.
+
+"Besides, the music isn't shut out," added Felicity.  "The choir
+is inside."
+
+"'Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,'" quoted Peter, who
+was getting into the habit of adorning his conversation with
+similar gems.  "That's in one of Shakespeare's plays.  I'm reading
+them now, since I got through with the Bible.  They're great."
+
+"I don't see when you get time to read them," said Felicity.
+
+"Oh, I read them Sunday afternoons when I'm home."
+
+"I don't believe they're fit to read on Sundays," exclaimed
+Felicity.  "Mother says Valeria Montague's stories ain't."
+
+"But Shakespeare's different from Valeria," protested Peter.
+
+"I don't see in what way.  He wrote a lot of things that weren't
+true, just like Valeria, and he wrote swear words too.  Valeria
+never does that.  Her characters all talk in a very refined
+fashion."
+
+"Well, I always skip the swear words," said Peter.  "And Mr.
+Marwood said once that the Bible and Shakespeare would furnish any
+library well.  So you see he put them together, but I'm sure that
+he would never say that the Bible and Valeria would make a
+library."
+
+"Well, all I know is, I shall never read Shakespeare on Sunday,"
+said Felicity loftily.
+
+"I wonder what kind of a preacher young Mr. Davidson is,"
+speculated Cecily.
+
+"Well, we'll know when we hear him tonight," said the Story Girl. 
+"He ought to be good, for his uncle before him was a fine
+preacher, though a very absent-minded man.  But Uncle Roger says
+the supply in Mr. Marwood's vacation never amounts to much.  I
+know an awfully funny story about old Mr. Davidson.  He used to be
+the minister in Baywater, you know, and he had a large family and
+his children were very mischievous.  One day his wife was ironing
+and she ironed a great big nightcap with a frill round it.  One of
+the children took it when she wasn't looking and hid it in his
+father's best beaver hat--the one he wore on Sundays.  When Mr.
+Davidson went to church next Sunday he put the hat on without ever
+looking into the crown.  He walked to church in a brown study and
+at the door he took off his hat.  The nightcap just slipped down
+on his head, as if it had been put on, and the frill stood out
+around his face and the string hung down his back.  But he never
+noticed it, because his thoughts were far away, and he walked up
+the church aisle and into the pulpit, like that.  One of his
+elders had to tiptoe up and tell him what he had on his head.  He
+plucked it off in a dazed fashion, held it up, and looked at it. 
+'Bless me, it is Sally's nightcap!' he exclaimed mildly.  'I do
+not know how I could have got it on.' Then he just stuffed it into
+his pocket calmly and went on with the service, and the long
+strings of the nightcap hung down out of his pocket all the time."
+
+"It seems to me," said Peter, amid the laughter with which we
+greeted the tale, "that a funny story is funnier when it is about
+a minister than it is about any other man.  I wonder why."
+
+"Sometimes I don't think it is right to tell funny stories about
+ministers," said Felicity.  "It certainly isn't respectful."
+
+"A good story is a good story--no matter who it's about," said the
+Story Girl with ungrammatical relish.
+
+There was as yet no one in the church when we reached it, so we
+took our accustomed ramble through the graveyard surrounding it. 
+The Story Girl had brought flowers for her mother's grave as
+usual, and while she arranged them on it the rest of us read for
+the hundredth time the epitaph on Great-Grandfather King's
+tombstone, which had been composed by Great-Grandmother King. 
+That epitaph was quite famous among the little family traditions
+that entwine every household with mingled mirth and sorrow, smiles
+and tears.  It had a perennial fascination for us and we read it
+over every Sunday.  Cut deeply in the upright slab of red Island
+sandstone, the epitaph ran as follows:--
+
+
+SWEET DEPARTED SPIRIT
+
+Do receive the vows a grateful widow pays,
+Each future day and night shall hear her speak her Isaac's praise.
+Though thy beloved form must in the grave decay
+Yet from her heart thy memory no time, no change shall steal away.
+Do thou from mansions of eternal bliss
+Remember thy distressed relict.
+Look on her with an angel's love--
+Soothe her sad life and cheer her end
+Through this world's dangers and its griefs.
+Then meet her with thy well-known smiles and welcome
+At the last great day.
+
+
+"Well, I can't make out what the old lady was driving at," said
+Dan.
+
+"That's a nice way to speak of your great-grandmother," said
+Felicity severely.
+
+"How does The Family Guide say you ought to speak of your great-
+grandma, sweet one?" asked Dan.
+
+"There is one thing about it that puzzles me," remarked Cecily. 
+"She calls herself a GRATEFUL widow.  Now, what was she grateful
+for?"
+
+"Because she was rid of him at last," said graceless Dan.
+
+"Oh, it couldn't have been that," protested Cecily seriously. 
+"I've always heard that Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother
+were very much attached to each other."
+
+"Maybe, then, it means she was grateful that she'd had him as long
+as she did," suggested Peter.
+
+"She was grateful to him because he had been so kind to her in
+life, I think," said Felicity.
+
+"What is a 'distressed relict'?" asked Felix.
+
+"'Relict' is a word I hate," said the Story Girl.  "It sounds so
+much like relic.  Relict means just the same as widow, only a man
+can be a relict, too."
+
+"Great-Grandmother seemed to run short of rhymes at the last of
+the epitaph," commented Dan.
+
+"Finding rhymes isn't as easy as you might think," avowed Peter,
+out of his own experience.
+
+"I think Grandmother King intended the last of the epitaph to be
+in blank verse," said Felicity with dignity.
+
+There was still only a sprinkling of people in the church when we
+went in and took our places in the old-fashioned, square King pew. 
+We had just got comfortably settled when Felicity said in an
+agitated whisper, "Here is Peg Bowen!"
+
+We all stared at Peg, who was pacing composedly up the aisle.  We
+might be excused for so doing, for seldom were the decorous aisles
+of Carlisle church invaded by such a figure.  Peg was dressed in
+her usual short drugget skirt, rather worn and frayed around the
+bottom, and a waist of brilliant turkey red calico.  She wore no
+hat, and her grizzled black hair streamed in elf locks over her
+shoulders.  Face, arms and feet were bare--and face, arms and feet
+were liberally powdered with FLOUR.  Certainly no one who saw Peg
+that night could ever forget the apparition.
+
+Peg's black eyes, in which shone a more than usually wild and
+fitful light, roved scrutinizingly over the church, then settled
+on our pew.
+
+"She's coming here," whispered Felicity in horror.  "Can't we
+spread out and make her think the pew is full?"
+
+But the manoeuvre was too late.  The only result was that Felicity
+and the Story Girl in moving over left a vacant space between them
+and Peg promptly plumped down in it.
+
+"Well, I'm here," she remarked aloud.  "I did say once I'd never
+darken the door of Carlisle church again, but what that boy
+there"--nodding at Peter--"said last winter set me thinking, and I
+concluded maybe I'd better come once in a while, to be on the safe
+side."
+
+Those poor girls were in an agony.  Everybody in the church was
+looking at our pew and smiling.  We all felt that we were terribly
+disgraced; but we could do nothing.  Peg was enjoying herself
+hugely, beyond all doubt.  From where she sat she could see the
+whole church, including pulpit and gallery, and her black eyes
+darted over it with restless glances.
+
+"Bless me, there's Sam Kinnaird," she exclaimed, still aloud. 
+"He's the man that dunned Jacob Marr for four cents on the church
+steps one Sunday.  I heard him.  'I think, Jacob, you owe me four
+cents on that cow you bought last fall.  Rec'llect you couldn't
+make the change?' Well, you know, 'twould a-made a cat laugh.  The
+Kinnairds were all mighty close, I can tell you.  That's how they
+got rich."
+
+What Sam Kinnaird felt or thought during this speech, which
+everyone in the church must have heard, I know not.  Gossip had it
+that he changed colour.  We wretched occupants of the King pew
+were concerned only with our own outraged feelings.
+
+"And there's Melita Ross," went on Peg.  "She's got the same
+bonnet on she had last time I was in Carlisle church six years
+ago.  Some folks has the knack of making things last.  But look at
+the style Mrs. Elmer Brewer wears, will yez?  Yez wouldn't think
+her mother died in the poor-house, would yez, now?"
+
+Poor Mrs. Brewer!  From the tip of her smart kid shoes to the
+dainty cluster of ostrich tips in her bonnet--she was most
+immaculately and handsomely arrayed; but I venture to think she
+could have taken small pleasure in her fashionable attire that
+evening.  Some of the unregenerate, including Dan, were shaking
+with suppressed laughter, but most of the people looked as if they
+were afraid to smile, lest their turn should come next.
+
+"There's old Stephen Grant coming in," exclaimed Peg viciously,
+shaking her floury fist at him, "and looking as if butter wouldn't
+melt in his mouth.  He may be an elder, but he's a scoundrel just
+the same.  He set fire to his house to get the insurance and then
+blamed ME for doing it.  But I got even with him for it.  Oh, yes!
+He knows that, and so do I!  He, he!"
+
+Peg chuckled quite fiendishly and Stephen Grant tried to look as
+if nothing had been said.
+
+"Oh, will the minister never come?" moaned Felicity in my ear. 
+"Surely she'll have to stop then."
+
+But the minister did not come and Peg had no intention of
+stopping.
+
+"There's Maria Dean." she resumed.  "I haven't seen Maria for
+years.  I never call there for she never seems to have anything to
+eat in the house.  She was a Clayton and the Claytons never could
+cook.  Maria sorter looks as if she'd shrunk in the wash, now,
+don't she?  And there's Douglas Nicholson.  His brother put rat
+poison in the family pancakes.  Nice little trick that, wasn't it?
+They say it was by mistake.  I hope it WAS a mistake.  His wife is
+all rigged out in silk.  Yez wouldn't think to look at her she was
+married in cotton--and mighty thankful to get married in anything,
+it's my opinion.  There's Timothy Patterson.  He's the meanest man
+alive--meaner'n Sam Kinnaird even.  Timothy pays his children five
+cents apiece to go without their suppers, and then steals the
+cents out of their pockets after they've gone to bed.  It's a
+fact.  And when his old father died he wouldn't let his wife put
+his best shirt on him.  He said his second best was plenty good to
+be buried in.  That's another fact."
+
+"I can't stand much more of this," wailed Felicity.
+
+"See here, Miss Bowen, you really oughtn't to talk like that about
+people," expostulated Peter in a low tone, goaded thereto, despite
+his awe of Peg, by Felicity's anguish.
+
+"Bless you, boy," said Peg good-humouredly, "the only difference
+between me and other folks is that I say these things out loud and
+they just think them.  If I told yez all the things I know about
+the people in this congregation you'd be amazed.  Have a
+peppermint?"
+
+To our horror Peg produced a handful of peppermint lozenges from
+the pocket of her skirt and offered us one each.  We did not dare
+refuse but we each held our lozenge very gingerly in our hands.
+
+"Eat them," commanded Peg rather fiercely.
+
+"Mother doesn't allow us to eat candy in church," faltered
+Felicity.
+
+"Well, I've seen just as fine ladies as your ma give their
+children lozenges in church," said Peg loftily.  She put a
+peppermint in her own mouth and sucked it with gusto.  We were
+relieved, for she did not talk during the process; but our relief
+was of short duration.  A bevy of three very smartly dressed young
+ladies, sweeping past our pew, started Peg off again.
+
+"Yez needn't be so stuck up," she said, loudly and derisively. 
+"Yez was all of yez rocked in a flour barrel.  And there's old
+Henry Frewen, still above ground.  I called my parrot after him
+because their noses were exactly alike.  Look at Caroline Marr,
+will yez?  That's a woman who'd like pretty well to get married,
+And there's Alexander Marr.  He's a real Christian, anyhow, and
+so's his dog.  I can always size up what a man's religion amounts
+to by the kind of dog he keeps.  Alexander Marr is a good man."
+
+It was a relief to hear Peg speak well of somebody; but that was
+the only exception she made.
+
+"Look at Dave Fraser strutting in," she went on.  "That man has
+thanked God so often that he isn't like other people that it's
+come to be true.  He isn't!  And there's Susan Frewen.  She's
+jealous of everybody.  She's even jealous of Old Man Rogers
+because he's buried in the best spot in the graveyard.  Seth
+Erskine has the same look he was born with.  They say the Lord
+made everybody but I believe the devil made all the Erskines."
+
+"She's getting worse all the time.  What WILL she say next?"
+whispered poor Felicity.
+
+But her martyrdom was over at last.  The minister appeared in the
+pulpit and Peg subsided into silence.  She folded her bare, floury
+arms over her breast and fastened her black eyes on the young
+preacher.  Her behaviour for the next half-hour was decorum
+itself, save that when the minister prayed that we might all be
+charitable in judgment Peg ejaculated "Amen" several times, loudly
+and forcibly, somewhat to the discomfiture of the Young man, to
+whom Peg was a stranger.  He opened his eyes, glanced at our pew
+in a startled way, then collected himself and went on.
+
+Peg listened to the sermon, silently and motionlessly, until Mr.
+Davidson was half through.  Then she suddenly got on her feet.
+
+"This is too dull for me," she exclaimed.  "I want something more
+exciting."
+
+Mr. Davidson stopped short and Peg marched down the aisle in the
+midst of complete silence.  Half way down the aisle she turned
+around and faced the minister.
+
+"There are so many hypocrites in this church that it isn't fit for
+decent people to come to," she said.  "Rather than be such
+hypocrites as most of you are it would be better for you to go
+miles into the woods and commit suicide."
+
+Wheeling about, she strode to the door.  Then she turned for a
+Parthian shot.
+
+"I've felt kind of worried for God sometimes, seeing He has so
+much to attend to," she said, "but I see I needn't be, so long's
+there's plenty of ministers to tell Him what to do."
+
+With that Peg shook the dust of Carlisle church from her feet. 
+Poor Mr. Davidson resumed his discourse.  Old Elder Bayley, whose
+attention an earthquake could not have distracted from the sermon,
+afterwards declared that it was an excellent and edifying
+exhortation, but I doubt if anyone else in Carlisle church tasted
+it much or gained much good therefrom.  Certainly we of the King
+household did not.  We could not even remember the text when we
+reached home.  Felicity was comfortless.
+
+"Mr. Davidson would be sure to think she belonged to our family
+when she was in our pew," she said bitterly.  "Oh, I feel as if I
+could never get over such a mortification!  Peter, I do wish you
+wouldn't go telling people they ought to go to church.  It's all
+your fault that this happened."
+
+"Never mind, it will be a good story to tell sometime," remarked
+the Story Girl with relish.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE YANKEE STORM
+
+
+In an August orchard six children and a grown-up were sitting
+around the pulpit stone.  The grown-up was Miss Reade, who had
+been up to give the girls their music lesson and had consented to
+stay to tea, much to the rapture of the said girls, who continued
+to worship her with unabated and romantic ardour.  To us, over the
+golden grasses, came the Story Girl, carrying in her hand a single
+large poppy, like a blood-red chalice filled with the wine of
+August wizardry.  She proffered it to Miss Reade and, as the
+latter took it into her singularly slender, beautiful hand, I saw
+a ring on her third finger.  I noticed it, because I had heard the
+girls say that Miss Reade never wore rings, not liking them.  It
+was not a new ring; it was handsome, but of an old-fashioned
+design and setting, with a glint of diamonds about a central
+sapphire.  Later on, when Miss Reade had gone, I asked the Story
+Girl if she had noticed the ring.  She nodded, but seemed
+disinclined to say more about it.
+
+"Look here, Sara," I said, "there's something about that ring--
+something you know."
+
+"I told you once there was a story growing but you would have to
+wait until it was fully grown," she answered.
+
+"Is Miss Reade going to marry anybody--anybody we know?" I persisted.
+
+"Curiosity killed a cat," observed the Story Girl coolly.  "Miss
+Reade hasn't told me that she was going to marry anybody.  You
+will find out all that is good for you to know in due time."
+
+When the Story Girl put on grown-up airs I did not like her so
+well, and I dropped the subject with a dignity that seemed to
+amuse her mightily.
+
+She had been away for a week, visiting cousins in Markdale, and
+she had come home with a new treasure-trove of stories, most of
+which she had heard from the old sailors of Markdale Harbour.  She
+had promised that morning to tell us of "the most tragic event
+that had ever been known on the north shore," and we now reminded
+her of her promise.
+
+"Some call it the 'Yankee Storm,' and others the 'American Gale,'"
+she began, sitting down by Miss Reade and beaming, because the
+latter put her arm around her waist.  "It happened nearly forty
+years ago, in October of 1851.  Old Mr. Coles at the Harbour told
+me all about it. He was a young man then and he says he can never
+forget that dreadful time.  You know in those days hundreds of
+American fishing schooners used to come down to the Gulf every
+summer to fish mackerel.  On one beautiful Saturday night in this
+October of 1851, more than one hundred of these vessels could be
+counted from Markdale Capes.  By Monday night more than seventy of
+them had been destroyed.  Those which had escaped were mostly
+those which went into harbour Saturday night, to keep Sunday.  Mr.
+Coles says the rest stayed outside and fished all day Sunday, same
+as through the week, and HE says the storm was a judgment on them
+for doing it.  But he admits that even some of them got into
+harbour later on and escaped, so it's hard to know what to think. 
