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Title: The Story Girl

Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery

Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5342]
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THE STORY GIRL

By L. M. MONTGOMERY

Author of "Anne of Green Gables," "Anne of Avonlea," "Kilmeny of
the Orchard," etc.

With frontispiece and cover in colour by
GEORGE GIBBS

"She was a form of life and light
That seen, became a part of sight,
And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,
The morning-star of Memory!" --Byron.


TO MY COUSIN

Frederica E. Campbell

IN REMEMBRANCE OF OLD DAYS, OLD DREAMS,
AND OLD LAUGHTER



CONTENTS

      I. The Home of Our Fathers
     II. A Queen of Hearts
    III. Legends of the Old Orchard
     IV. The Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess
      V. Peter Goes to Church
     VI. The Mystery of Golden Milestone
    VII. How Betty Sherman Won a Husband
   VIII. A Tragedy of Childhood
     IX. Magic Seed
      X. A Daughter of Eve
     XI. The Story Girl Does Penance
    XII. The Blue Chest of Rachel Ward
   XIII. An Old Proverb With a New Meaning
    XIV. Forbidden Fruit
     XV. A Disobedient Brother
    XVI. The Ghostly Bell
   XVII. The Proof of the Pudding
  XVIII. How Kissing Was Discovered
    XIX. A Dread Prophecy
     XX. The Judgment Sunday
    XXI. Dreamers of Dreams
   XXII. The Dream Books
  XXIII. Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On
   XXIV. The Bewitchment of Pat
    XXV. A Cup of Failure
   XXVI. Peter Makes an Impression
  XXVII. The Ordeal of Bitter Apples
 XXVIII. The Tale of the Rainbow Bridge
   XXIX. The Shadow Feared of Man
    XXX. A Compound Letter
   XXXI. On the Edge of Light and Dark
  XXXII. The Opening of the Blue Chest



THE STORY GIRL



CHAPTER I. THE HOME OF OUR FATHERS

"I do like a road, because you can be always wondering what is at
the end of it."

The Story Girl said that once upon a time.  Felix and I, on the
May morning when we left Toronto for Prince Edward Island, had
not then heard her say it, and, indeed, were but barely aware of
the existence of such a person as the Story Girl.  We did not
know her at all under that name.  We knew only that a cousin,
Sara Stanley, whose mother, our Aunt Felicity, was dead, was
living down on the Island with Uncle Roger and Aunt Olivia King,
on a farm adjoining the old King homestead in Carlisle.  We
supposed we should get acquainted with her when we reached there,
and we had an idea, from Aunt Olivia's letters to father, that
she would be quite a jolly creature.  Further than that we did
not think about her.  We were more interested in Felicity and
Cecily and Dan, who lived on the homestead and would therefore be
our roofmates for a season.

But the spirit of the Story Girl's yet unuttered remark was
thrilling in our hearts that morning, as the train pulled out of
Toronto.  We were faring forth on a long road; and, though we had
some idea what would be at the end of it, there was enough
glamour of the unknown about it to lend a wonderful charm to our
speculations concerning it.

We were delighted at the thought of seeing father's old home, and
living among the haunts of his boyhood.  He had talked so much to
us about it, and described its scenes so often and so minutely,
that he had inspired us with some of his own deep-seated
affection for it--an affection that had never waned in all his
years of exile.  We had a vague feeling that we, somehow,
belonged there, in that cradle of our family, though we had never
seen it.  We had always looked forward eagerly to the promised
day when father would take us "down home," to the old house with
the spruces behind it and the famous "King orchard" before
it--when we might ramble in "Uncle Stephen's Walk," drink from
the deep well with the Chinese roof over it, stand on "the Pulpit
Stone," and eat apples from our "birthday trees."

The time had come sooner than we had dared to hope; but father
could not take us after all.  His firm asked him to go to Rio de
Janeiro that spring to take charge of their new branch there.  It
was too good a chance to lose, for father was a poor man and it
meant promotion and increase of salary; but it also meant the
temporary breaking up of our home.  Our mother had died before
either of us was old enough to remember her; father could not
take us to Rio de Janeiro.  In the end he decided to send us to
Uncle Alec and Aunt Janet down on the homestead; and our
housekeeper, who belonged to the Island and was now returning to
it, took charge of us on the journey.  I fear she had an anxious
trip of it, poor woman!  She was constantly in a quite
justifiable terror lest we should be lost or killed; she must
have felt great relief when she reached Charlottetown and handed
us over to the keeping of Uncle Alec. Indeed, she said as much.

"The fat one isn't so bad. He isn't so quick to move and get out
of your sight while you're winking as the thin one.  But the only
safe way to travel with those young ones would be to have 'em
both tied to you with a short rope--a MIGHTY short rope."

"The fat one" was Felix, who was very sensitive about his
plumpness. He was always taking exercises to make him thin, with
the dismal result that he became fatter all the time.  He vowed
that he didn't care; but he DID care terribly, and he glowered at
Mrs. MacLaren in a most undutiful fashion.  He had never liked
her since the day she had told him he would soon be as broad as
he was long.

For my own part, I was rather sorry to see her going; and she
cried over us and wished us well; but we had forgotten all about
her by the time we reached the open country, driving along, one
on either side of Uncle Alec, whom we loved from the moment we
saw him.  He was a small man, with thin, delicate features,
close-clipped gray beard, and large, tired, blue eyes--father's
eyes over again.  We knew that Uncle Alec was fond of children
and was heart-glad to welcome "Alan's boys."  We felt at home
with him, and were not afraid to ask him questions on any subject
that came uppermost in our minds.  We became very good friends
with him on that twenty-four mile drive.

Much to our disappointment it was dark when we reached
Carlisle--too dark to see anything very distinctly, as we drove
up the lane of the old King homestead on the hill.  Behind us a
young moon was hanging over southwestern meadows of spring-time
peace, but all about us were the soft, moist shadows of a May
night.  We peered eagerly through the gloom.

"There's the big willow, Bev," whispered Felix excitedly, as we
turned in at the gate.

There it was, in truth--the tree Grandfather King had planted
when he returned one evening from ploughing in the brook field
and stuck the willow switch he had used all day in the soft soil
by the gate.

It had taken root and grown; our father and our uncles and aunts
had played in its shadow; and now it was a massive thing, with a
huge girth of trunk and great spreading boughs, each of them as
large as a tree in itself.

"I'm going to climb it to-morrow," I said joyfully.

Off to the right was a dim, branching place which we knew was the
orchard; and on our left, among sibilant spruces and firs, was
the old, whitewashed house--from which presently a light gleamed
through an open door, and Aunt Janet, a big, bustling, sonsy
woman, with full-blown peony cheeks, came to welcome us.

Soon after we were at supper in the kitchen, with its low, dark,
raftered ceiling from which substantial hams and flitches of
bacon were hanging.  Everything was just as father had described
it.  We felt that we had come home, leaving exile behind us.

Felicity, Cecily, and Dan were sitting opposite us, staring at us
when they thought we would be too busy eating to see them.  We
tried to stare at them when THEY were eating; and as a result we
were always catching each other at it and feeling cheap and
embarrassed.

Dan was the oldest; he was my age--thirteen.  He was a lean,
freckled fellow with rather long, lank, brown hair and the
shapely King nose.  We recognized it at once.  His mouth was his
own, however, for it was like to no mouth on either the King or
the Ward side; and nobody would have been anxious to claim it,
for it was an undeniably ugly one--long and narrow and twisted.
But it could grin in friendly fashion, and both Felix and I felt
that we were going to like Dan.

Felicity was twelve. She had been called after Aunt Felicity, who
was the twin sister of Uncle Felix.  Aunt Felicity and Uncle
Felix, as father had often told us, had died on the same day, far
apart, and were buried side by side in the old Carlisle
graveyard.

We had known from Aunt Olivia's letters, that Felicity was the
beauty of the connection, and we had been curious to see her on
that account.  She fully justified our expectations.  She was
plump and dimpled, with big, dark-blue, heavy-lidded eyes, soft,
feathery, golden curls, and a pink and white skin--"the King
complexion."  The Kings were noted for their noses and
complexion.  Felicity had also delightful hands and wrists.  At
every turn of them a dimple showed itself.  It was a pleasure to
wonder what her elbows must be like.

She was very nicely dressed in a pink print and a frilled muslin
apron; and we understood, from something Dan said, that she had
"dressed up" in honour of our coming.  This made us feel quite
important.  So far as we knew, no feminine creatures had ever
gone to the pains of dressing up on our account before.

Cecily, who was eleven, was pretty also--or would have been had
Felicity not been there.  Felicity rather took the colour from
other girls.  Cecily looked pale and thin beside her; but she had
dainty little features, smooth brown hair of satin sheen, and
mild brown eyes, with just a hint of demureness in them now and
again.  We remembered that Aunt Olivia had written to father that
Cecily was a true Ward--she had no sense of humour.  We did not
know what this meant, but we thought it was not exactly
complimentary.

Still, we were both inclined to think we would like Cecily better
than Felicity. To be sure, Felicity was a stunning beauty.  But,
with the swift and unerring intuition of childhood, which feels
in a moment what it sometimes takes maturity much time to
perceive, we realized that she was rather too well aware of her
good looks.  In brief, we saw that Felicity was vain.

"It's a wonder the Story Girl isn't over to see you," said Uncle
Alec.  "She's been quite wild with excitement about your coming."

"She hasn't been very well all day," explained Cecily, "and Aunt
Olivia wouldn't let her come out in the night air.  She made her
go to bed instead.  The Story Girl was awfully disappointed."

"Who is the Story Girl?" asked Felix.

"Oh, Sara--Sara Stanley.  We call her the Story Girl partly
because she's such a hand to tell stories--oh, I can't begin to
describe it--and partly because Sara Ray, who lives at the foot
of the hill, often comes up to play with us, and it is awkward to
have two girls of the same name in the same crowd.  Besides, Sara
Stanley doesn't like her name and she'd rather be called the
Story Girl."