+But it is certain that on Sunday night there came up a sudden and
+terrible storm--the worst, Mr. Coles says, that has ever been
+known on the north shore.  It lasted for two days and scores of
+vessels were driven ashore and completely wrecked.  The crews of
+most of the vessels that went ashore on the sand beaches were
+saved, but those that struck on the rocks went to pieces and all
+hands were lost.  For weeks after the storm the north shore was
+strewn with the bodies of drowned men.  Think of it!  Many of them
+were unknown and unrecognizable, and they were buried in Markdale
+graveyard.  Mr. Coles says the schoolmaster who was in Markdale
+then wrote a poem on the storm and Mr. Coles recited the first two
+verses to me.
+
+
+    "'Here are the fishers' hillside graves,
+      The church beside, the woods around,
+      Below, the hollow moaning waves
+      Where the poor fishermen were drowned.
+
+    "'A sudden tempest the blue welkin tore,
+      The seamen tossed and torn apart
+      Rolled with the seaweed to the shore
+      While landsmen gazed with aching heart.'
+
+
+"Mr. Coles couldn't remember any more of it.  But the saddest of
+all the stories of the Yankee Storm was the one about the Franklin
+Dexter.  The Franklin Dexter went ashore on the Markdale Capes and
+all on board perished, the Captain and three of his brothers among
+them.  These four young men were the sons of an old man who lived
+in Portland, Maine, and when he heard what had happened he came
+right down to the Island to see if he could find their bodies. 
+They had all come ashore and had been buried in Markdale
+graveyard; but he was determined to take them up and carry them
+home for burial.  He said he had promised their mother to take her
+boys home to her and he must do it.  So they were taken up and put
+on board a sailing vessel at Markdale Harbour to be taken back to
+Maine, while the father himself went home on a passenger steamer. 
+The name of the sailing vessel was the Seth Hall, and the
+captain's name was Seth Hall, too.  Captain Hall was a dreadfully
+profane man and used to swear blood-curdling oaths.  On the night
+he sailed out of Markdale Harbour the old sailors warned him that
+a storm was brewing and that it would catch him if he did not wait
+until it was over.  The captain had become very impatient because
+of several delays he had already met with, and he was in a furious
+temper.  He swore a wicked oath that he would sail out of Markdale
+Harbour that night and 'God Almighty Himself shouldn't catch him.'
+He did sail out of the harbour; and the storm did catch him, and
+the Seth Hall went down with all hands, the dead and the living
+finding a watery grave together.  So the poor old mother up in
+Maine never had her boys brought back to her after all.  Mr. Coles
+says it seems as if it were foreordained that they should not rest
+in a grave, but should lie beneath the waves until the day when
+the sea gives up its dead."
+
+
+    "'They sleep as well beneath that purple tide
+      As others under turf,'"
+
+
+quoted Miss Reade softly.  "I am very thankful," she added.  "that
+I am not one of those whose dear ones 'go down to the sea in
+ships.' It seems to me that they have treble their share of this
+world's heartache."
+
+"Uncle Stephen was a sailor and he was drowned," said Felicity,
+"and they say it broke Grandmother King's heart.  I don't see why
+people can't be contented on dry land."
+
+Cecily's tears had been dropping on the autograph quilt square she
+was faithfully embroidering.  She had been diligently collecting
+names for it ever since the preceding autumn and had a goodly
+number; but Kitty Marr had one more and this was certainly a fly
+in Cecily's ointment.
+
+"Besides, one I've got isn't paid for--Peg Bowen's," she lamented,
+"and I don't suppose it ever will be, for I'll never dare to ask
+her for it."
+
+"I wouldn't put it on at all," said Felicity.
+
+"Oh, I don't dare not to.  She'd be sure to find out I didn't and
+then she'd be very angry.  I wish I could get just one more name
+and then I'd be contented.  But I don't know of a single person
+who hasn't been asked already."
+
+"Except Mr. Campbell," said Dan.
+
+"Oh, of course nobody would ask Mr. Campbell.  We all know it
+would be of no use.  He doesn't believe in missions at all--in
+fact, he says he detests the very mention of missions--and he
+never gives one cent to them."
+
+"All the same, I think he ought to be asked, so that he wouldn't
+have the excuse that nobody DID ask him," declared Dan.
+
+"Do you really think so, Dan?" asked Cecily earnestly.
+
+"Sure," said Dan, solemnly.  Dan liked to tease even Cecily a wee
+bit now and then.
+
+Cecily relapsed into anxious thought, and care sat visibly on her
+brow for the rest of the day.  Next morning she came to me and
+said:
+
+"Bev, would you like to go for a walk with me this afternoon?"
+
+"Of course," I replied.  "Any particular where?"
+
+"I'm going to see Mr. Campbell and ask him for his name for my
+square," said Cecily resolutely.  "I don't suppose it will do any
+good.  He wouldn't give anything to the library last summer, you
+remember, till the Story Girl told him that story about his
+grandmother.  She won't go with me this time--I don't know why.  I
+can't tell a story and I'm frightened to death just to think of
+going to him.  But I believe it is my duty; and besides I would
+love to get as many names on my square as Kitty Marr has.  So if
+you'll go with me we'll go this afternoon.  I simply COULDN'T go
+alone."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A MISSIONARY HEROINE
+
+
+Accordingly, that afternoon we bearded the lion in his den.  The
+road we took was a beautiful one, for we went "cross lots," and we
+enjoyed it, in spite of the fact that we did not expect the
+interview with Mr. Campbell to be a very pleasant one.  To be
+sure, he had been quite civil on the occasion of our last call
+upon him, but the Story Girl had been with us then and had
+beguiled him into good-humour and generosity by the magic of her
+voice and personality.  We had no such ally now, and Mr. Campbell
+was known to be virulently opposed to missions in any shape or
+form.
+
+"I don't know whether it would have been any better if I could
+have put on my good clothes," said Cecily, with a rueful glance at
+her print dress, which, though neat and clean, was undeniably
+faded and RATHER short and tight.  "The Story Girl said it would,
+and I wanted to, but mother wouldn't let me.  She said it was all
+nonsense, and Mr. Campbell would never notice what I had on."
+
+"It's my opinion that Mr. Campbell notices a good deal more than
+you'd think for," I said sagely.
+
+"Well, I wish our call was over," sighed Cecily.  "I can't tell
+you how I dread it."
+
+"Now, see here, Sis," I said cheerfully, "let's not think about it
+till we get there.  It'll only spoil our walk and do no good. 
+Let's just forget it and enjoy ourselves."
+
+"I'll try," agreed Cecily, "but it's ever so much easier to preach
+than to practise."
+
+Our way lay first over a hill top, gallantly plumed with golden
+rod, where cloud shadows drifted over us like a gypsying crew. 
+Carlisle, in all its ripely tinted length and breadth, lay below
+us, basking in the August sunshine, that spilled over the brim of
+the valley to the far-off Markdale Harbour, cupped in its harvest-
+golden hills.
+
+Then came a little valley overgrown with the pale purple bloom of
+thistles and elusively haunted with their perfume.  You say that
+thistles have no perfume?  Go you to a brook hollow where they grow
+some late summer twilight at dewfall; and on the still air that
+rises suddenly to meet you will come a waft of faint, aromatic
+fragrance, wondrously sweet and evasive, the distillation of that
+despised thistle bloom.
+
+Beyond this the path wound through a forest of fir, where a wood
+wind wove its murmurous spell and a wood brook dimpled pellucidly
+among the shadows--the dear, companionable, elfin shadows--that
+lurked under the low growing boughs.  Along the edges of that
+winding path grew banks of velvet green moss, starred with
+clusters of pigeon berries.  Pigeon berries are not to be eaten. 
+They are woolly, tasteless things.  But they are to be looked at
+in their glowing scarlet.  They are the jewels with which the
+forest of cone-bearers loves to deck its brown breast.  Cecily
+gathered some and pinned them on hers, but they did not become
+her.  I thought how witching the Story Girl's brown curls would
+have looked twined with those brilliant clusters.  Perhaps Cecily
+was thinking of it, too, for she presently said,
+
+"Bev, don't you think the Story Girl is changing somehow?"
+
+"There are times--just times--when she seems to belong more among
+the grown-ups than among us," I said, reluctantly, "especially
+when she puts on her bridesmaid dress."
+
+"Well, she's the oldest of us, and when you come to think of it,
+she's fifteen,--that's almost grown-up," sighed Cecily.  Then she
+added, with sudden vehemence, "I hate the thought of any of us
+growing up.  Felicity says she just longs to be grown-up, but I
+don't, not a bit.  I wish I could just stay a little girl for
+ever--and have you and Felix and all the others for playmates
+right along.  I don't know how it is--but whenever I think of
+being grown-up I seem to feel tired."
+
+Something about Cecily's speech--or the wistful look that had
+crept into her sweet brown eyes--made me feel vaguely
+uncomfortable; I was glad that we were at the end of our journey,
+with Mr. Campbell's big house before us, and his dog sitting
+gravely at the veranda steps.
+
+"Oh, dear," said Cecily, with a shiver, "I'd been hoping that dog
+wouldn't be around."
+
+"He never bites," I assured her.
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't, but he always looks as if he was going to,"
+rejoined Cecily.
+
+The dog continued to look, and, as we edged gingerly past him and
+up the veranda steps, he turned his head and kept on looking. 
+What with Mr. Campbell before us and the dog behind, Cecily was
+trembling with nervousness; but perhaps it was as well that the
+dour brute was there, else I verily believe she would have turned
+and fled shamelessly when we heard steps in the hall.
+
+It was Mr. Campbell's housekeeper who came to the door, however;
+she ushered us pleasantly into the sitting-room where Mr. Campbell
+was reading.  He laid down his book with a slight frown and said
+nothing at all in response to our timid "good afternoon." But
+after we had sat for a few minutes in wretched silence, wishing
+ourselves a thousand miles away, he said, with a chuckle,
+
+"Well, is it the school library again?"
+
+Cecily had remarked as we were coming that what she dreaded most
+of all was introducing the subject; but Mr. Campbell had given her
+a splendid opening, and she plunged wildly in at once, rattling
+her explanation off nervously with trembling voice and flushed
+cheeks.
+
+"No, it's our Mission Band autograph quilt, Mr. Campbell.  There
+are to be as many squares in it as there are members in the Band. 
+Each one has a square and is collecting names for it.  If you want
+to have your name on the quilt you pay five cents, and if you want
+to have it right in the round spot in the middle of the square you
+must pay ten cents.  Then when we have got all the names we can we
+will embroider them on the squares.  The money is to go to the
+little girl our Band is supporting in Korea.  I heard that nobody
+had asked you, so I thought perhaps you would give me your name
+for my square."
+
+Mr. Campbell drew his black brows together in a scowl.
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" he exclaimed angrily. "I don't believe in
+Foreign Missions--don't believe in them at all.  I never give a
+cent to them."
+
+"Five cents isn't a very large sum," said Cecily earnestly.
+
+Mr. Campbell's scowl disappeared and he laughed.
+
+"It wouldn't break me," he admitted, "but it's the principle of
+the thing.  And as for that Mission Band of yours, if it wasn't
+for the fun you get out of it, catch one of you belonging.  You
+don't really care a rap more for the heathen than I do."
+
+"Oh, we do," protested Cecily.  "We do think of all the poor
+little children in Korea, and we like to think we are helping
+them, if it's ever so little.  We ARE in earnest, Mr. Campbell--
+indeed we are."
+
+"Don't believe it--don't believe a word of it," said Mr. Campbell
+impolitely.  "You'll do things that are nice and interesting. 
+You'll get up concerts, and chase people about for autographs and
+give money your parents give you and that doesn't cost you either
+time or labour.  But you wouldn't do anything you disliked for the
+heathen children--you wouldn't make any real sacrifice for them--
+catch you!"
+
+"Indeed we would," cried Cecily, forgetting her timidity in her
+zeal.  "I just wish I had a chance to prove it to you."
+
+"You do, eh?  Come, now, I'll take you at your word.  I'll test
+you.  Tomorrow is Communion Sunday and the church will be full of
+folks and they'll all have their best clothes on.  If you go to
+church tomorrow in the very costume you have on at present,
+without telling anyone why you do so, until it is all over, I'll
+give you--why, I vow I'll give you five dollars for that quilt of
+yours."
+
+Poor Cecily!  To go to church in a faded print dress, with a shabby
+little old sun-hat and worn shoes!  It was very cruel of Mr.
+Campbell.
+
+"I--I don't think mother would let me," she faltered.
+
+Her tormentor smiled grimly.
+
+"It's not hard to find some excuse," he said sarcastically.
+
+Cecily crimsoned and sat up facing Mr. Campbell spunkily.
+
+"It's NOT an excuse," she said.  "If mother will let me go to
+church like this I'll go.  But I'll have to tell HER why, Mr.
+Campbell, because I'm certain she'd never let me if I didn't."
+
+"Oh, you can tell all your own family," said Mr. Campbell, "but
+remember, none of them must tell it outside until Sunday is over. 
+If they do, I'll be sure to find it out and then our bargain is
+off.  If I see you in church tomorrow, dressed as you are now,
+I'll give you my name and five dollars.  But I won't see you. 
+You'll shrink when you've had time to think it over."
+
+"I sha'n't," said Cecily resolutely.
+
+"Well, we'll see.  And now come out to the barn with me.  I've got
+the prettiest little drove of calves out there you ever saw.  I
+want you to see them."
+
+Mr. Campbell took us all over his barns and was very affable.  He
+had beautiful horses, cows and sheep, and I enjoyed seeing them. 
+I don't think Cecily did, however.  She was very quiet and even
+Mr. Campbell's handsome new span of dappled grays failed to arouse
+any enthusiasm in her.  She was already in bitter anticipation
+living over the martyrdom of the morrow.  On the way home she
+asked me seriously if I thought Mr. Campbell would go to heaven
+when he died.
+
+"Of course he will," I said.  "Isn't he a member of the church?"
+
+"Oh, yes, but I can't imagine him fitting into heaven.  You know
+he isn't really fond of anything but live stock."
+
+"He's fond of teasing people, I guess," I responded.  "Are you
+really going to church to-morrow in that dress, Sis?"
+
+"If mother'll let me I'll have to," said poor Cecily.  "I won't
+let Mr. Campbell triumph over me.  And I DO want to have as many
+names as Kitty has.  And I DO want to help the poor little Korean
+children.  But it will be simply dreadful.  I don't know whether I
+hope mother will or not."
+
+I did not believe she would, but Aunt Janet sometimes could be
+depended on for the unexpected.  She laughed and told Cecily she
+could please herself.  Felicity was in a rage over it, and
+declared SHE wouldn't go to church if Cecily went in such a rig. 
+Dan sarcastically inquired if all she went to church for was to
+show off her fine clothes and look at other people's; then they
+quarrelled and didn't speak to each other for two days, much to
+Cecily's distress.
+
+I suspect poor Sis wished devoutly that it might rain the next
+day; but it was gloriously fine.  We were all waiting in the
+orchard for the Story Girl who had not begun to dress for church
+until Cecily and Felicity were ready.  Felicity was her prettiest
+in flower-trimmed hat, crisp muslin, floating ribbons and trim
+black slippers.  Poor Cecily stood beside her mute and pale, in
+her faded school garb and heavy copper-toed boots.  But her face,
+if pale, was very determined.  Cecily, having put her hand to the
+plough, was not of those who turn back.
+
+"You do look just awful," said Felicity.  "I don't care--I'm going
+to sit in Uncle James' pew.  I WON'T sit with you.  There will be
+so many strangers there, and all the Markdale people, and what
+will they think of you?  Some of them will never know the reason,
+either."
+
+"I wish the Story Girl would hurry," was all poor Cecily said. 
+"We're going to be late.  It wouldn't have been quite so hard if I
+could have got there before anyone and slipped quietly into our
+pew."
+
+"Here she comes at last," said Dan.  "Why--what's she got on?"
+
+The Story Girl joined us with a quizzical smile on her face.  Dan
+whistled.  Cecily's pale cheeks flushed with understanding and
+gratitude.  The Story Girl wore her school print dress and hat
+also, and was gloveless and heavy shod.
+
+"You're not going to have to go through this all alone, Cecily,"
+she said.
+
+"Oh, it won't be half so hard now," said Cecily, with a long
+breath of relief.
+
+I fancy it was hard enough even then.  The Story Girl did not care
+a whit, but Cecily rather squirmed under the curious glances that
+were cast at her.  She afterwards told me that she really did not
+think she could have endured it if she had been alone.
+
+Mr. Campbell met us under the elms in the churchyard, with a
+twinkle in his eye.
+
+"Well, you did it, Miss," he said to Cecily, "but you should have
+been alone.  That was what I meant.  I suppose you think you've
+cheated me nicely."
+
+"No, she doesn't," spoke up the Story Girl undauntedly.  "She was
+all dressed and ready to come before she knew I was going to dress
+the same way.  So she kept her bargain faithfully, Mr. Campbell,
+and I think you were cruel to make her do it."
+
+"You do, eh?  Well, well, I hope you'll forgive me.  I didn't
+think she'd do it--I was sure feminine vanity would win the day
+over missionary zeal.  It seems it didn't--though how much was
+pure missionary zeal and how much just plain King spunk I'm
+doubtful.  I'll keep my promise, Miss.  You shall have your five
+dollars, and mind you put my name in the round space.  No five-
+cent corners for me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A TANTALIZING REVELATION
+
+
+"I shall have something to tell you in the orchard this evening,"
+said the Story Girl at breakfast one morning.  Her eyes were very
+bright and excited.  She looked as if she had not slept a great
+deal.  She had spent the previous evening with Miss Reade and had
+not returned until the rest of us were in bed.  Miss Reade had
+finished giving music lessons and was going home in a few days. 