Dan speaking for the first time, rather sheepishly volunteered
the information that Peter had also been intending to come over
but had to go home to take some flour to his mother instead.

"Peter?" I questioned.  I had never heard of any Peter.

"He is your Uncle Roger's handy boy," said Uncle Alec.  "His name
is Peter Craig, and he is a real smart little chap.  But he's got
his share of mischief, that same lad."

"He wants to be Felicity's beau," said Dan slyly.

"Don't talk silly nonsense, Dan," said Aunt Janet severely.

Felicity tossed her golden head and shot an unsisterly glance at
Dan.

"I wouldn't be very likely to have a hired boy for a beau," she
observed.

We saw that her anger was real, not affected.  Evidently Peter
was not an admirer of whom Felicity was proud.

We were very hungry boys; and when we had eaten all we could--and
oh, what suppers Aunt Janet always spread!--we discovered that we
were very tired also--too tired to go out and explore our
ancestral domains, as we would have liked to do, despite the
dark.

We were quite willing to go to bed; and presently we found
ourselves tucked away upstairs in the very room, looking out
eastward into the spruce grove, which father had once occupied.
Dan shared it with us, sleeping in a bed of his own in the
opposite corner.  The sheets and pillow-slips were fragrant with
lavender, and one of Grandmother King's noted patchwork quilts
was over us.  The window was open and we heard the frogs singing
down in the swamp of the brook meadow.  We had heard frogs sing
in Ontario, of course; but certainly Prince Edward Island frogs
were more tuneful and mellow.  Or was it simply the glamour of
old family traditions and tales which was over us, lending its
magic to all sights and sounds around us?  This was home--
father's home--OUR home!  We had never lived long enough in any
one house to develop a feeling of affection for it; but here,
under the roof-tree built by Great-Grandfather King ninety years
ago, that feeling swept into our boyish hearts and souls like a
flood of living sweetness and tenderness.

"Just think, those are the very frogs father listened to when he
was a little boy," whispered Felix.

"They can hardly be the SAME frogs," I objected doubtfully, not
feeling very certain about the possible longevity of frogs.
"It's twenty years since father left home."

"Well, they're the descendants of the frogs he heard," said
Felix, "and they're singing in the same swamp.  That's near
enough."

Our door was open and in their room across the narrow hall the
girls were preparing for bed, and talking rather more loudly than
they might have done had they realized how far their sweet,
shrill voices carried.

"What do you think of the boys?" asked Cecily.

"Beverley is handsome, but Felix is too fat," answered Felicity
promptly.

Felix twitched the quilt rather viciously and grunted.  But I
began to think I would like Felicity.  It might not be altogether
her fault that she was vain.  How could she help it when she
looked in the mirror?

"I think they're both nice and nice looking," said Cecily.

Dear little soul!

"I wonder what the Story Girl will think of them," said Felicity,
as if, after all, that was the main thing.

Somehow, we, too, felt that it was.  We felt that if the Story
Girl did not approve of us it made little difference who else did
or did not.

"I wonder if the Story Girl is pretty," said Felix aloud.

"No, she isn't," said Dan instantly, from across the room.  "But
you'll think she is while she's talking to you.  Everybody does.
It's only when you go away from her that you find out she isn't a
bit pretty after all."

The girls' door shut with a bang.  Silence fell over the house.
We drifted into the land of sleep, wondering if the Story Girl
would like us.



CHAPTER II. A QUEEN OF HEARTS

I wakened shortly after sunrise.  The pale May sunshine was
showering through the spruces, and a chill, inspiring wind was
tossing the boughs about.

"Felix, wake up," I whispered, shaking him.

"What's the matter?" he murmured reluctantly.

"It's morning.  Let's get up and go down and out.  I can't wait
another minute to see the places father has told us of."

We slipped out of bed and dressed, without arousing Dan, who was
still slumbering soundly, his mouth wide open, and his
bed-clothes kicked off on the floor.  I had hard work to keep
Felix from trying to see if he could "shy" a marble into that
tempting open mouth.  I told him it would waken Dan, who would
then likely insist on getting up and accompanying us, and it
would be so much nicer to go by ourselves for the first time.

Everything was very still as we crept downstairs.  Out in the
kitchen we heard some one, presumably Uncle Alec, lighting the
fire; but the heart of house had not yet begun to beat for the
day.

We paused a moment in the hall to look at the big "Grandfather"
clock.  It was not going, but it seemed like an old, familiar
acquaintance to us, with the gilt balls on its three peaks; the
little dial and pointer which would indicate the changes of the
moon, and the very dent in its wooden door which father had made
when he was a boy, by kicking it in a fit of naughtiness.

Then we opened the front door and stepped out, rapture swelling
in our bosoms.  There was a rare breeze from the south blowing to
meet us; the shadows of the spruces were long and clear-cut; the
exquisite skies of early morning, blue and wind-winnowed, were
over us; away to the west, beyond the brook field, was a long
valley and a hill purple with firs and laced with still leafless
beeches and maples.

Behind the house was a grove of fir and spruce, a dim, cool place
where the winds were fond of purring and where there was always a
resinous, woodsy odour.  On the further side of it was a thick
plantation of slender silver birches and whispering poplars; and
beyond it was Uncle Roger's house.