+Cecily and Felicity were in despair over this and mourned as those
+without comfort.  But the Story Girl, who had been even more
+devoted to Miss Reade than either of them, had not, as I noticed,
+expressed any regret and seemed to be very cheerful over the whole
+matter.
+
+"Why can't you tell it now?" asked Felicity.
+
+"Because the evening is the nicest time to tell things in.  I only
+mentioned it now so that you would have something interesting to
+look forward to all day."
+
+"Is it about Miss Reade?" asked Cecily.
+
+"Never mind."
+
+"I'll bet she's going to be married," I exclaimed, remembering the ring.
+
+"Is she?" cried Felicity and Cecily together.
+
+The Story Girl threw an annoyed glance at me.  She did not like to
+have her dramatic announcements forestalled.
+
+"I don't say that it is about Miss Reade or that it isn't.  You
+must just wait till the evening."
+
+"I wonder what it is," speculated Cecily, as the Story Girl left
+the room.
+
+"I don't believe it's much of anything," said Felicity, beginning
+to clear away the breakfast dishes.  "The Story Girl always likes
+to make so much out of so little.  Anyhow, I don't believe Miss
+Reade is going to be married.  She hasn't any beaus around here
+and Mrs. Armstrong says she's sure she doesn't correspond with
+anybody.  Besides, if she was she wouldn't be likely to tell the
+Story Girl."
+
+"Oh, she might.  They're such friends, you know," said Cecily.
+
+"Miss Reade is no better friends with her than she is with me and
+you," retorted Felicity.
+
+"No, but sometimes it seems to me that she's a different kind of
+friend with the Story Girl than she is with me and you," reflected
+Cecily.  "I can't just explain what I mean."
+
+"No wonder.  Such nonsense," sniffed Felicity.  "It's only some
+girl's secret, anyway," said Dan, loftily.  "I don't feel much
+interest in it."
+
+But he was on hand with the rest of us that evening, interest or
+no interest, in Uncle Stephen's Walk, where the ripening apples
+were beginning to glow like jewels among the boughs.
+
+"Now, are you going to tell us your news?" asked Felicity impatiently.
+
+"Miss Reade IS going to be married," said the Story Girl.  "She
+told me so last night.  She is going to be married in a
+fortnight's time."
+
+"Who to?" exclaimed the girls.
+
+"To"--the Story Girl threw a defiant glance at me as if to say,
+"You can't spoil the surprise of THIS, anyway,"--"to--the Awkward Man."
+
+For a few moments amazement literally held us dumb.
+
+"You're not in earnest, Sara Stanley?" gasped Felicity at last.
+
+"Indeed I am.  I thought you'd be astonished.  But I wasn't.  I've
+suspected it all summer, from little things I've noticed.  Don't
+you remember that evening last spring when I went a piece with
+Miss Reade and told you when I came back that a story was growing?
+I guessed it from the way the Awkward Man looked at her when I
+stopped to speak to him over his garden fence."
+
+"But--the Awkward Man!" said Felicity helplessly.  "It doesn't
+seem possible.  Did Miss Reade tell you HERSELF?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I suppose it must be true then.  But how did it ever come about?
+He's SO shy and awkward.  How did he ever manage to get up enough
+spunk to ask her to marry him?"
+
+"Maybe she asked him," suggested Dan.
+
+The Story Girl looked as if she might tell if she would.
+
+"I believe that WAS the way of it," I said, to draw her on.
+
+"Not exactly," she said reluctantly.  "I know all about it but I
+can't tell you.  I guessed part from things I've seen--and Miss
+Reade told me a good deal--and the Awkward Man himself told me his
+side of it as we came home last night.  I met him just as I left
+Mr. Armstrong's and we were together as far as his house.  It was
+dark and he just talked on as if he were talking to himself--I
+think he forgot I was there at all, once he got started.  He has
+never been shy or awkward with me, but he never talked as he did
+last night."
+
+"You might tell us what he said," urged Cecily.  "We'd never
+tell."
+
+The Story Girl shook her head.
+
+"No, I can't.  You wouldn't understand.  Besides, I couldn't tell
+it just right.  It's one of the things that are hardest to tell. 
+I'd spoil it if I told it--now.  Perhaps some day I'll be able to
+tell it properly.  It's very beautiful--but it might sound very
+ridiculous if it wasn't told just exactly the right way."
+
+"I don't know what you mean, and I don't believe you know
+yourself," said Felicity pettishly.  "All that I can make out is
+that Miss Reade is going to marry Jasper Dale, and I don't like
+the idea one bit.  She is so beautiful and sweet.  I thought she'd
+marry some dashing young man.  Jasper Dale must be nearly twenty
+years older than her--and he's so queer and shy--and such a
+hermit."
+
+"Miss Reade is perfectly happy," said the Story Girl.  "She thinks
+the Awkward Man is lovely--and so he is.  You don't know him, but
+I do."
+
+"Well, you needn't put on such airs about it," sniffed Felicity.
+
+"I am not putting on any airs.  But it's true.  Miss Reade and I
+are the only people in Carlisle who really know the Awkward Man. 
+Nobody else ever got behind his shyness to find out just what sort
+of a man he is."
+
+"When are they to be married?" asked Felicity.
+
+"In a fortnight's time.  And then they are coming right back to
+live at Golden Milestone.  Won't it be lovely to have Miss Reade
+always so near us?"
+
+"I wonder what she'll think about the mystery of Golden
+Milestone," remarked Felicity.
+
+Golden Milestone was the beautiful name the Awkward Man had given
+his home; and there was a mystery about it, as readers of the
+first volume of these chronicles will recall.
+
+"She knows all about the mystery and thinks it perfectly lovely--
+and so do I," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Do YOU know the secret of the locked room?" cried Cecily.
+
+"Yes, the Awkward Man told me all about it last night.  I told you
+I'd find out the mystery some time."
+
+"And what is it?"
+
+"I can't tell you that either."
+
+"I think you're hateful and mean," exclaimed Felicity.  "It hasn't
+anything to do with Miss Reade, so I think you might tell us."
+
+"It has something to do with Miss Reade.  It's all about her."
+
+"Well, I don't see how that can be when the Awkward Man never saw
+or heard of Miss Reade until she came to Carlisle in the spring,"
+said Felicity incredulously, "and he's had that locked room for
+years."
+
+"I can't explain it to you--but it's just as I've said," responded
+the Story Girl.
+
+"Well, it's a very queer thing," retorted Felicity.
+
+"The name in the books in the room was Alice--and Miss Reade's
+name is Alice," marvelled Cecily.  "Did he know her before she
+came here?"
+
+"Mrs. Griggs says that room has been locked for ten years.  Ten
+years ago Miss Reade was just a little girl of ten.  SHE couldn't
+be the Alice of the books," argued Felicity.
+
+"I wonder if she'll wear the blue silk dress," said Sara Ray.
+
+"And what will she do about the picture, if it isn't hers?" added Cecily.
+
+"The picture couldn't be hers, or Mrs. Griggs would have known her
+for the same when she came to Carlisle," said Felix.
+
+"I'm going to stop wondering about it," exclaimed Felicity
+crossly, aggravated by the amused smile with which the Story Girl
+was listening to the various speculations.  "I think Sara is just
+as mean as mean when she won't tell us."
+
+"I can't," repeated the Story Girl patiently.
+
+"You said one time you had an idea who 'Alice' was," I said.  "Was
+your idea anything like the truth?"
+
+"Yes, I guessed pretty nearly right."
+
+"Do you suppose they'll keep the room locked after they are married?"
+asked Cecily.
+
+"Oh, no.  I can tell you that much.  It is to be Miss Reade's own
+particular sitting room."
+
+"Why, then, perhaps we'll see it some time ourselves, when we go
+to see Miss Reade," cried Cecily.
+
+"I'd be frightened to go into it," confessed Sara Ray.  "I hate
+things with mysteries.  They always make me nervous."
+
+"I love them.  They're so exciting," said the Story Girl.
+
+"Just think, this will be the second wedding of people we know,"
+reflected Cecily.  "Isn't that interesting?"
+
+"I only hope the next thing won't be a funeral," remarked Sara Ray
+gloomily.  "There were three lighted lamps on our kitchen table
+last night, and Judy Pineau says that's a sure sign of a funeral."
+
+"Well, there are funerals going on all the time," said Dan.
+
+"But it means the funeral of somebody you know.  I don't believe
+in it--MUCH--but Judy says she's seen it come true time and again. 
+I hope if it does it won't be anybody we know very well.  But I
+hope it'll be somebody I know a LITTLE, because then I might get
+to the funeral.  I'd just love to go to a funeral."
+
+"That's a dreadful thing to say," commented Felicity in a shocked
+tone.
+
+Sara Ray looked bewildered.
+
+"I don't see what is dreadful in it," she protested.
+
+"People don't go to funerals for the fun of it," said Felicity
+severely.  "And you just as good as said you hoped somebody you
+knew would die so you'd get to the funeral."
+
+"No, no, I didn't.  I didn't mean that AT ALL, Felicity.  I don't
+want anybody to die; but what I meant was, if anybody I knew HAD
+to die there might be a chance to go to the funeral.  I've never
+been to a single funeral yet, and it must be so interesting."
+
+"Well, don't mix up talk about funerals with talk about weddings,"
+said Felicity.  "It isn't lucky.  I think Miss Reade is simply
+throwing herself away, but I hope she'll be happy.  And I hope the
+Awkward Man will manage to get married without making some awful
+blunder, but it's more than I expect."
+
+"The ceremony is to be very private," said the Story Girl.
+
+"I'd like to see them the day they appear out in church," chuckled
+Dan.  "How'll he ever manage to bring her in and show her into the
+pew?  I'll bet he'll go in first--or tramp on her dress--or fall
+over his feet."
+
+"Maybe he won't go to church at all the first Sunday and she'll
+have to go alone," said Peter.  "That happened in Markdale.  A man
+was too bashful to go to church the first time after getting
+married, and his wife went alone till he got used to the idea."
+
+"They may do things like that in Markdale but that is not the way
+people behave in Carlisle," said Felicity loftily.
+
+Seeing the Story Girl slipping away with a disapproving face I
+joined her.
+
+"What is the matter, Sara?" I asked.
+
+"I hate to hear them talking like that about Miss Reade and Mr.
+Dale," she answered vehemently.  "It's really all so beautiful--
+but they make it seem silly and absurd, somehow."
+
+"You might tell me all about it, Sara," I insinuated.  "I wouldn't
+tell--and I'd understand."
+
+"Yes, I think you would," she said thoughtfully.  "But I can't
+tell it even to you because I can't tell it well enough yet.  I've
+a feeling that there's only one way to tell it--and I don't know
+the way yet.  Some day I'll know it--and then I'll tell you, Bev."
+
+Long, long after she kept her word.  Forty years later I wrote to
+her, across the leagues of land and sea that divided us, and told
+her that Jasper Dale was dead; and I reminded her of her old
+promise and asked its fulfilment.  In reply she sent me the
+written love story of Jasper Dale and Alice Reade.  Now, when
+Alice sleeps under the whispering elms of the old Carlisle
+churchyard, beside the husband of her youth, that story may be
+given, in all its old-time sweetness, to the world.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE LOVE STORY OF THE AWKWARD MAN
+
+(Written by the Story Girl)
+
+
+Jasper Dale lived alone in the old homestead which he had named
+Golden Milestone.  In Carlisle this giving one's farm a name was
+looked upon as a piece of affectation; but if a place must be
+named why not give it a sensible name with some meaning to it?  Why
+Golden Milestone, when Pinewood or Hillslope or, if you wanted to
+be very fanciful, Ivy Lodge, might be had for the taking?
+
+He had lived alone at Golden Milestone since his mother's death;
+he had been twenty then and he was close upon forty now, though he
+did not look it.  But neither could it be said that he looked
+young; he had never at any time looked young with common youth;
+there had always been something in his appearance that stamped him
+as different from the ordinary run of men, and, apart from his
+shyness, built up an intangible, invisible barrier between him and
+his kind.  He had lived all his life in Carlisle; and all the
+Carlisle people knew of or about him--although they thought they
+knew everything--was that he was painfully, abnormally shy.  He
+never went anywhere except to church; he never took part in
+Carlisle's simple social life; even with most men he was distant
+and reserved; as for women, he never spoke to or looked at them;
+if one spoke to him, even if she were a matronly old mother in
+Israel, he was at once in an agony of painful blushes.  He had no
+friends in the sense of companions; to all outward appearance his
+life was solitary and devoid of any human interest.
+
+He had no housekeeper; but his old house, furnished as it had been
+in his mother's lifetime, was cleanly and daintily kept.  The
+quaint rooms were as free from dust and disorder as a woman could
+have had them.  This was known, because Jasper Dale occasionally
+had his hired man's wife, Mrs. Griggs, in to scrub for him.  On
+the morning she was expected he betook himself to woods and
+fields, returning only at night-fall.  During his absence Mrs.
+Griggs was frankly wont to explore the house from cellar to attic,
+and her report of its condition was always the same--"neat as
+wax." To be sure, there was one room that was always locked
+against her, the west gable, looking out on the garden and the
+hill of pines beyond.  But Mrs. Griggs knew that in the lifetime
+of Jasper Dale's mother it had been unfurnished.  She supposed it
+still remained so, and felt no especial curiosity concerning it,
+though she always tried the door.
+
+Jasper Dale had a good farm, well cultivated; he had a large
+garden where he worked most of his spare time in summer; it was
+supposed that he read a great deal, since the postmistress
+declared that he was always getting books and magazines by mail. 
+He seemed well contented with his existence and people let him
+alone, since that was the greatest kindness they could do him.  It
+was unsupposable that he would ever marry; nobody ever had
+supposed it.
+
+"Jasper Dale never so much as THOUGHT about a woman," Carlisle
+oracles declared.  Oracles, however, are not always to be trusted.
+
+One day Mrs. Griggs went away from the Dale place with a very
+curious story, which she diligently spread far and wide.  It made
+a good deal of talk, but people, although they listened eagerly,
+and wondered and questioned, were rather incredulous about it. 
+They thought Mrs. Griggs must be drawing considerably upon her
+imagination; there were not lacking those who declared that she
+had invented the whole account, since her reputation for strict
+veracity was not wholly unquestioned.
+
+Mrs. Griggs's story was as follows:--
+
+One day she found the door of the west gable unlocked.  She went
+in, expecting to see bare walls and a collection of odds and ends. 
+Instead she found herself in a finely furnished room.  Delicate
+lace curtains hung before the small, square, broad-silled windows. 
+The walls were adorned with pictures in much finer taste than Mrs.
+Griggs could appreciate.  There was a bookcase between the windows
+filled with choicely bound books.  Beside it stood a little table
+with a very dainty work-basket on it.  By the basket Mrs. Griggs
+saw a pair of tiny scissors and a silver thimble.  A wicker
+rocker, comfortable with silk cushions, was near it.  Above the
+bookcase a woman's picture hung--a water-colour, if Mrs. Griggs
+had but known it--representing a pale, very sweet face, with
+large, dark eyes and a wistful expression under loose masses of
+black, lustrous hair.  Just beneath the picture, on the top shelf
+of the bookcase, was a vaseful of flowers.  Another vaseful stood
+on the table beside the basket.
+
+All this was astonishing enough.  But what puzzled Mrs. Griggs
+completely was the fact that a woman's dress was hanging over a
+chair before the mirror--a pale blue, silken affair.  And on the
+floor beside it were two little blue satin slippers!
+
+Good Mrs. Griggs did not leave the room until she had thoroughly
+explored it, even to shaking out the blue dress and discovering it
+to be a tea-gown--wrapper, she called it.  But she found nothing
+to throw any light on the mystery.  The fact that the simple name
+"Alice" was written on the fly-leaves of all the books only
+deepened it, for it was a name unknown in the Dale family.  In
+this puzzled state she was obliged to depart, nor did she ever
+find the door unlocked again; and, discovering that people thought
+she was romancing when she talked about the mysterious west gable
+at Golden Milestone, she indignantly held her peace concerning the
+whole affair.
+
+But Mrs. Griggs had told no more than the simple truth.  Jasper
+Dale, under all his shyness and aloofness, possessed a nature full
+of delicate romance and poesy, which, denied expression in the
+common ways of life, bloomed out in the realm of fancy and
+imagination.  Left alone, just when the boy's nature was deepening
+into the man's, he turned to this ideal kingdom for all he
+believed the real world could never give him.  Love--a strange,
+almost mystical love--played its part here for him.  He shadowed
+forth to himself the vision of a woman, loving and beloved; he
+cherished it until it became almost as real to him as his own
+personality and he gave this dream woman the name he liked best--
+Alice. In fancy he walked and talked with her, spoke words of love
+to her, and heard words of love in return.  When he came from work
+at the close of day she met him at his threshold in the twilight--
+a strange, fair, starry shape, as elusive and spiritual as a
+blossom reflected in a pool by moonlight--with welcome on her lips
+and in her eyes.
+
+One day, when he was in Charlottetown on business, he had been
+struck by a picture in the window of a store.  It was strangely
+like the woman of his dream love.  He went in, awkward and
+embarrassed, and bought it.  When he took it home he did not know
+where to put it.  It was out of place among the dim old engravings
+of bewigged portraits and conventional landscapes on the walls of
+Golden Milestone.  As he pondered the matter in his garden that
+evening he had an inspiration.  The sunset, flaming on the windows
+of the west gable, kindled them into burning rose.  Amid the
+splendour he fancied Alice's fair face peeping archly down at him
+from the room.  The inspiration came then.  It should be her room;
+he would fit it up for her; and her picture should hang there.
+
+He was all summer carrying out his plan.  Nobody must know or
+suspect, so he must go slowly and secretly.  One by one the
+furnishings were purchased and brought home under cover of
+darkness.  He arranged them with his own hands.  He bought the
+books he thought she would like best and wrote her name in them;
+he got the little feminine knick-knacks of basket and thimble. 
+Finally he saw in a store a pale blue tea-gown and the satin
+slippers.  He had always fancied her as dressed in blue.  He
+bought them and took them home to her room.  Thereafter it was
+sacred to her; he always knocked on its door before he entered; he
+kept it sweet with fresh flowers; he sat there in the purple
+summer evenings and talked aloud to her or read his favourite
+books to her.  In his fancy she sat opposite to him in her rocker,
+clad in the trailing blue gown, with her head leaning on one
+slender hand, as white as a twilight star.
+
+But Carlisle people knew nothing of this--would have thought him
+tinged with mild lunacy if they had known.  To them, he was just
+the shy, simple farmer he appeared.  They never knew or guessed at
+the real Jasper Dale.
+
+One spring Alice Reade came to teach music in Carlisle.  Her
+pupils worshipped her, but the grown people thought she was rather
+too distant and reserved.  They had been used to merry, jolly
+girls who joined eagerly in the social life of the place.  Alice
+Reade held herself aloof from it--not disdainfully, but as one to
+whom these things were of small importance.  She was very fond of
+books and solitary rambles; she was not at all shy but she was as
+sensitive as a flower; and after a time Carlisle people were
+content to let her live her own life and no longer resented her
+unlikeness to themselves.
+
+She boarded with the Armstrongs, who lived beyond Golden Milestone
+around the hill of pines.  Until the snow disappeared she went out
+to the main road by the long Armstrong lane; but when spring came
+she was wont to take a shorter way, down the pine hill, across the
+brook, past Jasper Dale's garden, and out through his lane.  And
+one day, as she went by, Jasper Dale was working in his garden.
+
+He was on his knees in a corner, setting out a bunch of roots--an
+unsightly little tangle of rainbow possibilities.  It was a still
+spring morning; the world was green with young leaves; a little
+wind blew down from the pines and lost itself willingly among the
+budding delights of the garden.  The grass opened eyes of blue
+violets.  The sky was high and cloudless, turquoise-blue, shading
+off into milkiness on the far horizons.  Birds were singing along
+the brook valley.  Rollicking robins were whistling joyously in
+the pines.  Jasper Dale's heart was filled to over-flowing with a
+realization of all the virgin loveliness around him; the feeling
+in his soul had the sacredness of a prayer.  At this moment he
+looked up and saw Alice Reade.
+
+She was standing outside the garden fence, in the shadow of a
+great pine tree, looking not at him, for she was unaware of his
+presence, but at the virginal bloom of the plum trees in a far
+corner, with all her delight in it outblossoming freely in her
+face.  For a moment Jasper Dale believed that his dream love had
+taken visible form before him.  She was like--so like; not in
+feature, perhaps, but in grace and colouring--the grace of a
+slender, lissome form and the colouring of cloudy hair and
+wistful, dark gray eyes, and curving red mouth; and more than all,
+she was like her in expression--in the subtle revelation of
+personality exhaling from her like perfume from a flower.  It was
+as if his own had come to him at last and his whole soul suddenly
+leaped out to meet and welcome her.
+
+Then her eyes fell upon him and the spell was broken.  Jasper
+remained kneeling mutely there, shy man once more, crimson with
+blushes, a strange, almost pitiful creature in his abject
+confusion.  A little smile flickered about the delicate corners of
+her mouth, but she turned and walked swiftly away down the lane.
+
+Jasper looked after her with a new, painful sense of loss and
+loveliness.  It had been agony to feel her conscious eyes upon
+him, but he realized now that there had been a strange sweetness
+in it, too.  It was still greater pain to watch her going from
+him.
+
+He thought she must be the new music teacher but he did not even
+know her name.  She had been dressed in blue, too--a pale, dainty
+blue; but that was of course; he had known she must wear it; and
+he was sure her name must be Alice.  When, later on, he discovered
+that it was, he felt no surprise.
+
+He carried some mayflowers up to the west gable and put them under
+the picture.  But the charm had gone out of the tribute; and
+looking at the picture, he thought how scant was the justice it
+did her.  Her face was so much sweeter, her eyes so much softer,
+her hair so much more lustrous.  The soul of his love had gone
+from the room and from the picture and from his dreams.  When he
+tried to think of the Alice he loved he saw, not the shadowy
+spirit occupant of the west gable, but the young girl who had
+stood under the pine, beautiful with the beauty of moonlight, of
+starshine on still water, of white, wind-swayed flowers growing in
+silent, shadowy places.  He did not then realize what this meant:
+had he realized it he would have suffered bitterly; as it was he
+felt only a vague discomfort--a curious sense of loss and gain
+commingled.
+
+He saw her again that afternoon on her way home.  She did not
+pause by the garden but walked swiftly past.  Thereafter, every
+day for a week he watched unseen to see her pass his home.  Once a
+little child was with her, clinging to her hand.  No child had
+ever before had any part in the shy man's dream life.  But that
+night in the twilight the vision of the rocking-chair was a girl
+in a blue print dress, with a little, golden-haired shape at her
+knee--a shape that lisped and prattled and called her "mother;"
+and both of them were his.
+
+It was the next day that he failed for the first time to put
+flowers in the west gable.  Instead, he cut a loose handful of
+daffodils and, looking furtively about him as if committing a
+crime, he laid them across the footpath under the pine.  She must
+pass that way; her feet would crush them if she failed to see
+them.  Then he slipped back into his garden, half exultant, half
+repentant.  From a safe retreat he saw her pass by and stoop to
+lift his flowers.  Thereafter he put some in the same place every
+day.
+
+When Alice Reade saw the flowers she knew at once who had put them
+there, and divined that they were for her.  She lifted them
+tenderly in much surprise and pleasure.  She had heard all about
+Jasper Dale and his shyness; but before she had heard about him
+she had seen him in church and liked him.  She thought his face
+and his dark blue eyes beautiful; she even liked the long brown
+hair that Carlisle people laughed at.  That he was quite different
+from other people she had understood at once, but she thought the
+difference in his favour.  Perhaps her sensitive nature divined
+and responded to the beauty in his.  At least, in her eyes Jasper
+Dale was never a ridiculous figure.
+
+When she heard the story of the west gable, which most people
+disbelieved, she believed it, although she did not understand it. 
+It invested the shy man with interest and romance.  She felt that
+she would have liked, out of no impertinent curiosity, to solve
+the mystery; she believed that it contained the key to his
+character.
+
+Thereafter, every day she found flowers under the pine tree; she
+wished to see Jasper to thank him, unaware that he watched her
+daily from the screen of shrubbery in his garden; but it was some
+time before she found the opportunity.  One evening she passed
+when he, not expecting her, was leaning against his garden fence
+with a book in his hand.  She stopped under the pine.
+
+"Mr. Dale," she said softly, "I want to thank you for your
+flowers."
+
+Jasper, startled, wished that he might sink into the ground.  His
+anguish of embarrassment made her smile a little.  He could not
+speak, so she went on gently.
+
+"It has been so good of you.  They have given me so much pleasure--
+I wish you could know how much."
+
+"It was nothing--nothing," stammered Jasper.  His book had fallen
+on the ground at her feet, and she picked it up and held it out to
+him.
+
+"So you like Ruskin," she said.  "I do, too.  But I haven't read
+this."
+
+"If you--would care--to read it--you may have it," Jasper
+contrived to say.
+
+She carried the book away with her.  He did not again hide when
+she passed, and when she brought the book back they talked a
+little about it over the fence.  He lent her others, and got some
+from her in return; they fell into the habit of discussing them. 
+Jasper did not find it hard to talk to her now; it seemed as if he
+were talking to his dream Alice, and it came strangely natural to
+him.  He did not talk volubly, but Alice thought what he did say
+was worth while.  His words lingered in her memory and made music. 
+She always found his flowers under the pine, and she always wore
+some of them, but she did not know if he noticed this or not.
+
+One evening Jasper walked shyly with her from his gate up the pine
+hill.  After that he always walked that far with her.  She would
+have missed him much if he had failed to do so; yet it did not
+occur to her that she was learning to love him.  She would have
+laughed with girlish scorn at the idea.  She liked him very much;
+she thought his nature beautiful in its simplicity and purity; in
+spite of his shyness she felt more delightfully at home in his
+society than in that of any other person she had ever met.  He was
+one of those rare souls whose friendship is at once a pleasure and
+a benediction, showering light from their own crystal clearness
+into all the dark corners in the souls of others, until, for the
+time being at least, they reflected his own nobility.  But she
+never thought of love.  Like other girls she had her dreams of a
+possible Prince Charming, young and handsome and debonair.  It
+never occurred to her that he might be found in the shy, dreamy
+recluse of Golden Milestone.
+
+In August came a day of gold and blue.  Alice Reade, coming
+through the trees, with the wind blowing her little dark love-
+locks tricksily about under her wide blue hat, found a fragrant
+heap of mignonette under the pine.  She lifted it and buried her
+face in it, drinking in the wholesome, modest perfume.
+
+She had hoped Jasper would be in his garden, since she wished to
+ask him for a book she greatly desired to read.  But she saw him
+sitting on the rustic seat at the further side.  His back was
+towards her, and he was partially screened by a copse of lilacs.
+
+Alice, blushing slightly, unlatched the garden gate, and went down
+the path.  She had never been in the garden before, and she found
+her heart beating in a strange fashion.
+
+He did not hear her footsteps, and she was close behind him when
+she heard his voice, and realized that he was talking to himself,
+in a low, dreamy tone.  As the meaning of his words dawned on her
+consciousness she started and grew crimson.  She could not move or
+speak; as one in a dream she stood and listened to the shy man's
+reverie, guiltless of any thought of eavesdropping.
+
+"How much I love you, Alice," Jasper Dale was saying, unafraid,
+with no shyness in voice or manner.  "I wonder what you would say
+if you knew.  You would laugh at me--sweet as you are, you would
+laugh in mockery.  I can never tell you.  I can only dream of
+telling you.  In my dream you are standing here by me, dear.  I
+can see you very plainly, my sweet lady, so tall and gracious,
+with your dark hair and your maiden eyes.  I can dream that I tell
+you my love; that--maddest, sweetest dream of all--that you love
+me in return.  Everything is possible in dreams, you know, dear. 
+My dreams are all I have, so I go far in them, even to dreaming
+that you are my wife.  I dream how I shall fix up my dull old
+house for you.  One room will need nothing more--it is your room,
+dear, and has been ready for you a long time--long before that day
+I saw you under the pine.  Your books and your chair and your
+picture are there, dear--only the picture is not half lovely
+enough.  But the other rooms of the house must be made to bloom
+out freshly for you.  What a delight it is thus to dream of what I
+would do for you!  Then I would bring you home, dear, and lead you
+through my garden and into my house as its mistress.  I would see
+you standing beside me in the old mirror at the end of the hall--a
+bride, in your pale blue dress, with a blush on your face.  I
+would lead you through all the rooms made ready for your coming,
+and then to your own.  I would see you sitting in your own chair
+and all my dreams would find rich fulfilment in that royal moment. 
+Oh, Alice, we would have a beautiful life together!  It's sweet to
+make believe about it.  You will sing to me in the twilight, and
+we will gather early flowers together in the spring days.  When I
+come home from work, tired, you will put your arms about me and
+lay your head on my shoulder.  I will stroke it--so--that bonny,
+glossy head of yours.  Alice, my Alice--all mine in my dream--
+never to be mine in real life--how I love you!"
+
+The Alice behind him could bear no more.  She gave a little
+choking cry that betrayed her presence.  Jasper Dale sprang up and
+gazed upon her.  He saw her standing there, amid the languorous
+shadows of August, pale with feeling, wide-eyed, trembling.
+
+For a moment shyness wrung him.  Then every trace of it was
+banished by a sudden, strange, fierce anger that swept over him. 
+He felt outraged and hurt to the death; he felt as if he had been
+cheated out of something incalculably precious--as if sacrilege
+had been done to his most holy sanctuary of emotion.  White, tense
+with his anger, he looked at her and spoke, his lips as pale as if
+his fiery words scathed them.
+
+"How dare you?  You have spied on me--you have crept in and
+listened!  How dare you?  Do you know what you have done, girl?  You
+have destroyed all that made life worth while to me.  My dream is
+dead.  It could not live when it was betrayed.  And it was all I
+had.  Oh, laugh at me--mock me!  I know that I am ridiculous!  What
+of it?  It never could have hurt you!  Why must you creep in like
+this to hear me and put me to shame?  Oh, I love you--I will say
+it, laugh as you will.  Is it such a strange thing that I should
+have a heart like other men?  This will make sport for you!  I, who
+love you better than my life, better than any other man in the
+world can love you, will be a jest to you all your life.  I love
+you--and yet I think I could hate you--you have destroyed my
+dream--you have done me deadly wrong."
+
+"Jasper!  Jasper!" cried Alice, finding her voice.  His anger hurt
+her with a pain she could not endure.  It was unbearable that
+Jasper should be angry with her.  In that moment she realized that
+she loved him--that the words he had spoken when unconscious of
+her presence were the sweetest she had ever heard, or ever could
+hear.  Nothing mattered at all, save that he loved her and was
+angry with her.
+
+"Don't say such dreadful things to me," she stammered, "I did not
+mean to listen.  I could not help it.  I shall never laugh at you. 
+Oh, Jasper"--she looked bravely at him and the fine soul of her
+shone through the flesh like an illuminating lamp--"I am glad that
+you love me!  and I am glad I chanced to overhear you, since you
+would never have had the courage to tell me otherwise.  Glad--
+glad!  Do you understand, Jasper?"
+
+Jasper looked at her with the eyes of one who, looking through
+pain, sees rapture beyond.
+
+"Is it possible?" he said, wonderingly.  "Alice--I am so much
+older than you--and they call me the Awkward Man--they say I am
+unlike other people"--
+
+"You ARE unlike other people," she said softly, "and that is why I
+love you.  I know now that I must have loved you ever since I saw
+you."
+
+"I loved you long before I saw you," said Jasper.
+
+He came close to her and drew her into his arms, tenderly and
+reverently, all his shyness and awkwardness swallowed up in the
+grace of his great happiness.  In the old garden he kissed her
+lips and Alice entered into her own.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+UNCLE BLAIR COMES HOME
+
+
+It happened that the Story Girl and I both got up very early on
+the morning of the Awkward Man's wedding day.  Uncle Alec was
+going to Charlottetown that day, and I, awakened at daybreak by
+the sounds in the kitchen beneath us, remembered that I had
+forgotten to ask him to bring me a certain school-book I wanted. 
+So I hurriedly dressed and hastened down to tell him before he
+went.  I was joined on the stairs by the Story Girl, who said she
+had wakened and, not feeling like going to sleep again, thought
+she might as well get up.
+
+"I had such a funny dream last night," she said.  "I dreamed that
+I heard a voice calling me from away down in Uncle Stephen's Walk--
+'Sara, Sara, Sara,' it kept calling.  I didn't know whose it was,
+and yet it seemed like a voice I knew.  I wakened up while it was
+calling, and it seemed so real I could hardly believe it was a
+dream.  It was bright moonlight, and I felt just like getting up
+and going out to the orchard.  But I knew that would be silly and
+of course I didn't go.  But I kept on wanting to and I couldn't
+sleep any more.  Wasn't it queer?"
+
+When Uncle Alec had gone I proposed a saunter to the farther end
+of the orchard, where I had left a book the preceding evening.  A
+young mom was walking rosily on the hills as we passed down Uncle
+Stephen's Walk, with Paddy trotting before us.  High overhead was
+the spirit-like blue of paling skies; the east was a great arc of
+crystal, smitten through with auroral crimsonings; just above it
+was one milk-white star of morning, like a pearl on a silver sea. 
+A light wind of dawn was weaving an orient spell.
+
+"It's lovely to be up as early as this, isn't it?" said the Story
+Girl.  "The world seems so different just at sunrise, doesn't it?
+It makes me feel just like getting up to see the sun rise every
+morning of my life after this.  But I know I won't.  I'll likely
+sleep later than ever tomorrow morning.  But I wish I could."
+
+"The Awkward Man and Miss Reade are going to have a lovely day for
+their wedding," I said.
+
+"Yes, and I'm so glad.  Beautiful Alice deserves everything good. 
+Why, Bev--why, Bev!  Who is that in the hammock?"
+
+I looked.  The hammock was swung under the two end trees of the
+Walk.  In it a man was lying, asleep, his head pillowed on his
+overcoat.  He was sleeping easily, lightly, and wholesomely.  He
+had a pointed brown beard and thick wavy brown hair.  His cheeks
+were a dusky red and the lashes of his closed eyes were as long
+and dark and silken as a girl's.  He wore a light gray suit, and
+on the slender white hand that hung down over the hammock's edge
+was a spark of diamond fire.