Right before us, girt about with its trim spruce hedge, was the
famous King orchard, the history of which was woven into our
earliest recollections.  We knew all about it, from father's
descriptions, and in fancy we had roamed in it many a time and
oft.

It was now nearly sixty years since it had had its beginning,
when Grandfather King brought his bride home.  Before the wedding
he had fenced off the big south meadow that sloped to the sun; it
was the finest, most fertile field on the farm, and the
neighbours told young Abraham King that he would raise many a
fine crop of wheat in that meadow.  Abraham King smiled and,
being a man of few words, said nothing; but in his mind he had a
vision of the years to be, and in that vision he saw, not
rippling acres of harvest gold, but great, leafy avenues of
wide-spreading trees laden with fruit to gladden the eyes of
children and grandchildren yet unborn.

It was a vision to develop slowly into fulfilment.  Grandfather
King was in no hurry.  He did not set his whole orchard out at
once, for he wished it to grow with his life and history, and be
bound up with all of good and joy that should come to his
household.  So the morning after he had brought his young wife
home they went together to the south meadow and planted their
bridal trees.  These trees were no longer living; but they had
been when father was a boy, and every spring bedecked themselves
in blossom as delicately tinted as Elizabeth King's face when she
walked through the old south meadow in the morn of her life and
love.

When a son was born to Abraham and Elizabeth a tree was planted
in the orchard for him.  They had fourteen children in all, and
each child had its "birth tree."  Every family festival was
commemorated in like fashion, and every beloved visitor who spent
a night under their roof was expected to plant a tree in the
orchard.  So it came to pass that every tree in it was a fair
green monument to some love or delight of the vanished years.
And each grandchild had its tree, there, also, set out by
grandfather when the tidings of its birth reached him; not always
an apple tree--perhaps it was a plum, or cherry or pear.  But it
was always known by the name of the person for whom, or by whom,
it was planted; and Felix and I knew as much about "Aunt
Felicity's pears," and "Aunt Julia's cherries," and "Uncle Alec's
apples," and the "Rev. Mr. Scott's plums," as if we had been born
and bred among them.

And now we had come to the orchard; it was before us; we had only
to open that little whitewashed gate in the hedge and we might
find ourselves in its storied domain.  But before we reached the
gate we glanced to our left, along the grassy, spruce-bordered
lane which led over to Uncle Roger's; and at the entrance of that
lane we saw a girl standing, with a gray cat at her feet.  She
lifted her hand and beckoned blithely to us; and, the orchard
forgotten, we followed her summons.  For we knew that this must
be the Story Girl; and in that gay and graceful gesture was an
allurement not to be gainsaid or denied.

We looked at her as we drew near with such interest that we
forgot to feel shy.  No, she was not pretty.  She was tall for
her fourteen years, slim and straight; around her long, white
face--rather too long and too white--fell sleek, dark-brown
curls, tied above either ear with rosettes of scarlet ribbon.
Her large, curving mouth was as red as a poppy, and she had
brilliant, almond-shaped, hazel eyes; but we did not think her
pretty.

Then she spoke; she said,

"Good morning."

Never had we heard a voice like hers.  Never, in all my life
since, have I heard such a voice.  I cannot describe it.  I might
say it was clear; I might say it was sweet; I might say it was
vibrant and far-reaching and bell-like; all this would be true,
but it would give you no real idea of the peculiar quality which
made the Story Girl's voice what it was.

If voices had colour, hers would have been like a rainbow.  It
made words LIVE.  Whatever she said became a breathing entity,
not a mere verbal statement or utterance.  Felix and I were too
young to understand or analyze the impression it made upon us;
but we instantly felt at her greeting that it WAS a good
morning--a surpassingly good morning -- the very best morning
that had ever happened in this most excellent of worlds.

"You are Felix and Beverley," she went on, shaking our hands with
an air of frank comradeship, which was very different from the
shy, feminine advances of Felicity and Cecily.  From that moment
we were as good friends as if we had known each other for a
hundred years.  "I am glad to see you.  I was so disappointed I
couldn't go over last night.  I got up early this morning,
though, for I felt sure you would be up early, too, and that
you'd like to have me tell you about things.  I can tell things
so much better than Felicity or Cecily.  Do you think Felicity is
VERY pretty?"

"She's the prettiest girl I ever saw," I said enthusiastically,
remembering that Felicity had called me handsome.

"The boys all think so," said the Story Girl, not, I fancied,
quite well pleased.  "And I suppose she is.  She is a splendid
cook, too, though she is only twelve.  I can't cook.  I am trying
to learn, but I don't make much progress.  Aunt Olivia says I
haven't enough natural gumption ever to be a cook; but I'd love
to be able to make as good cakes and pies as Felicity can make.
But then, Felicity is stupid.  It's not ill-natured of me to say
that.  It's just the truth, and you'd soon find it out for
yourselves.  I like Felicity very well, but she IS stupid.
Cecily is ever so much cleverer.  Cecily's a dear.  So is Uncle
Alec; and Aunt Janet is pretty nice, too."