+
+It seemed to me that I knew his face, although assuredly I had
+never seen him before.  While I groped among vague speculations
+the Story Girl gave a queer, choked little cry.  The next moment
+she had sprung over the intervening space, dropped on her knees by
+the hammock, and flung her arms about the man's neck.
+
+"Father!  Father!" she cried, while I stood, rooted to the ground
+in my amazement.
+
+The sleeper stirred and opened two large, exceedingly brilliant
+hazel eyes.  For a moment he gazed rather blankly at the brown-
+curled young lady who was embracing him.  Then a most delightful
+smile broke over his face; he sprang up and caught her to his
+heart.
+
+"Sara--Sara--my little Sara!  To think didn't know you at first
+glance!  But you are almost a woman.  And when I saw you last you
+were just a little girl of eight.  My own little Sara!"
+
+"Father--father--sometimes I've wondered if you were ever coming
+back to me," I heard the Story Girl say, as I turned and scuttled
+up the Walk, realizing that I was not wanted there just then and
+would be little missed.  Various emotions and speculations
+possessed my mind in my retreat; but chiefly did I feel a sense of
+triumph in being the bearer of exciting news.
+
+"Aunt Janet, Uncle Blair is here," I announced breathlessly at the
+kitchen door.
+
+Aunt Janet, who was kneading her bread, turned round and lifted
+floury hands.  Felicity and Cecily, who were just entering the
+kitchen, rosy from slumber, stopped still and stared at me.
+
+"Uncle who?" exclaimed Aunt Janet.
+
+"Uncle Blair--the Story Girl's father, you know.  He's here."
+
+"WHERE?"
+
+"Down in the orchard.  He was asleep in the hammock.  We found him there."
+
+"Dear me!" said Aunt Janet, sitting down helplessly.  "If that
+isn't like Blair!  Of course he couldn't come like anybody else.  I
+wonder," she added in a tone unheard by anyone else save myself,
+"I wonder if he has come to take the child away."
+
+My elation went out like a snuffed candle.  I had never thought of
+this.  If Uncle Blair took the Story Girl away would not life
+become rather savourless on the hill farm?  I turned and followed
+Felicity and Cecily out in a very subdued mood.
+
+Uncle Blair and the Story Girl were just coming out of the
+orchard.  His arm was about her and hers was on his shoulder. 
+Laughter and tears were contending in her eyes.  Only once before--
+when Peter had come back from the Valley of the Shadow--had I
+seen the Story Girl cry.  Emotion had to go very deep with her ere
+it touched the source of tears.  I had always known that she loved
+her father passionately, though she rarely talked of him,
+understanding that her uncles and aunts were not whole-heartedly
+his friends.
+
+But Aunt Janet's welcome was cordial enough, though a trifle
+flustered.  Whatever thrifty, hard-working farmer folk might think
+of gay, Bohemian Blair Stanley in his absence, in his presence
+even they liked him, by the grace of some winsome, lovable quality
+in the soul of him.  He had "a way with him"--revealed even in the
+manner with which he caught staid Aunt Janet in his arms, swung
+her matronly form around as though she had been a slim schoolgirl,
+and kissed her rosy cheek.
+
+"Sister o' mine, are you never going to grow old?" he said.  "Here
+you are at forty-five with the roses of sixteen--and not a gray
+hair, I'll wager."
+
+"Blair, Blair, it is you who are always young," laughed Aunt
+Janet, not ill pleased.  "Where in the world did you come from?
+And what is this I hear of your sleeping all night in the
+hammock?"
+
+"I've been painting in the Lake District all summer, as you know,"
+answered Uncle Blair, "and one day I just got homesick to see my
+little girl.  So I sailed for Montreal without further delay.  I
+got here at eleven last night--the station-master's son drove me
+down.  Nice boy.  The old house was in darkness and I thought it
+would be a shame to rouse you all out of bed after a hard day's
+work.  So I decided that I would spend the night in the orchard. 
+It was moonlight, you know, and moonlight in an old orchard is one
+of the few things left over from the Golden Age."
+
+"It was very foolish of you," said practical Aunt Janet.  "These
+September nights are real chilly.  You might have caught your
+death of cold--or a bad dose of rheumatism."
+
+"So I might.  No doubt it was foolish of me," agreed Uncle Blair
+gaily.  "It must have been the fault, of the moonlight. 
+Moonlight, you know, Sister Janet, has an intoxicating quality. 
+It is a fine, airy, silver wine, such as fairies may drink at
+their revels, unharmed of it; but when a mere mortal sips of it,
+it mounts straightway to his brain, to the undoing of his daylight
+common sense.  However, I have got neither cold nor rheumatism, as
+a sensible person would have done had he ever been lured into
+doing such a non-sensible thing; there is a special Providence for
+us foolish folk.  I enjoyed my night in the orchard; for a time I
+was companioned by sweet old memories; and then I fell asleep
+listening to the murmurs of the wind in those old trees yonder. 
+And I had a beautiful dream, Janet.  I dreamed that the old
+orchard blossomed again, as it did that spring eighteen years ago. 
+I dreamed that its sunshine was the sunshine of spring, not
+autumn.  There was newness of life in my dream, Janet, and the
+sweetness of forgotten words."
+
+"Wasn't it strange about MY dream?" whispered the Story Girl to me.
+
+"Well, you'd better come in and have some breakfast," said Aunt
+Janet.  "These are my little girls--Felicity and Cecily."
+
+"I remember them as two most adorable tots," said Uncle Blair,
+shaking hands.  "They haven't changed quite so much as my own
+baby-child.  Why, she's a woman, Janet--she's a woman."
+
+"She's child enough still," said Aunt Janet hastily.
+
+The Story Girl shook her long brown curls.
+
+"I'm fifteen," she said.  "And you ought to see me in my long
+dress, father."
+
+"We must not be separated any longer, dear heart," I heard Uncle
+Blair say tenderly.  I hoped that he meant he would stay in
+Canada--not that he would take the Story Girl away.
+
+Apart from this we had a gay day with Uncle Blair.  He evidently
+liked our society better than that of the grown-ups, for he was a
+child himself at heart, gay, irresponsible, always acting on the
+impulse of the moment.  We all found him a delightful companion. 
+There was no school that day, as Mr. Perkins was absent, attending
+a meeting of the Teachers' Convention, so we spent most of its
+golden hours in the orchard with Uncle Blair, listening to his
+fascinating accounts of foreign wanderings.  He also drew all our
+pictures for us, and this was especially delightful, for the day
+of the camera was only just dawning and none of us had ever had
+even our photographs taken.  Sara Ray's pleasure was, as usual,
+quite spoiled by wondering what her mother would say of it, for
+Mrs. Ray had, so it appeared, some very peculiar prejudices
+against the taking or making of any kind of picture whatsoever,
+owing to an exceedingly strict interpretation of the second
+commandment.  Dan suggested that she need not tell her mother
+anything about it; but Sara shook her head.
+
+"I'll have to tell her.  I've made it a rule to tell ma everything
+I do ever since the Judgment Day."
+
+"Besides," added Cecily seriously, "the Family Guide says one
+ought to tell one's mother everything."
+
+"It's pretty hard sometimes, though," sighed Sara.  "Ma scolds so
+much when I do tell her things, that it sort of discourages me. 
+But when I think of how dreadful I felt the time of the Judgment
+Day over deceiving her in some things it nerves me up.  I'd do
+almost anything rather than feel like that the next time the
+Judgment Day comes."
+
+"Fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell a story," said Uncle Blair.  "What do
+you mean by speaking of the Judgment Day in the past tense?"
+
+The Story Girl told him the tale of that dreadful Sunday in the
+preceding summer and we all laughed with him at ourselves.
+
+"All the same," muttered Peter, "I don't want to have another
+experience like that.  I hope I'll be dead the next time the
+Judgment Day comes."
+
+"But you'll be raised up for it," said Felix.
+
+"Oh, that'll be all right.  I won't mind that.  I won't know
+anything about it till it really happens.  It's the expecting it
+that's the worst."
+
+"I don't think you ought to talk of such things," said Felicity.
+
+When evening came we all went to Golden Milestone.  We knew the
+Awkward Man and his bride were expected home at sunset, and we
+meant to scatter flowers on the path by which she must enter her
+new home.  It was the Story Girl's idea, but I don't think Aunt
+Janet would have let us go if Uncle Blair had not pleaded for us. 
+He asked to be taken along, too, and we agreed, if he would stand
+out of sight when the newly married pair came home.
+
+"You see, father, the Awkward Man won't mind us, because we're
+only children and he knows us well," explained the Story Girl,
+"but if he sees you, a stranger, it might confuse him and we might
+spoil the homecoming, and that would be such a pity."
+
+So we went to Golden Milestone, laden with all the flowery spoil
+we could plunder from both gardens.  It was a clear amber-tinted
+September evening and far away, over Markdale Harbour, a great
+round red moon was rising as we waited.  Uncle Blair was hidden
+behind the wind-blown tassels of the pines at the gate, but he and
+the Story Girl kept waving their hands at each other and calling
+out gay, mirthful jests.
+
+"Do you really feel acquainted with your father?" whispered Sara
+Ray wonderingly.  "It's long since you saw him."
+
+"If I hadn't seen him for a hundred years it wouldn't make any
+difference that way," laughed the Story Girl.
+
+"S-s-h-s-s-h--they're coming," whispered Felicity excitedly.
+
+And then they came--Beautiful Alice blushing and lovely, in the
+prettiest of pretty blue dresses, and the Awkward Man, so
+fervently happy that he quite forgot to be awkward.  He lifted her
+out of the buggy gallantly and led her forward to us, smiling.  We
+retreated before them, scattering our flowers lavishly on the
+path, and Alice Dale walked to the very doorstep of her new home
+over a carpet of blossoms.  On the step they both paused and
+turned towards us, and we shyly did the proper thing in the way of
+congratulations and good wishes.
+
+"It was so sweet of you to do this," said the smiling bride.
+
+"It was lovely to be able to do it for you, dearest," whispered
+the Story Girl, "and oh, Miss Reade--Mrs. Dale, I mean--we all
+hope you'll be so, so happy for ever."
+
+"I am sure I shall," said Alice Dale, turning to her husband.  He
+looked down into her eyes--and we were quite forgotten by both of
+them.  We saw it, and slipped away, while Jasper Dale drew his
+wife into their home and shut the world out.
+
+We scampered joyously away through the moonlit dusk.  Uncle Blair
+joined us at the gate and the Story Girl asked him what he thought
+of the bride.
+
+"When she dies white violets will grow out of her dust," he
+answered.
+
+"Uncle Blair says even queerer things than the Story Girl,"
+Felicity whispered to me.
+
+And so that beautiful day went away from us, slipping through our
+fingers as we tried to hold it.  It hooded itself in shadows and
+fared forth on the road that is lighted by the white stars of
+evening.  It had been a gift of Paradise.  Its hours had all been
+fair and beloved.  From dawn flush to fall of night there had been
+naught to mar it.  It took with it its smiles and laughter.  But
+it left the boon of memory.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
+
+
+"I am going away with father when he goes.  He is going to spend
+the winter in Paris, and I am to go to school there."
+
+The Story Girl told us this one day in the orchard.  There was a
+little elation in her tone, but more regret.  The news was not a
+great surprise to us.  We had felt it in the air ever since Uncle
+Blair's arrival.  Aunt Janet had been very unwilling to let the
+Story Girl go.  But Uncle Blair was inexorable.  It was time, he
+said, that she should go to a better school than the little
+country one in Carlisle; and besides, he did not want her to grow
+into womanhood a stranger to him.  So it was finally decided that
+she was to go.
+
+"Just think, you are going to Europe," said Sara Ray in an awe-
+struck tone.  "Won't that be splendid!"
+
+"I suppose I'll like it after a while," said the Story Girl
+slowly, "but I know I'll be dreadfully homesick at first.  Of
+course, it will be lovely to be with father, but oh, I'll miss the
+rest of you so much!"
+
+"Just think how WE'LL miss YOU," sighed Cecily.  "It will be so
+lonesome here this winter, with you and Peter both gone.  Oh,
+dear, I do wish things didn't have to change."
+
+Felicity said nothing.  She kept looking down at the grass on
+which she sat, absently pulling at the slender blades.  Presently
+we saw two big tears roll down over her cheeks.  The Story Girl
+looked surprised.
+
+"Are you crying because I'm going away, Felicity?" she asked.
+
+"Of course I am," answered Felicity, with a big sob.  "Do you
+think I've no f-f-eeling?"
+
+"I didn't think you'd care much," said the Story Girl frankly. 
+"You've never seemed to like me very much."
+
+"I d-don't wear my h-heart on my sleeve," said poor Felicity, with
+an attempt at dignity.  "I think you m-might stay.  Your father
+would let you s-stay if you c-coaxed him."
+
+"Well, you see I'd have to go some time," sighed the Story Girl,
+"and the longer it was put off the harder it would be.  But I do
+feel dreadfully about it.  I can't even take poor Paddy.  I'll
+have to leave him behind, and oh, I want you all to promise to be
+kind to him for my sake."
+
+We all solemnly assured her that we would.
+
+"I'll g-give him cream every m-morning and n-night," sobbed
+Felicity, "but I'll never be able to look at him without crying. 
+He'll make me think of you."
+
+"Well, I'm not going right away," said the Story Girl, more
+cheerfully.  "Not till the last of October.  So we have over a
+month yet to have a good time in.  Let's all just determine to
+make it a splendid month for the last.  We won't think about my
+going at all till we have to, and we won't have any quarrels among
+us, and we'll just enjoy ourselves all we possibly can.  So don't
+cry any more, Felicity.  I'm awfully glad you do like me and am
+sorry I'm going away, but let's all forget it for a month."
+
+Felicity sighed, and tucked away her damp handkerchief.
+
+"It isn't so easy for me to forget things, but I'll try," she said
+disconsolately, "and if you want any more cooking lessons before
+you go I'll be real glad to teach you anything I know."
+
+This was a high plane of self-sacrifice for Felicity to attain. 
+But the Story Girl shook her head.
+
+"No, I'm not going to bother my head about cooking lessons this
+last month.  It's too vexing."
+
+"Do you remember the time you made the pudding--" began Peter, and
+suddenly stopped.
+
+"Out of sawdust?" finished the Story Girl cheerfully.  "You
+needn't be afraid to mention it to me after this.  I don't mind
+any more.  I begin to see the fun of it now.  I should think I do
+remember it--and the time I baked the bread before it was raised
+enough."
+
+"People have made worse mistakes than that," said Felicity kindly.
+
+"Such as using tooth-powd--" but here Dan stopped abruptly,
+remembering the Story Girl's plea for a beautiful month.  Felicity
+coloured, but said nothing--did not even LOOK anything.
+
+"We HAVE had lots of fun together one way or another," said
+Cecily, retrospectively.
+
+"Just think how much we've laughed this last year or so," said the
+Story Girl.  "We've had good times together; but I think we'll
+have lots more splendid years ahead."
+
+"Eden is always behind us--Paradise always before," said Uncle
+Blair, coming up in time to hear her.  He said it with a sigh that
+was immediately lost in one of his delightful smiles.
+
+"I like Uncle Blair so much better than I expected to," Felicity
+confided to me.  "Mother says he's a rolling stone, but there
+really is something very nice about him, although he says a great
+many things I don't understand.  I suppose the Story Girl will
+have a very gay time in Paris."
+
+"She's going to school and she'll have to study hard," I said.
+
+"She says she's going to study for the stage," said Felicity. 
+"Uncle Roger thinks it is all right, and says she'll be very
+famous some day.  But mother thinks it's dreadful, and so do I."
+
+"Aunt Julia is a concert singer," I said.
+
+"Oh, that's very different.  But I hope poor Sara will get on all
+right," sighed Felicity.  "You never know what may happen to a
+person in those foreign countries.  And everybody says Paris is
+such a wicked place.  But we must hope for the best," she
+concluded in a resigned tone.
+
+That evening the Story Girl and I drove the cows to pasture after
+milking, and when we came home we sought out Uncle Blair in the
+orchard.  He was sauntering up and down Uncle Stephen's Walk, his
+hands clasped behind him and his beautiful, youthful face uplifted
+to the western sky where waves of night were breaking on a dim
+primrose shore of sunset.
+
+"See that star over there in the south-west?" he said, as we
+joined him.  "The one just above that pine?  An evening star
+shining over a dark pine tree is the whitest thing in the
+universe--because it is LIVING whiteness--whiteness possessing a
+soul.  How full this old orchard is of twilight!  Do you know, I
+have been trysting here with ghosts."
+
+"The Family Ghost?" I asked, very stupidly.
+
+"No, not the Family Ghost.  I never saw beautiful, broken-hearted
+Emily yet.  Your mother saw her once, Sara--that was a strange
+thing," he added absently, as if to himself.
+
+"Did mother really see her?" whispered the Story Girl.
+
+"Well, she always believed she did.  Who knows?"
+
+"Do you think there are such things as ghosts, Uncle Blair?"
+I asked curiously.
+
+"I never saw any, Beverley."
+
+"But you said you were trysting with ghosts here this evening,"
+said the Story Girl.
+
+"Oh, yes--the ghosts of the old years.  I love this orchard 
+because of its many ghosts.  We are good comrades, those ghosts
+and I; we walk and talk--we even laugh together--sorrowful
+laughter that has sorrow's own sweetness.  And always there comes
+to me one dear phantom and wanders hand in hand with me--a lost
+lady of the old years."
+
+"My mother?" said the Story Girl very softly.
+
+"Yes, your mother.  Here, in her old haunts, it is impossible for
+me to believe that she can be dead--that her LAUGHTER can be dead. 
+She was the gayest, sweetest thing--and so young--only three years
+older than you, Sara.  Yonder old house had been glad because of
+her for eighteen years when I met her first."
+
+"I wish I could remember her," said the Story Girl, with a little
+sigh.  "I haven't even a picture of her.  Why didn't you paint
+one, father?"
+
+"She would never let me.  She had some queer, funny, half-playful,
+half-earnest superstition about it.  But I always meant to when
+she would become willing to let me.  And then--she died.  Her twin
+brother Felix died the same day.  There was something strange
+about that, too.  I was holding her in my arms and she was looking
+up at me; suddenly she looked past me and gave a little start. 
+'Felix!' she said.  For a moment she trembled and then she smiled
+and looked up at me again a little beseechingly.  'Felix has come
+for me, dear,' she said.  'We were always together before you
+came--you must not mind--you must be glad I do not have to go
+alone.' Well, who knows?  But she left me, Sara--she left me."
+
+There was that in Uncle Blair's voice that kept us silent for a
+time.  Then the Story Girl said, still very softly:
+
+"What did mother look like, father?  I don't look the least little
+bit like her, do I?"
+
+"No, I wish you did, you brown thing.  Your mother's face was as
+white as a wood-lily, with only a faint dream of rose in her
+cheeks.  She had the eyes of one who always had a song in her
+heart--blue as a mist, those eyes were.  She had dark lashes, and
+a little red mouth that quivered when she was very sad or very
+happy like a crimson rose too rudely shaken by the wind.  She was
+as slim and lithe as a young, white-stemmed birch tree.  How I
+loved her!  How happy we were!  But he who accepts human love must
+bind it to his soul with pain, and she is not lost to me.  Nothing
+is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it."
+
+Uncle Blair looked up at the evening star.  We saw that he had
+forgotten us, and we slipped away, hand in hand, leaving him alone
+in the memory-haunted shadows of the old orchard.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE PATH TO ARCADY
+
+
+October that year gathered up all the spilled sunshine of the
+summer and clad herself in it as in a garment.  The Story Girl had
+asked us to try to make the last month together beautiful, and
+Nature seconded our efforts, giving us that most beautiful of
+beautiful things--a gracious and perfect moon of falling leaves. 
+There was not in all that vanished October one day that did not
+come in with auroral splendour and go out attended by a fair
+galaxy of evening stars--not a day when there were not golden
+lights in the wide pastures and purple hazes in the ripened
+distances.  Never was anything so gorgeous as the maple trees that
+year.  Maples are trees that have primeval fire in their souls. 
+It glows out a little in their early youth, before the leaves
+open, in the redness and rosy-yellowness of their blossoms, but in
+summer it is carefully hidden under a demure, silver-lined
+greenness.  Then when autumn comes, the maples give up trying to
+be sober and flame out in all the barbaric splendour and
+gorgeousness of their real nature, making of the hills things out
+of an Arabian Nights dream in the golden prime of good Haroun
+Alraschid.
+
+You may never know what scarlet and crimson really are until you
+see them in their perfection on an October hillside, under the
+unfathomable blue of an autumn sky.  All the glow and radiance and
+joy at earth's heart seem to have broken loose in a splendid
+determination to express itself for once before the frost of
+winter chills her beating pulses.  It is the year's carnival ere
+the dull Lenten days of leafless valleys and penitential mists
+come.
+
+The time of apple-picking had come around once more and we worked
+joyously.  Uncle Blair picked apples with us, and between him and
+the Story Girl it was an October never to be forgotten.
+
+"Will you go far afield for a walk with me to-day?" he said to her
+and me, one idle afternoon of opal skies, pied meadows and misty hills.
+
+It was Saturday and Peter had gone home; Felix and Dan were
+helping Uncle Alec top turnips; Cecily and Felicity were making
+cookies for Sunday, so the Story Girl and I were alone in Uncle
+Stephen's Walk.
+
+We liked to be alone together that last month, to think the long,
+long thoughts of youth and talk about our futures.  There had
+grown up between us that summer a bond of sympathy that did not
+exist between us and the others.  We were older than they--the
+Story Girl was fifteen and I was nearly that; and all at once it
+seemed as if we were immeasurably older than the rest, and
+possessed of dreams and visions and forward-reaching hopes which
+they could not possibly share or understand.  At times we were
+still children, still interested in childish things.  But there
+came hours when we seemed to our two selves very grown up and old,
+and in those hours we talked our dreams and visions and hopes,
+vague and splendid, as all such are, over together, and so began
+to build up, out of the rainbow fragments of our childhood's
+companionship, that rare and beautiful friendship which was to
+last all our lives, enriching and enstarring them.  For there is
+no bond more lasting than that formed by the mutual confidences of
+that magic time when youth is slipping from the sheath of
+childhood and beginning to wonder what lies for it beyond those
+misty hills that bound the golden road.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked the Story Girl.
+
+"To 'the woods that belt the gray hillside'--ay, and overflow
+beyond it into many a valley purple-folded in immemorial peace,"
+answered Uncle Blair.  "I have a fancy for one more ramble in
+Prince Edward Island woods before I leave Canada again.  But I
+would not go alone.  So come, you two gay youthful things to whom
+all life is yet fair and good, and we will seek the path to
+Arcady.  There will be many little things along our way to make us
+glad.  Joyful sounds will 'come ringing down the wind;' a wealth
+of gypsy gold will be ours for the gathering; we will learn the
+potent, unutterable charm of a dim spruce wood and the grace of
+flexile mountain ashes fringing a lonely glen; we will tryst with
+the folk of fur and feather; we'll hearken to the music of gray
+old firs.  Come, and you'll have a ramble and an afternoon that
+you will both remember all your lives."
+
+We did have it; never has its remembrance faded; that idyllic
+afternoon of roving in the old Carlisle woods with the Story Girl
+and Uncle Blair gleams in my book of years, a page of living
+beauty.  Yet it was but a few hours of simplest pleasure; we
+wandered pathlessly through the sylvan calm of those dear places
+which seemed that day to be full of a great friendliness; Uncle
+Blair sauntered along behind us, whistling softly; sometimes he
+talked to himself; we delighted in those brief reveries of his;
+Uncle Blair was the only man I have ever known who could, when he
+so willed, "talk like a book," and do it without seeming
+ridiculous; perhaps it was because he had the knack of choosing
+"fit audience, though few," and the proper time to appeal to that
+audience.
+
+We went across the fields, intending to skirt the woods at the
+back of Uncle Alec's farm and find a lane that cut through Uncle
+Roger's woods; but before we came to it we stumbled on a sly,
+winding little path quite by accident--if, indeed, there can be
+such a thing as accident in the woods, where I am tempted to think
+we are led by the Good People along such of their fairy ways as
+they have a mind for us to walk in.
+
+"Go to, let us explore this," said Uncle Blair.  "It always drags
+terribly at my heart to go past a wood lane if I can make any
+excuse at all for traversing it:  for it is the by-ways that lead
+to the heart of the woods and we must follow them if we would know
+the forest and be known of it.  When we can really feel its wild
+heart beating against ours its subtle life will steal into our
+veins and make us its own for ever, so that no matter where we go
+or how wide we wander in the noisy ways of cities or over the lone
+ways of the sea, we shall yet be drawn back to the forest to find
+our most enduring kinship."
+
+"I always feel so SATISFIED in the woods," said the Story Girl
+dreamily, as we turned in under the low-swinging fir boughs. 
+"Trees seem such friendly things."
+
+"They are the most friendly things in God's good creation," said
+Uncle Blair emphatically.  "And it is so easy to live with them. 
+To hold converse with pines, to whisper secrets with the poplars,
+to listen to the tales of old romance that beeches have to tell,
+to walk in eloquent silence with self-contained firs, is to learn
+what real companionship is.  Besides, trees are the same all over
+the world.  A beech tree on the slopes of the Pyrenees is just
+what a beech tree here in these Carlisle woods is; and there used
+to be an old pine hereabouts whose twin brother I was well
+acquainted with in a dell among the Apennines.  Listen to those
+squirrels, will you, chattering over yonder.  Did you ever hear
+such a fuss over nothing?  Squirrels are the gossips and busybodies
+of the woods; they haven't learned the fine reserve of its other
+denizens.  But after all, there is a certain shrill friendliness
+in their greeting."
+
+"They seem to be scolding us," I said, laughing.
+
+"Oh, they are not half such scolds as they sound," answered Uncle
+Blair gaily.  "If they would but 'tak a thought and mend ' their
+shrew-like ways they would be dear, lovable creatures enough."
+
+"If I had to be an animal I think I'd like to be a squirrel," said
+the Story Girl.  "It must be next best thing to flying."
+
+"Just see what a spring that fellow gave," laughed Uncle Blair. 
+"And now listen to his song of triumph!  I suppose that chasm he
+cleared seemed as wide and deep to him as Niagara Gorge would to
+us if we leaped over it.  Well, the wood people are a happy folk
+and very well satisfied with themselves."
+
+Those who have followed a dim, winding, balsamic path to the
+unexpected hollow where a wood-spring lies have found the rarest
+secret the forest can reveal.  Such was our good fortune that day. 
+At the end of our path we found it, under the pines, a crystal-
+clear thing with lips unkissed by so much as a stray sunbeam.
+
+"It is easy to dream that this is one of the haunted springs of
+old romance," said Uncle Blair.  "'Tis an enchanted spot this, I
+am very sure, and we should go softly, speaking low, lest we
+disturb the rest of a white, wet naiad, or break some spell that
+has cost long years of mystic weaving."
+
+"It's so easy to believe things in the woods," said the Story
+Girl, shaping a cup from a bit of golden-brown birch bark and
+filling it at the spring.
+
+"Drink a toast in that water, Sara," said Uncle Blair.  "There's
+not a doubt that it has some potent quality of magic in it and the
+wish you wish over it will come true."
+
+The Story Girl lifted her golden-hued flagon to her red lips.  Her
+hazel eyes laughed at us over the brim.
+
+"Here's to our futures," she cried, "I wish that every day of our
+lives may be better than the one that went before."
+
+"An extravagant wish--a very wish of youth," commented Uncle
+Blair, "and yet in spite of its extravagance, a wish that will
+come true if you are true to yourselves.  In that case, every day
+WILL be better than all that went before--but there will be many
+days, dear lad and lass, when you will not believe it."
+
+We did not understand him, but we knew Uncle Blair never explained
+his meaning.  When asked it he was wont to answer with a smile,
+"Some day you'll grow to it.  Wait for that." So we addressed
+ourselves to follow the brook that stole away from the spring in
+its windings and doublings and tricky surprises.
+
+"A brook," quoth Uncle Blair, "is the most changeful, bewitching,
+lovable thing in the world.  It is never in the same mind or mood
+two minutes.  Here it is sighing and murmuring as if its heart
+were broken.  But listen--yonder by the birches it is laughing as
+if it were enjoying some capital joke all by itself."
+
+It was indeed a changeful brook; here it would make a pool, dark
+and brooding and still, where we bent to look at our mirrored
+faces; then it grew communicative and gossiped shallowly over a
+broken pebble bed where there was a diamond dance of sunbeams and
+no troutling or minnow could glide through without being seen. 
+Sometimes its banks were high and steep, hung with slender ashes
+and birches; again they were mere, low margins, green with
+delicate mosses, shelving out of the wood.  Once it came to a
+little precipice and flung itself over undauntedly in an
+indignation of foam, gathering itself up rather dizzily among the
+mossy stones below.  It was some time before it got over its
+vexation; it went boiling and muttering along, fighting with the
+rotten logs that lie across it, and making far more fuss than was
+necessary over every root that interfered with it.  We were
+getting tired of its ill-humour and talked of leaving it, when it
+suddenly grew sweet-tempered again, swooped around a curve--and
+presto, we were in fairyland.
+
+It was a little dell far in the heart of the woods.  A row of
+birches fringed the brook, and each birch seemed more exquisitely
+graceful and golden than her sisters.  The woods receded from it
+on every hand, leaving it lying in a pool of amber sunshine.  The
+yellow trees were mirrored in the placid stream, with now and then
+a leaf falling on the water, mayhap to drift away and be used, as
+Uncle Blair suggested, by some adventurous wood sprite who had it
+in mind to fare forth to some far-off, legendary region where all
+the brooks ran into the sea.
+
+"Oh, what a lovely place!" I exclaimed, looking around me with delight.
+
+"A spell of eternity is woven over it, surely," murmured Uncle
+Blair.  "Winter may not touch it, or spring ever revisit it.  It
+should be like this for ever."
+
+"Let us never come here again," said the Story Girl softly,
+"never, no matter how often we may be in Carlisle.  Then we will
+never see it changed or different.  We can always remember it just
+as we see it now, and it will be like this for ever for us."
+
+"I'm going to sketch it," said Uncle Blair.
+
+While he sketched it the Story Girl and I sat on the banks of the
+brook and she told me the story of the Sighing Reed.  It was a
+very simple little story, that of the slender brown reed which
+grew by the forest pool and always was sad and sighing because it
+could not utter music like the brook and the birds and the winds. 
+All the bright, beautiful things around it mocked it and laughed
+at it for its folly.  Who would ever look for music in it, a
+plain, brown, unbeautiful thing?  But one day a youth came through
+the wood; he was as beautiful as the spring; he cut the brown reed
+and fashioned it according to his liking; and then he put it to
+his lips and breathed on it; and, oh, the music that floated
+through the forest!  It was so entrancing that everything--brooks
+and birds and winds--grew silent to listen to it.  Never had
+anything so lovely been heard; it was the music that had for so
+long been shut up in the soul of the sighing reed and was set free
+at last through its pain and suffering.
+
+I had heard the Story Girl tell many a more dramatic tale; but
+that one stands out for me in memory above them all, partly,
+perhaps, because of the spot in which she told it, partly because
+it was the last one I was to hear her tell for many years--the
+last one she was ever to tell me on the golden road.
+
+When Uncle Blair had finished his sketch the shafts of sunshine
+were turning crimson and growing more and more remote; the early
+autumn twilight was falling over the woods.  We left our dell,
+saying good-bye to it for ever, as the Story Girl had suggested,
+and we went slowly homeward through the fir woods, where a
+haunting, indescribable odour stole out to meet us.
+
+"There is magic in the scent of dying fir," Uncle Blair was saying
+aloud to himself, as if forgetting he was not quite alone.  "It
+gets into our blood like some rare, subtly-compounded wine, and
+thrills us with unutterable sweetnesses, as of recollections from
+some other fairer life, lived in some happier star.  Compared to
+it, all other scents seem heavy and earth-born, luring to the
+valleys instead of the heights.  But the tang of the fir summons
+onward and upward to some 'far-off, divine event'--some spiritual
+peak of attainment whence we shall see with unfaltering, unclouded
+vision the spires of some aerial City Beautiful, or the fulfilment
+of some fair, fadeless land of promise."
+
+He was silent for a moment, then added in a lower tone,
+
+"Felicity, you loved the scent of dying fir.  If you were here
+tonight with me--Felicity--Felicity!"
+
+Something in his voice made me suddenly sad.  I was comforted when
+I felt the Story Girl slip her hand into mine.  So we walked out
+of the woods into the autumn dusk.
+
+We were in a little valley.  Half-way up the opposite slope a
+brush fire was burning clearly and steadily in a maple grove. 
+There was something indescribably alluring in that fire, glowing
+so redly against the dark background of forest and twilit hill.
+
+"Let us go to it," cried Uncle Blair, gaily, casting aside his
+sorrowful mood and catching our hands.  "A wood fire at night has
+a fascination not to be resisted by those of mortal race.  Hasten--
+we must not lose time."
+
+"Oh, it will burn a long time yet," I gasped, for Uncle Blair was
+whisking us up the hill at a merciless rate.
+
+"You can't be sure.  It may have been lighted by some good, honest
+farmer-man, bent on tidying up his sugar orchard, but it may also,
+for anything we know, have been kindled by no earthly woodman as a
+beacon or summons to the tribes of fairyland, and may vanish away
+if we tarry."
+
+It did not vanish and presently we found ourselves in the grove. 
+It was very beautiful; the fire burned with a clear, steady glow
+and a soft crackle; the long arcades beneath the trees were
+illuminated with a rosy radiance, beyond which lurked companies of
+gray and purple shadows.  Everything was very still and dreamy and
+remote.
+
+"It is impossible that out there, just over the hill, lies a
+village of men, where tame household lamps are shining," said
+Uncle Blair.
+
+"I feel as if we must be thousands of miles away from everything
+we've ever known," murmured the Story Girl.
+
+"So you are!" said Uncle Blair emphatically.  "You're back in the
+youth of the race--back in the beguilement of the young world. 
+Everything is in this hour--the beauty of classic myths, the
+primal charm of the silent and the open, the lure of mystery. 
+Why, it's a time and place when and where everything might come
+true--when the men in green might creep out to join hands and
+dance around the fire, or dryads steal from their trees to warm
+their white limbs, grown chilly in October frosts, by the blaze. 
+I wouldn't be much surprised if we should see something of the
+kind.  Isn't that the flash of an ivory shoulder through yonder
+gloom?  And didn't you see a queer little elfin face peering at us
+around that twisted gray trunk?  But one can't be sure.  Mortal
+eyesight is too slow and clumsy a thing to match against the
+flicker of a pixy-litten fire."