"What is Aunt Olivia like?" asked Felix.

"Aunt Olivia is very pretty.  She is just like a pansy--all
velvety and purply and goldy."

Felix and I SAW, somewhere inside of our heads, a velvet and
purple and gold pansy-woman, just as the Story Girl spoke.

"But is she NICE?" I asked.  That was the main question about
grown-ups.  Their looks mattered little to us.

"She is lovely.  But she is twenty-nine, you know.  That's pretty
old.  She doesn't bother me much.  Aunt Janet says that I'd have
no bringing up at all, if it wasn't for her.  Aunt Olivia says
children should just be let COME up--that everything else is
settled for them long before they are born.  I don't understand
that.  Do you?"

No, we did not.  But it was our experience that grown-ups had a
habit of saying things hard to understand.

"What is Uncle Roger like?" was our next question.

"Well, I like Uncle Roger," said the Story Girl meditatively.
"He is big and jolly.  But he teases people too much.  You ask
him a serious question and you get a ridiculous answer.  He
hardly ever scolds or gets cross, though, and THAT is something.
He is an old bachelor."

"Doesn't he ever mean to get married?" asked Felix.

"I don't know.  Aunt Olivia wishes he would, because she's tired
keeping house for him, and she wants to go to Aunt Julia in
California.  But she says he'll never get married, because he is
looking for perfection, and when he finds her she won't have
HIM."

By this time we were all sitting down on the gnarled roots of the
spruces, and the big gray cat came over and made friends with us.
He was a lordly animal, with a silver-gray coat beautifully
marked with darker stripes.  With such colouring most cats would
have had white or silver feet; but he had four black paws and a
black nose.  Such points gave him an air of distinction, and
marked him out as quite different from the common or garden
variety of cats.  He seemed to be a cat with a tolerably good
opinion of himself, and his response to our advances was slightly
tinged with condescension.

"This isn't Topsy, is it?" I asked.  I knew at once that the
question was a foolish one.  Topsy, the cat of which father had
talked, had flourished thirty years before, and all her nine
lives could scarcely have lasted so long.

"No, but it is Topsy's great-great-great-great-grandson," said
the Story Girl gravely.  "His name is Paddy and he is my own
particular cat.  We have barn cats, but Paddy never associates
with them.  I am very good friends with all cats.  They are so
sleek and comfortable and dignified.  And it is so easy to make
them happy.  Oh, I'm so glad you boys have come to live here.
Nothing ever happens here, except days, so we have to make our
own good times.  We were short of boys before--only Dan and Peter
to four girls."

"FOUR girls?  Oh, yes, Sara Ray.  Felicity mentioned her.  What
is she like?  Where does she live?"

"Just down the hill.  You can't see the house for the spruce
bush.  Sara is a nice girl.  She's only eleven, and her mother is
dreadfully strict.  She never allows Sara to read a single story.
JUST you fancy!  Sara's conscience is always troubling her for
doing things she's sure her mother won't approve, but it never
prevents her from doing them.  It only spoils her fun.  Uncle
Roger says that a mother who won't let you do anything, and a
conscience that won't let you enjoy anything is an awful
combination, and he doesn't wonder Sara is pale and thin and
nervous.  But, between you and me, I believe the real reason is
that her mother doesn't give her half enough to eat.  Not that
she's mean, you know--but she thinks it isn't healthy for
children to eat much, or anything but certain things.  Isn't it
fortunate we weren't born into that sort of a family?"

"I think it's awfully lucky we were all born into the same
family," Felix remarked.

"Isn't it?  I've often thought so.  And I've often thought what a
dreadful thing it would have been if Grandfather and Grandmother
King had never got married to each other.  I don't suppose there
would have been a single one of us children here at all; or if we
were, we would be part somebody else and that would be almost as
bad.  When I think it all over I can't feel too thankful that
Grandfather and Grandmother King happened to marry each other,
when there were so many other people they might have married."

Felix and I shivered.  We felt suddenly that we had escaped a
dreadful danger--the danger of having been born somebody else.
But it took the Story Girl to make us realize just how dreadful
it was and what a terrible risk we had run years before we, or
our parents either, had existed.

"Who lives over there?" I asked, pointing to a house across the
fields.

"Oh, that belongs to the Awkward Man.  His name is Jasper Dale,
but everybody calls him the Awkward Man.  And they do say he
writes poetry.  He calls his place Golden Milestone.  I know why,
because I've read Longfellow's poems.  He never goes into society
because he is so awkward.  The girls laugh at him and he doesn't
like it.  I know a story about him and I'll tell it to you
sometime."

"And who lives in that other house?" asked Felix, looking over
the westering valley where a little gray roof was visible among
the trees.