+
+Hand in hand we wandered through that enchanted place, seeking the
+folk of elf-land, "and heard their mystic voices calling, from
+fairy knoll and haunted hill." Not till the fire died down into
+ashes did we leave the grove.  Then we found that the full moon
+was gleaming lustrously from a cloudless sky across the valley. 
+Between us and her stretched up a tall pine, wondrously straight
+and slender and branchless to its very top, where it overflowed in
+a crest of dark boughs against the silvery splendour behind it. 
+Beyond, the hill farms were lying in a suave, white radiance.
+
+"Doesn't it seem a long, long time to you since we left home this
+afternoon?" asked the Story Girl.  "And yet it is only a few hours."
+
+Only a few hours--true; yet such hours were worth a cycle of
+common years untouched by the glory and the dream.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+WE LOSE A FRIEND
+
+
+Our beautiful October was marred by one day of black tragedy--the
+day Paddy died.  For Paddy, after seven years of as happy a life
+as ever a cat lived, died suddenly--of poison, as was supposed. 
+Where he had wandered in the darkness to meet his doom we did not
+know, but in the frosty dawnlight he dragged himself home to die. 
+We found him lying on the doorstep when we got up, and it did not
+need Aunt Janet's curt announcement, or Uncle Blair's reluctant
+shake of the head, to tell us that there was no chance of our pet
+recovering this time.  We felt that nothing could be done.  Lard
+and sulphur on his paws would be of no use, nor would any visit to
+Peg Bowen avail.  We stood around in mournful silence; the Story
+Girl sat down on the step and took poor Paddy upon her lap.
+
+"I s'pose there's no use even in praying now," said Cecily
+desperately.
+
+"It wouldn't do any harm to try," sobbed Felicity.
+
+"You needn't waste your prayers," said Dan mournfully, "Pat is
+beyond human aid.  You can tell that by his eyes.  Besides, I
+don't believe it was the praying cured him last time."
+
+"No, it was Peg Bowen," declared Peter, "but she couldn't have
+bewitched him this time for she's been away for months, nobody
+knows where."
+
+"If he could only TELL us where he feels the worst!" said Cecily
+piteously.  "It's so dreadful to see him suffering and not be able
+to do a single thing to help him!"
+
+"I don't think he's suffering much now," I said comfortingly.
+
+The Story Girl said nothing.  She passed and repassed her long
+brown hand gently over her pet's glossy fur.  Pat lifted his head
+and essayed to creep a little nearer to his beloved mistress.  The
+Story Girl drew his limp body close in her arms.  There was a
+plaintive little mew--a long quiver--and Paddy's friendly soul had
+fared forth to wherever it is that good cats go.
+
+"Well, he's gone," said Dan, turning his back abruptly to us.
+
+"It doesn't seem as if it can be true," sobbed Cecily.  "This time
+yesterday morning he was full of life."
+
+"He drank two full saucers of cream," moaned Felicity, "and I saw
+him catch a mouse in the evening.  Maybe it was the last one he
+ever caught."
+
+"He did for many a mouse in his day," said Peter, anxious to pay
+his tribute to the departed.
+
+"'He was a cat--take him for all in all.  We shall not look upon
+his like again,'" quoted Uncle Blair.
+
+Felicity and Cecily and Sara Ray cried so much that Aunt Janet
+lost patience completely and told them sharply that they would
+have something to cry for some day--which did not seem to comfort
+them much.  The Story Girl shed no tears, though the look in her
+eyes hurt more than weeping.
+
+"After all, perhaps it's for the best," she said drearily.  "I've
+been feeling so badly over having to go away and leave Paddy.  No
+matter how kind you'd all be to him I know he'd miss me terribly. 
+He wasn't like most cats who don't care who comes and goes as long
+as they get plenty to eat.  Paddy wouldn't have been contented
+without me."
+
+"Oh, no-o-o, oh, no-o-o," wailed Sara Ray lugubriously.
+
+Felix shot a disgusted glance at her.
+
+"I don't see what YOU are making such a fuss about," he said
+unfeelingly.  "He wasn't your cat."
+
+"But I l-l-oved him," sobbed Sara, "and I always feel bad when my
+friends d-do."
+
+"I wish we could believe that cats went to heaven, like people,"
+sighed Cecily.  "Do you really think it isn't possible?"
+
+Uncle Blair shook his head.
+
+"I'm afraid not.  I'd like to think cats have a chance for heaven,
+but I can't.  There's nothing heavenly about cats, delightful
+creatures though they are."
+
+"Blair, I'm really surprised to hear the things you say to the
+children," said Aunt Janet severely.
+
+"Surely you wouldn't prefer me to tell them that cats DO go to
+heaven," protested Uncle Blair.
+
+"I think it's wicked to carry on about an animal as those children
+do," answered Aunt Janet decidedly, "and you shouldn't encourage
+them.  Here now, children, stop making a fuss.  Bury that cat and
+get off to your apple picking."
+
+We had to go to our work, but Paddy was not to be buried in any
+such off-hand fashion as that.  It was agreed that we should bury
+him in the orchard at sunset that evening, and Sara Ray, who had
+to go home, declared she would be back for it, and implored us to
+wait for her if she didn't come exactly on time.
+
+"I mayn't be able to get away till after milking," she sniffed,
+"but I don't want to miss it.  Even a cat's funeral is better than
+none at all."
+
+"Horrid thing!" said Felicity, barely waiting until Sara was
+out of earshot.
+
+We worked with heavy hearts that day; the girls cried bitterly
+most of the time and we boys whistled defiantly.  But as evening
+drew on we began to feel a sneaking interest in the details of the
+funeral.  As Dan said, the thing should be done properly, since
+Paddy was no common cat.  The Story Girl selected the spot for the
+grave, in a little corner behind the cherry copse, where early
+violets enskied the grass in spring, and we boys dug the grave,
+making it "soft and narrow," as the heroine of the old ballad
+wanted hers made.  Sara Ray, who managed to come in time after
+all, and Felicity stood and watched us, but Cecily and the Story
+Girl kept far aloof.
+
+"This time last night you never thought you'd be digging Pat's
+grave to-night," sighed Felicity.
+
+"We little k-know what a day will bring forth," sobbed Sara. 
+"I've heard the minister say that and it is true."
+
+"Of course it's true.  It's in the Bible; but I don't think you
+should repeat it in connection with a cat," said Felicity
+dubiously.
+
+When all was in readiness the Story Girl brought her pet through
+the orchard where he had so often frisked and prowled.  No useless
+coffin enclosed his breast but he reposed in a neat cardboard box.
+
+"I wonder if it would be right to say 'ashes to ashes and dust to
+dust,'" said Peter.
+
+"No, it wouldn't," averred Felicity.  "It would be real wicked."
+
+"I think we ought to sing a hymn, anyway," asseverated Sara Ray.
+
+"Well, we might do that, if it isn't a very religious one,"
+conceded Felicity.
+
+"How would 'Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore,' do?"
+asked Cecily.  "That never seemed to me a very religious hymn."
+
+"But it doesn't seem very appropriate to a funeral occasion
+either," said Felicity.
+
+"I think 'Lead, kindly light,' would be ever so much more
+suitable," suggested Sara Ray, "and it is kind of soothing and
+melancholy too."
+
+"We are not going to sing anything," said the Story Girl coldly. 
+"Do you want to make the affair ridiculous?  We will just fill up
+the grave quietly and put a flat stone over the top."
+
+"It isn't much like my idea of a funeral," muttered Sara Ray
+discontentedly.
+
+"Never mind, we're going to have a real obituary about him in Our
+Magazine," whispered Cecily consolingly.
+
+"And Peter is going to cut his name on top of the stone," added
+Felicity.  "Only we mustn't let on to the grown-ups until it is
+done, because they might say it wasn't right."
+
+We left the orchard, a sober little band, with the wind of the
+gray twilight blowing round us.  Uncle Roger passed us at the
+gate.
+
+"So the last sad obsequies are over?" he remarked with a grin.
+
+And we hated Uncle Roger.  But we loved Uncle Blair because he
+said quietly,
+
+"And so you've buried your little comrade?"
+
+So much may depend on the way a thing is said.  But not even Uncle
+Blair's sympathy could take the sting out of the fact that there
+was no Paddy to get the froth that night at milking time. 
+Felicity cried bitterly all the time she was straining the milk. 
+Many human beings have gone to their graves unattended by as much
+real regret as followed that one gray pussy cat to his.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+PROPHECIES
+
+
+"Here's a letter for you from father," said Felix, tossing it to
+me as he came through the orchard gate.  We had been picking
+apples all day, but were taking a mid-afternoon rest around the
+well, with a cup of its sparkling cold water to refresh us.
+
+I opened the letter rather indifferently, for father, with all his
+excellent and lovable traits, was but a poor correspondent; his
+letters were usually very brief and very unimportant.
+
+This letter was brief enough, but it was freighted with a message
+of weighty import.  I sat gazing stupidly at the sheet after I had
+read it until Felix exclaimed,
+
+"Bev, what's the matter with you?  What's in that letter?"
+
+"Father is coming home," I said dazedly.  "He is to leave South
+America in a fortnight and will be here in November to take us
+back to Toronto."
+
+Everybody gasped.  Sara Ray, of course, began to cry, which
+aggravated me unreasonably.
+
+"Well," said Felix, when he got his second wind, "I'll be awful
+glad to see father again, but I tell you I don't like the thought
+of leaving here."
+
+I felt exactly the same but, in view of Sara Ray's tears, admit it
+I would not; so I sat in grum silence while the other tongues
+wagged.
+
+"If I were not going away myself I'd feel just terrible," said the
+Story Girl.  "Even as it is I'm real sorry.  I'd like to be able
+to think of you as all here together when I'm gone, having good
+times and writing me about them."
+
+"It'll be awfully dull when you fellows go," muttered Dan.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know what we're ever going to do here this
+winter," said Felicity, with the calmness of despair.
+
+"Thank goodness there are no more fathers to come back," breathed
+Cecily with a vicious earnestness that made us all laugh, even in
+the midst of our dismay.
+
+We worked very half-heartedly the rest of the day, and it was not
+until we assembled in the orchard in the evening that our spirits
+recovered something like their wonted level.  It was clear and
+slightly frosty; the sun had declined behind a birch on a distant
+hill and it seemed a tree with a blazing heart of fire.  The great
+golden willow at the lane gate was laughter-shaken in the wind of
+evening.  Even amid all the changes of our shifting world we could
+not be hopelessly low-spirited--except Sara Ray, who was often so,
+and Peter, who was rarely so.  But Peter had been sorely vexed in
+spirit for several days.  The time was approaching for the October
+issue of Our Magazine and he had no genuine fiction ready for it. 
+He had taken so much to heart Felicity's taunt that his stories
+were all true that he had determined to have a really-truly false
+one in the next number.  But the difficulty was to get anyone to
+write it.  He had asked the Story Girl to do it, but she refused;
+then he appealed to me and I shirked.  Finally Peter determined to
+write a story himself.
+
+"It oughtn't to be any harder than writing a poem and I managed
+that," he said dolefully.
+
+He worked at it in the evenings in the granary loft, and the rest
+of us forebore to question him concerning it, because he evidently
+disliked talking about his literary efforts.  But this evening I
+had to ask him if he would soon have it ready, as I wanted to make
+up the paper.
+
+"It's done," said Peter, with an air of gloomy triumph.  "It don't
+amount to much, but anyhow I made it all out of my own head.  Not
+one word of it was ever printed or told before, and nobody can say
+there was."
+
+"Then I guess we have all the stuff in and I'll have Our Magazine
+ready to read by tomorrow night," I said.
+
+"I s'pose it will be the last one we'll have," sighed Cecily.  "We
+can't carry it on after you all go, and it has been such fun."
+
+"Bev will be a real newspaper editor some day," declared the Story
+Girl, on whom the spirit of prophecy suddenly descended that
+night.
+
+She was swinging on the bough of an apple tree, with a crimson
+shawl wrapped about her head, and her eyes were bright with
+roguish fire.
+
+"How do you know he will?" asked Felicity.
+
+"Oh, I can tell futures," answered the Story Girl mysteriously. 
+"I know what's going to happen to all of you.  Shall I tell you?"
+
+"Do, just for the fun of it," I said.  "Then some day we'll know
+just how near you came to guessing right.  Go on.  What else about me?"
+
+"You'll write books, too, and travel all over the world,"
+continued the Story Girl.  "Felix will be fat to the end of his
+life, and he will be a grandfather before he is fifty, and he will
+wear a long black beard."
+
+"I won't," cried Felix disgustedly.  "I hate whiskers.  Maybe I
+can't help the grandfather part, but I CAN help having a beard."
+
+"You can't.  It's written in the stars."
+
+"'Tain't.  The stars can't prevent me from shaving."
+
+"Won't Grandpa Felix sound awful funny?" reflected Felicity.
+
+"Peter will be a minister," went on the Story Girl.
+
+"Well, I might be something worse," remarked Peter, in a not
+ungratified tone.
+
+"Dan will be a farmer and will marry a girl whose name begins with
+K and he will have eleven children.  And he'll vote Grit."
+
+"I won't," cried scandalized Dan.  "You don't know a thing about
+it.  Catch ME ever voting Grit!  As for the rest of it--I don't
+care.  Farming's well enough, though I'd rather be a sailor."
+
+"Don't talk such nonsense," protested Felicity sharply.  "What on
+earth do you want to be a sailor for and be drowned?"
+
+"All sailors aren't drowned," said Dan.
+
+"Most of them are.  Look at Uncle Stephen."
+
+"You ain't sure he was drowned."
+
+"Well, he disappeared, and that is worse."
+
+"How do you know?  Disappearing might be real easy."
+
+"It's not very easy for your family."
+
+"Hush, let's hear the rest of the predictions," said Cecily.
+
+"Felicity," resumed the Story Girl gravely, "will marry a
+minister."
+
+Sara Ray giggled and Felicity blushed.  Peter tried hard not to
+look too self-consciously delighted.
+
+"She will be a perfect housekeeper and will teach a Sunday School
+class and be very happy all her life."
+
+"Will her husband be happy?" queried Dan solemnly.
+
+"I guess he'll be as happy as your wife," retorted Felicity
+reddening.
+
+"He'll be the happiest man in the world," declared Peter warmly.
+
+"What about me?" asked Sara Ray.
+
+The Story Girl looked rather puzzled.  It was so hard to imagine
+Sara Ray as having any kind of future.  Yet Sara was plainly
+anxious to have her fortune told and must be gratified.
+
+"You'll be married," said the Story Girl recklessly, "and you'll
+live to be nearly a hundred years old, and go to dozens of
+funerals and have a great many sick spells.  You will learn not to
+cry after you are seventy; but your husband will never go to
+church."
+
+"I'm glad you warned me," said Sara Ray solemnly, "because now I
+know I'll make him promise before I marry him that he will go."
+
+"He won't keep the promise," said the Story Girl, shaking her
+head.  "But it is getting cold and Cecily is coughing.  Let us go
+in."
+
+"You haven't told my fortune," protested Cecily disappointedly.
+
+The Story Girl looked very tenderly at Cecily--at the smooth 
+little brown head, at the soft, shining eyes, at the cheeks that
+were often over-rosy after slight exertion, at the little
+sunburned hands that were always busy doing faithful work or quiet
+kindnesses.  A very strange look came over the Story Girl's face;
+her eyes grew sad and far-reaching, as if of a verity they pierced
+beyond the mists of hidden years.
+
+"I couldn't tell any fortune half good enough for you, dearest,"
+she said, slipping her arm round Cecily.  "You deserve everything
+good and lovely.  But you know I've only been in fun--of course I
+don't know anything about what's going to happen to us."
+
+"Perhaps you know more than you think for," said Sara Ray, who
+seemed much pleased with her fortune and anxious to believe it,
+despite the husband who wouldn't go to church.
+
+"But I'd like to be told my fortune, even in fun," persisted
+Cecily.
+
+"Everybody you meet will love you as long as you live." said the
+Story Girl.  "There that's the very nicest fortune I can tell you, 
+and it will come true whether the others do or not, and now we
+must go in."
+
+We went, Cecily still a little disappointed.  In later years I
+often wondered why the Story Girl refused to tell her fortune that
+night.  Did some strange gleam of foreknowledge fall for a moment
+across her mirth-making?  Did she realize in a flash of prescience
+that there was no earthly future for our sweet Cecily?  Not for her
+were to be the lengthening shadows or the fading garland.  The end
+was to come while the rainbow still sparkled on her wine of life,
+ere a single petal had fallen from her rose of joy.  Long life was
+before all the others who trysted that night in the old homestead
+orchard; but Cecily's maiden feet were never to leave the golden
+road.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE LAST NUMBER OF OUR MAGAZINE
+
+
+
+EDITORIAL
+
+It is with heartfelt regret that we take up our pen to announce
+that this will be the last number of Our Magazine.  We have edited
+ten numbers of it and it has been successful beyond our
+expectations.  It has to be discontinued by reason of
+circumstances over which we have no control and not because we
+have lost interest in it.  Everybody has done his or her best for
+Our Magazine.  Prince Edward Island expected everyone to do his
+and her duty and everyone did it.
+
+Mr. Dan King conducted the etiquette department in a way worthy of
+the Family Guide itself.  He is especially entitled to
+commendation because he laboured under the disadvantage of having
+to furnish most of the questions as well as the answers.  Miss
+Felicity King has edited our helpful household department very
+ably, and Miss Cecily King's fashion notes were always up to date. 
+The personal column was well looked after by Miss Sara Stanley and
+the story page has been a marked success under the able management
+of Mr. Peter Craig, to whose original story in this issue, "The
+Battle of the Partridge Eggs," we would call especial attention. 
+The Exciting Adventure series has also been very popular.
+
+And now, in closing, we bid farewell to our staff and thank them
+one and all for their help and co-operation in the past year.  We
+have enjoyed our work and we trust that they have too.  We wish
+them all happiness and success in years to come, and we hope that
+the recollection of Our Magazine will not be held least dear among
+the memories of their childhood.
+
+(SOBS FROM THE GIRLS):  "INDEED IT WON'T!"
+
+
+OBITUARY
+
+On October eighteenth, Patrick Grayfur departed for that bourne
+whence no traveller returns.  He was only a cat, but he had been
+our faithful friend for a long time and we aren't ashamed to be
+sorry for him.  There are lots of people who are not as friendly
+and gentlemanly as Paddy was, and he was a great mouser.  We
+buried all that was mortal of poor Pat in the orchard and we are
+never going to forget him.  We have resolved that whenever the
+date of his death comes round we'll bow our heads and pronounce
+his name at the hour of his funeral.  If we are anywhere where we
+can't say the name out loud we'll whisper it.
+
+
+"Farewell, dearest Paddy, in all the years that are to be
+We'll cherish your memory faithfully."[1]
+
+
+[1] The obituary was written by Mr. Felix King, but the two lines
+of poetry were composed by Miss Sara Ray.
+
+
+MY MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE
+
+My most exciting adventure was the day I fell off Uncle Roger's
+loft two years ago.  I wasn't excited until it was all over
+because I hadn't time to be.  The Story Girl and I were looking
+for eggs in the loft.  It was filled with wheat straw nearly to
+the roof and it was an awful distance from us to the floor.  And
+wheat straw is so slippery.  I made a little spring and the straw
+slipped from under my feet and there I was going head first down
+from the loft.  It seemed to me I was an awful long time falling,
+but the Story Girl says I couldn't have been more than three
+seconds.  But I know that I thought five thoughts and there seemed
+to be quite a long time between them.  The first thing I thought
+was, what has happened, because I really didn't know at first, it
+was so sudden.  Then after a spell I thought the answer, I am
+falling off the loft.  And then I thought, what will happen to me
+when I strike the floor, and after another little spell I thought,
+I'll be killed.  And then I thought, well, I don't care.  I really
+wasn't a bit frightened.  I just was quite willing to be killed. 
+If there hadn't been a big pile of chaff on the barn floor these
+words would never have been written.  But there was and I fell on
+it and wasn't a bit hurt, only my hair and mouth and eyes and ears
+got all full of chaff.  The strange part is that I wasn't a bit
+frightened when I thought I was going to be killed, but after all
+the danger was over I was awfully frightened and trembled so the
+Story Girl had to help me into the house.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE PARTRIDGE EGGS
+
+Once upon a time there lived about half a mile from a forrest a
+farmer and his wife and his sons and daughters and a
+granddaughter.  The farmer and his wife loved this little girl
+very much but she caused them great trouble by running away into
+the woods and they often spent haf days looking for her.  One day
+she wondered further into the forrest than usual and she begun to
+be hungry.  Then night closed in.  She asked a fox where she could
+get something to eat.  The fox told her he knew where there was a
+partridges nest and a bluejays nest full of eggs.  So he led her
+to the nests and she took five eggs out of each.  When the birds
+came home they missed the eggs and flew into a rage.  The bluejay
+put on his topcoat and was going to the partridge for law when he
+met the partridge coming to him.  They lit up a fire and commenced
+sining their deeds when they heard a tremendous howl close behind
+them.  They jumped up and put out the fire and were immejutly
+attacked by five great wolves.  The next day the little girl was
+rambelling through the woods when they saw her and took her
+prisoner.  After she had confessed that she had stole the eggs
+they told her to raise an army.  They would have to fight over the
+nests of eggs and whoever one would have the eggs.  So the
+partridge raised a great army of all kinds of birds except robins
+and the little girl got all the robins and foxes and bees and
+wasps.  And best of all the little girl had a gun and plenty of
+ammunishun.  The leader of her army was a wolf.  The result of the
+battle was that all the birds were killed except the partridge and
+the bluejay and they were taken prisoner and starved to death.
+
+The little girl was then taken prisoner by a witch and cast into a
+dunjun full of snakes where she died from their bites and people
+who went through the forrest after that were taken prisoner by her
+ghost and cast into the same dunjun where they died.  About a year
+after the wood turned into a gold castle and one morning
+everything had vanished except a piece of a tree.
+
+                                       PETER CRAIG.
+
+
+
+(DAN, WITH A WHISTLE:--"Well, I guess nobody can say Peter can't
+write fiction after THAT."
+
+SARA RAY, WIPING AWAY HER TEARS:--"It's a very interesting story,
+but it ends SO sadly."
+
+FELIX:--"What made you call it The Battle of the Partridge Eggs
+when the bluejay had just as much to do with it?"
+
+PETER, SHORTLY:--"Because it sounded better that way."
+
+FELICITY:--"Did she eat the eggs raw?"
+
+SARA RAY:--"Poor little thing, I suppose if you're starving you
+can't be very particular."
+
+CECILY, SIGHING:--"I wish you'd let her go home safe, Peter, and
+not put her to such a cruel death."
+
+BEVERLEY:--"I don't quite understand where the little girl got her
+gun and ammunition."
+
+PETER, SUSPECTING THAT HE IS BEING MADE FUN OF:--"If you could
+write a better story, why didn't you?  I give you the chance."
+
+THE STORY GIRL, WITH A PRETERNATURALLY SOLEMN FACE:--"You
+shouldn't criticize Peter's story like that.  It's a fairy tale, 
+you know, and anything can happen in a fairy tale."
+
+FELICITY:--"There isn't a word about fairies in it!"
+
+CECILY:--"Besides, fairy tales always end nicely and this
+doesn't."
+
+PETER, SULKILY:--"I wanted to punish her for running away from
+home."
+
+DAN:--"Well, I guess you did it all right."
+
+CECILY:--"Oh, well, it was very interesting, and that is all that
+is really necessary in a story." )
+
+
+PERSONALS
+
+Mr. Blair Stanley is visiting friends and relatives in Carlisle. 
+He intends returning to Europe shortly.  His daughter, Miss Sara,
+will accompany him.
+
+Mr. Alan King is expected home from South America next month.  His
+sons will return with him to Toronto.  Beverley and Felix have
+made hosts of friends during their stay in Carlisle and will be
+much missed in social circles.
+
+The Mission Band of Carlisle Presbyterian Church completed their
+missionary quilt last week.  Miss Cecily King collected the
+largest sum on her square.  Congratulations, Cecily.
+
+Mr. Peter Craig will be residing in Markdale after October and
+will attend school there this winter.  Peter is a good fellow and
+we all wish him success and prosperity.
+
+Apple picking is almost ended.  There was an unusually heavy crop
+this year.  Potatoes, not so good.
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENT
+
+Apple pies are the order of the day.
+
+Eggs are a very good price now.  Uncle Roger says it isn't fair to
+have to pay as much for a dozen little eggs as a dozen big ones,
+but they go just as far.
+
+                                     FELICITY KING.
+
+
+ETIQUETTE DEPARTMENT
+
+F-l-t-y.  Is it considered good form to eat peppermints in church?
+Ans.; No, not if a witch gives them to you.
+
+No, F-l-x, we would not call Treasure Island or the Pilgrim's
+Progress dime novels.
+
+Yes, P-t-r, when you call on a young lady and her mother offers
+you a slice of bread and jam it is quite polite for you to accept
+it.
+
+                                          DAN KING.
+
+
+FASHION NOTES
+
+Necklaces of roseberries are very much worn now.
+
+It is considered smart to wear your school hat tilted over your
+left eye.
+
+Bangs are coming in.  Em Frewen has them.  She went to Summerside
+for a visit and came back with them.  All the girls in school are
+going to bang their hair as soon as their mothers will let them. 
+But I do not intend to bang mine.
+
+                                       CECILY KING.
+
+
+(SARA RAY, DESPAIRINGLY:--"I know ma will never let ME have
+bangs.")
+
+
+FUNNY PARAGRAPHS
+
+D-n.  What are details?  C-l-y.  I am not sure, but I think they
+are things that are left over.
+
+(CECILY, WONDERINGLY:--"I don't see why that was put among the
+funny paragraphs.  Shouldn't it have gone in the General
+Information department?")
+
+Old Mr. McIntyre's son on the Markdale Road had been very sick for
+several years and somebody was sympathizing with him because his
+son was going to die.  "Oh," Mr. McIntyre said, quite easy, "he
+might as weel be awa'.  He's only retarding buzziness."
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+GENERAL INFORMATION BUREAU
+
+P-t-r.  What kind of people live in uninhabited places?
+
+Ans.:  Cannibals, likely.
+
+                                        FELIX KING.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+OUR LAST EVENING TOGETHER
+
+
+IT was the evening before the day on which the Story Girl and
+Uncle Blair were to leave us, and we were keeping our last tryst
+together in the orchard where we had spent so many happy hours. 
+We had made a pilgrimage to all the old haunts--the hill field,
+the spruce wood, the dairy, Grandfather King's willow, the Pulpit
+Stone, Pat's grave, and Uncle Stephen's Walk; and now we
+foregathered in the sere grasses about the old well and feasted on
+the little jam turnovers Felicity had made that day specially for
+the occasion.
+
+"I wonder if we'll ever all be together again," sighed Cecily.
+
+"I wonder when I'll get jam turnovers like this again," said the
+Story Girl, trying to be gay but not making much of a success of
+it.
+
+"If Paris wasn't so far away I could send you a box of nice things
+now and then," said Felicity forlornly, "but I suppose there's no
+use thinking of that.  Dear knows what they'll give you to eat
+over there."
+
+"Oh, the French have the reputation of being the best cooks in the
+world," rejoined the Story Girl, "but I know they can't beat your
+jam turnovers and plum puffs, Felicity.  Many a time I'll be
+hankering after them."
+
+"If we ever do meet again you'll be grown up," said Felicity
+gloomily.
+
+"Well, you won't have stood still yourselves, you know."
+
+"No, but that's just the worst of it.  We'll all be different and
+everything will be changed."
+
+"Just think," said Cecily, "last New Year's Eve we were wondering
+what would happen this year; and what a lot of things have
+happened that we never expected.  Oh, dear!"
+
+"If things never happened life would be pretty dull," said the
+Story Girl briskly.  "Oh, don't look so dismal, all of you."
+
+"It's hard to be cheerful when everybody's going away," sighed
+Cecily.
+
+"Well, let's pretend to be, anyway," insisted the Story Girl. 
+"Don't let's think of parting.  Let's think instead of how much
+we've laughed this last year or so.  I'm sure I shall never forget
+this dear old place.  We've had so many good times here."
+
+"And some bad times, too," reminded Felix.
+
+"Remember when Dan et the bad berries last summer?"
+
+"And the time we were so scared over that bell ringing in the
+house," grinned Peter.
+
+"And the Judgment Day," added Dan.
+
+"And the time Paddy was bewitched," suggested Sara Ray.
+
+"And when Peter was dying of the measles," said Felicity.
+
+"And the time Jimmy Patterson was lost," said Dan.  "Gee-whiz, but
+that scared me out of a year's growth."
+
+"Do you remember the time we took the magic seed," grinned Peter.
+
+"Weren't we silly?" said Felicity.  "I really can never look Billy
+Robinson in the face when I meet him.  I'm always sure he's
+laughing at me in his sleeve."
+
+"It's Billy Robinson who ought to be ashamed when he meets you or
+any of us," commented Cecily severely.  "I'd rather be cheated
+than cheat other people."
+
+"Do you mind the time we bought God's picture?" asked Peter.
+
+"I wonder if it's where we buried it yet," speculated Felix.
+
+"I put a stone over it, just as we did over Pat," said Cecily.
+
+"I wish I could forget what God looks like," sighed Sara Ray.  "I
+can't forget it--and I can't forget what the bad place is like
+either, ever since Peter preached that sermon on it."
+
+"When you get to be a real minister you'll have to preach that
+sermon over again, Peter," grinned Dan.
+
+"My Aunt Jane used to say that people needed a sermon on that
+place once in a while," retorted Peter seriously.
+
+"Do you mind the night I et the cucumbers and milk to make me dream?"
+said Cecily. 
+
+And therewith we hunted out our old dream books to read them
+again, and, forgetful of coming partings, laughed over them till
+the old orchard echoed to our mirth.  When we had finished we
+stood in a circle around the well and pledged "eternal friendship"
+in a cup of its unrivalled water.
+
+Then we joined hands and sang "Auld Lang Syne." Sara Ray cried
+bitterly in lieu of singing.
+
+"Look here," said the Story Girl, as we turned to leave the old
+orchard, "I want to ask a favour of you all.  Don't say good-bye
+to me tomorrow morning."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Felicity in astonishment.
+
+"Because it's such a hopeless sort of word. Don't let's SAY it at
+all.  Just see me off with a wave of your hands.  It won't seem
+half so bad then.  And don't any of you cry if you can help it.  I
+want to remember you all smiling."
+
+We went out of the old orchard where the autumn night wind was
+beginning to make its weird music in the russet boughs, and shut
+the little gate behind us.  Our revels there were ended.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE STORY GIRL GOES
+
+
+The morning dawned, rosy and clear and frosty.  Everybody was up
+early, for the travellers must leave in time to catch the nine
+o'clock train.  The horse was harnessed and Uncle Alec was waiting
+by the door.  Aunt Janet was crying, but everybody else was making
+a valiant effort not to.  The Awkward Man and Mrs. Dale came to
+see the last of their favourite.  Mrs. Dale had brought her a
+glorious sheaf of chrysanthemums, and the Awkward Man gave her,
+quite gracefully, another little, old, limp book from his library.
+
+"Read it when you are sad or happy or lonely or discouraged or
+hopeful," he said gravely.
+
+"He has really improved very much since he got married," whispered
+Felicity to me.
+
+Sara Stanley wore a smart new travelling suit and a blue felt hat
+with a white feather.  She looked so horribly grown up in it that
+we felt as if she were lost to us already.
+
+Sara Ray had vowed tearfully the night before that she would be up
+in the morning to say farewell.  But at this juncture Judy Pineau
+appeared to say that Sara, with her usual luck, had a sore throat,
+and that her mother consequently would not permit her to come.  So
+Sara had written her parting words in a three-cornered pink note.
+
+
+"My OWN DARLING FRIEND:--WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS my feelings over not
+being able to go up this morning to say good-bye to one I so
+FONDLY ADORE.  When I think that I cannot SEE YOU AGAIN my heart
+is almost TOO FULL FOR UTTERANCE.  But mother says I cannot and I
+MUST OBEY.  But I will be present IN SPIRIT.  It just BREAKS MY
+HEART that you are going SO FAR AWAY.  You have always been SO
+KIND to me and never hurt my feelings AS SOME DO and I shall miss
+you SO MUCH.  But I earnestly HOPE AND PRAY that you will be HAPPY
+AND PROSPEROUS wherever YOUR LOT IS CAST and not be seasick on THE
+GREAT OCEAN.  I hope you will find time AMONG YOUR MANY DUTIES to
+write me a letter ONCE IN A WHILE.  I shall ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU
+and please remember me.  I hope we WILL MEET AGAIN sometime, but
+if not may we meet in A FAR BETTER WORLD where there are no SAD
+PARTINGS.
+
+"Your true and loving friend,
+
+                                         "SARA RAY"
+
+
+"Poor little Sara," said the Story Girl, with a queer catch in her
+voice, as she slipped the tear-blotted note into her pocket.  "She
+isn't a bad little soul, and I'm sorry I couldn't see her once
+more, though maybe it's just as well for she'd have to cry and set
+us all off.  I WON'T cry.  Felicity, don't you dare.  Oh, you
+dear, darling people, I love you all so much and I'll go on loving
+you always."
+
+"Mind you write us every week at the very least," said Felicity,
+winking furiously.
+
+"Blair, Blair, watch over the child well," said Aunt Janet. 
+"Remember, she has no mother."
+
+The Story Girl ran over to the buggy and climbed in.  Uncle Blair
+followed her.  Her arms were full of Mrs. Dale's chrysanthemums,
+held close up to her face, and her beautiful eyes shone softly at
+us over them.  No good-byes were said, as she wished.  We all
+smiled bravely and waved our hands as they drove out of the lane
+and down the moist red road into the shadows of the fir wood in
+the valley.  But we still stood there, for we knew we should see
+the Story Girl once more.  Beyond the fir wood was an open curve
+in the road and she had promised to wave a last farewell as they
+passed around it.
+
+We watched the curve in silence, standing in a sorrowful little
+group in the sunshine of the autumn morning.  The delight of the
+world had been ours on the golden road.  It had enticed us with
+daisies and rewarded us with roses.  Blossom and lyric had waited
+on our wishes.  Thoughts, careless and sweet, had visited us. 
+Laughter had been our comrade and fearless Hope our guide.  But
+now the shadow of change was over it.
+
+"There she is," cried Felicity.
+
+The Story Girl stood up and waved her chrysanthemums at us.  We
+waved wildly back until the buggy had driven around the curve. 
+Then we went slowly and silently back to the house.  The Story
+Girl was gone.
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery
+
+
+
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