"Old Peg Bowen.  She's very queer.  She lives there with a lot of
pet animals in winter, and in summer she roams over the country
and begs her meals.  They say she is crazy.  People have always
tried to frighten us children into good behaviour by telling us
that Peg Bowen would catch us if we didn't behave.  I'm not so
frightened of her as I once was, but I don't think I would like
to be caught by her.  Sara Ray is dreadfully scared of her.
Peter Craig says she is a witch and that he bets she's at the
bottom of it when the butter won't come.  But I don't believe
THAT.  Witches are so scarce nowadays.  There may be some
somewhere in the world, but it's not likely there are any here
right in Prince Edward Island.  They used to be very plenty long
ago.  I know some splendid witch stories I'll tell you some day.
They'll just make your blood freeze in your veins."

We hadn't a doubt of it.  If anybody could freeze the blood in
our veins this girl with the wonderful voice could.  But it was a
May morning, and our young blood was running blithely in our
veins.  We suggested a visit to the orchard would be more
agreeable.

"All right.  I know stories about it, too," she said, as we
walked across the yard, followed by Paddy of the waving tail.
"Oh, aren't you glad it is spring?  The beauty of winter is that
it makes you appreciate spring."

The latch of the gate clicked under the Story Girl's hand, and
the next moment we were in the King orchard.



CHAPTER III. LEGENDS OF THE OLD ORCHARD

Outside of the orchard the grass was only beginning to grow
green; but here, sheltered by the spruce hedges from uncertain
winds and sloping to southern suns, it was already like a
wonderful velvet carpet; the leaves on the trees were beginning
to come out in woolly, grayish clusters; and there were
purple-pencilled white violets at the base of the Pulpit Stone.

"It's all just as father described it," said Felix with a
blissful sigh, "and there's the well with the Chinese roof."

We hurried over to it, treading on the spears of mint that were
beginning to shoot up about it.  It was a very deep well, and the
curb was of rough, undressed stones.  Over it, the queer,
pagoda-like roof, built by Uncle Stephen on his return from a
voyage to China, was covered with yet leafless vines.

"It's so pretty, when the vines leaf out and hang down in long
festoons," said the Story Girl.  "The birds build their nests in
it.  A pair of wild canaries come here every summer.  And ferns
grow out between the stones of the well as far down as you can
see.  The water is lovely.  Uncle Edward preached his finest
sermon about the Bethlehem well where David's soldiers went to
get him water, and he illustrated it by describing his old well
at the homestead--this very well--and how in foreign lands he had
longed for its sparkling water.  So you see it is quite famous."

"There's a cup just like the one that used to be here in father's
time," exclaimed Felix, pointing to an old-fashioned shallow cup
of clouded blue ware on a little shelf inside the curb.

"It is the very same cup," said the Story Girl impressively.
"Isn't it an amazing thing?  That cup has been here for forty
years, and hundreds of people have drunk from it, and it has
never been broken.  Aunt Julia dropped it down the well once, but
they fished it up, not hurt a bit except for that little nick in
the rim.  I think it is bound up with the fortunes of the King
family, like the Luck of Edenhall in Longfellow's poem.  It is
the last cup of Grandmother King's second best set.  Her best set
is still complete.  Aunt Olivia has it.  You must get her to show
it to you.  It's so pretty, with red berries all over it, and the
funniest little pot-bellied cream jug.  Aunt Olivia never uses it
except on a family anniversary."

We took a drink from the blue cup and then went to find our
birthday trees.  We were rather disappointed to find them quite
large, sturdy ones.  It seemed to us that they should still be in
the sapling stage corresponding to our boyhood.

"Your apples are lovely to eat," the Story Girl said to me, "but
Felix's are only good for pies.  Those two big trees behind them
are the twins' trees--my mother and Uncle Felix, you know.  The
apples are so dead sweet that nobody but us children and the
French boys can eat them.  And that tall, slender tree over
there, with the branches all growing straight up, is a seedling
that came up of itself, and NOBODY can eat its apples, they are
so sour and bitter.  Even the pigs won't eat them.  Aunt Janet
tried to make pies of them once, because she said she hated to
see them going to waste.  But she never tried again.  She said it
was better to waste apples alone than apples and sugar too.  And
then she tried giving them away to the French hired men, but they
wouldn't even carry them home."

The Story Girl's words fell on the morning air like pearls and
diamonds.  Even her prepositions and conjunctions had untold
charm, hinting at mystery and laughter and magic bound up in
everything she mentioned.  Apple pies and sour seedlings and pigs
became straightway invested with a glamour of romance.

"I like to hear you talk," said Felix in his grave, stodgy way.

"Everybody does," said the Story Girl coolly.  "I'm glad you like
the way I talk.  But I want you to like ME, too--AS WELL as you
like Felicity and Cecily.  Not BETTER.  I wanted that once but
I've got over it.  I found out in Sunday School, the day the
minister taught our class, that it was selfish.  But I want you
to like me AS WELL."

"Well, I will, for one," said Felix emphatically.  I think he was
remembering that Felicity had called him fat.

Cecily now joined us.  It appeared that it was Felicity's morning
to help prepare breakfast, therefore she could not come.  We all
went to Uncle Stephen's Walk.

This was a double row of apple trees, running down the western
side of the orchard.  Uncle Stephen was the first born of Abraham
and Elizabeth King.  He had none of grandfather's abiding love
for woods and meadows and the kindly ways of the warm red earth.
Grandmother King had been a Ward, and in Uncle Stephen the blood
of the seafaring race claimed its own.  To sea he must go,
despite the pleadings and tears of a reluctant mother; and it was
from the sea he came to set out his avenue in the orchard with
trees brought from a foreign land.

Then he sailed away again--and the ship was never heard of more.
The gray first came in grandmother's brown hair in those months
of waiting.  The, for the first time, the orchard heard the sound
of weeping and was consecrated by a sorrow.

"When the blossoms come out it's wonderful to walk here," said
the Story Girl.  "It's like a dream of fairyland--as if you were
walking in a king's palace.  The apples are delicious, and in
winter it's a splendid place for coasting."

From the Walk we went to the Pulpit Stone--a huge gray boulder,
as high as a man's head, in the southeastern corner.  It was
straight and smooth in front, but sloped down in natural steps
behind, with a ledge midway on which one could stand.  It had
played an important part in the games of our uncles and aunts,
being fortified castle, Indian ambush, throne, pulpit, or concert
platform, as occasion required.  Uncle Edward had preached his
first sermon at the age of eight from that old gray boulder; and
Aunt Julia, whose voice was to delight thousands, sang her
earliest madrigals there.

The Story Girl mounted to the ledge, sat on the rim, and looked
at us.  Pat sat gravely at its base and daintily washed his face
with his black paws.

"Now for your stories about the orchard," said I.

"There are two important ones," said the Story Girl.  "The story
of the Poet Who Was Kissed, and the Tale of the Family Ghost.
Which one shall I tell?"

"Tell them both," said Felix greedily, "but tell the ghost one
first."

"I don't know."  The Story Girl looked dubious.  "That sort of
story ought to be told in the twilight among the shadows.  Then
it would frighten the souls out of your bodies."

We thought it might be more agreeable not to have the souls
frightened out of our bodies, and we voted for the Family Ghost.

"Ghost stories are more comfortable in daytime," said Felix.

The Story Girl began it and we listened avidly.  Cecily, who had
heard it many times before, listened just as eagerly as we did.
She declared to me afterwards that no matter how often the Story
Girl told a story it always seemed as new and exciting as if you
had just heard it for the first time.

"Long, long ago," began the Story Girl, her voice giving us an
impression of remote antiquity, "even before Grandfather King was
born, an orphan cousin of his lived here with his parents.  Her
name was Emily King.  She was very small and very sweet.  She had
soft brown eyes that were too timid to look straight at anybody--
like Cecily's there--and long, sleek, brown curls--like mine; and
she had a tiny birthmark like a pink butterfly on one
cheek--right here.

"Of course, there was no orchard here then.  It was just a field;
but there was a clump of white birches in it, right where that
big, spreading tree of Uncle Alec's is now, and Emily liked to
sit among the ferns under the birches and read or sew.  She had a
lover. His name was Malcolm Ward and he was as handsome as a
prince. She loved him with all her heart and he loved her the
same; but they had never spoken about it.  They used to meet
under the birches and talk about everything except love.  One day
he told her he was coming the next day to ask A VERY IMPORTANT
QUESTION, and he wanted to find her under the birches when he
came.  Emily promised to meet him there.  I am sure she stayed
awake that night, thinking about it, and wondering what the
important question would be, although she knew perfectly well.  I
would have.  And the next day she dressed herself beautifully in
her best pale blue muslin and sleeked her curls and went smiling
to the birches.  And while she was waiting there, thinking such
lovely thoughts, a neighbour's boy came running up--a boy who
didn't know about her romance--and cried out that Malcolm Ward
had been killed by his gun going off accidentally.  Emily just
put her hands to her heart--so--and fell, all white and broken
among the ferns.  And when she came back to life she never cried
or lamented.  She was CHANGED.  She was never, never like herself
again; and she was never contented unless she was dressed in her
blue muslin and waiting under the birches.  She got paler and
paler every day, but the pink butterfly grew redder, until it
looked just like a stain of blood on her white cheek.  When the
winter came she died.  But next spring"--the Story Girl dropped
her voice to a whisper that was as audible and thrilling as her
louder tones--"people began to tell that Emily was sometimes seen
waiting under the birches still.  Nobody knew just who told it
first.  But more than one person saw her.  Grandfather saw her
when he was a little boy.  And my mother saw her once."

"Did YOU ever see her?" asked Felix skeptically.

"No, but I shall some day, if I keep on believing in her," said
the Story Girl confidently.

"I wouldn't like to see her.  I'd be afraid," said Cecily with a
shiver.

"There wouldn't be anything to be afraid of," said the Story Girl
reassuringly.  "It's not as if it were a strange ghost.  It's our
own family ghost, so of course it wouldn't hurt us."

We were not so sure of this.  Ghosts were unchancy folk, even if
they were our family ghosts.  The Story Girl had made the tale
very real to us.  We were glad we had not heard it in the
evening.  How could we ever have got back to the house through
the shadows and swaying branches of a darkening orchard?  As it
was, we were almost afraid to look up it, lest we should see the
waiting, blue-clad Emily under Uncle Alec's tree.  But all we saw
was Felicity, tearing over the green sward, her curls streaming
behind her in a golden cloud.

"Felicity's afraid she's missed something," remarked the Story
Girl in a tone of quiet amusement.  "Is your breakfast ready,
Felicity, or have I time to tell the boys the Story of the Poet
Who Was Kissed?"

"Breakfast is ready, but we can't have it till father is through
attending to the sick cow, so you will likely have time,"
answered Felicity.

Felix and I couldn't keep our eyes off her.  Crimson-cheeked,
shining-eyed from her haste, her face was like a rose of youth.
But when the Story Girl spoke, we forgot to look at Felicity.

"About ten years after Grandfather and Grandmother King were
married, a young man came to visit them.  He was a distant
relative of grandmother's and he was a Poet.  He was just
beginning to be famous.  He was VERY famous afterward.  He came
into the orchard to write a poem, and he fell asleep with his
head on a bench that used to be under grandfather's tree.  Then
Great-Aunt Edith came into the orchard.  She was not a Great-Aunt
then, of course.  She was only eighteen, with red lips and black,
black hair and eyes.  They say she was always full of mischief.
She had been away and had just come home, and she didn't know
about the Poet.  But when she saw him, sleeping there, she
thought he was a cousin they had been expecting from Scotland.
And she tiptoed up--so--and bent over--so--and kissed his cheek.
Then he opened his big blue eyes and looked up into Edith's face.
She blushed as red as a rose, for she knew she had done a
dreadful thing.  This could not be her cousin from Scotland.  She
knew, for he had written so to her, that he had eyes as black as
her own.  Edith ran away and hid; and of course she felt still
worse when she found out that he was a famous poet.  But he wrote
one of his most beautiful poems on it afterwards and sent it to
her--and it was published in one of his books."

We had SEEN it all--the sleeping genius--the roguish, red-lipped
girl--the kiss dropped as lightly as a rose-petal on the
sunburned cheek.

"They should have got married," said Felix.

"Well, in a book they would have, but you see this was in real
life," said the Story Girl.  "We sometimes act the story out. I
like it when Peter plays the poet.  I don't like it when Dan is
the poet because he is so freckled and screws his eyes up so
tight.  But you can hardly ever coax Peter to be the poet--except
when Felicity is Edith--and Dan is so obliging that way."

"What is Peter like?" I asked.

"Peter is splendid.  His mother lives on the Markdale road and
washes for a living.  Peter's father ran away and left them when
Peter was only three years old.  He has never come back, and they
don't know whether he is alive or dead.  Isn't that a nice way to
behave to your family?  Peter has worked for his board ever since
he was six.  Uncle Roger sends him to school, and pays him wages
in summer.  We all like Peter, except Felicity."

"I like Peter well enough in his place," said Felicity primly,
"but you make far too much of him, mother says.  He is only a
hired boy, and he hasn't been well brought up, and hasn't much
education. I don't think you should make such an equal of him as
you do."

Laughter rippled over the Story Girl's face as shadow waves go
over ripe wheat before a wind.

"Peter is a real gentleman, and he is more interesting than YOU
could ever be, if you were brought up and educated for a hundred
years," she said.

"He can hardly write," said Felicity.

"William the Conqueror couldn't write at all," said the Story
Girl crushingly.

"He never goes to church, and he never says his prayers,"
retorted Felicity, uncrushed.

"I do, too," said Peter himself, suddenly appearing through a
little gap in the hedge.  "I say my prayers sometimes."

This Peter was a slim, shapely fellow, with laughing black eyes
and thick black curls.  Early in the season as it was, he was
barefooted.  His attire consisted of a faded, gingham shirt and a
scanty pair of corduroy knickerbockers; but he wore it with such
an unconscious air of purple and fine linen that he seemed to be
much better dressed than he really was.

"You don't pray very often," insisted Felicity.

"Well, God will be all the more likely to listen to me if I don't
pester Him all the time," argued Peter.

This was rank heresy to Felicity, but the Story Girl looked as if
she thought there might be something in it.

"You NEVER go to church, anyhow," continued Felicity, determined
not to be argued down.

"Well, I ain't going to church till I've made up my mind whether
I'm going to be a Methodist or a Presbyterian.  Aunt Jane was a
Methodist.  My mother ain't much of anything but I mean to be
something.  It's more respectable to be a Methodist or a
Presbyterian, or SOMETHING, than not to be anything.  When I've
settled what I'm to be I'm going to church same as you."

"That's not the same as being BORN something," said Felicity
loftily.

"I think it's a good deal better to pick your own religion than
have to take it just because it was what your folks had,"
retorted Peter.

"Now, never mind quarrelling," said Cecily.  "You leave Peter
alone, Felicity.  Peter, this is Beverley King, and this is
Felix.  And we're all going to be good friends and have a lovely
summer together.  Think of the games we can have!  But if you go
squabbling you'll spoil it all.  Peter, what are you going to do
to-day?"

"Harrow the wood field and dig your Aunt Olivia's flower beds."

"Aunt Olivia and I planted sweet peas yesterday," said the Story
Girl, "and I planted a little bed of my own.  I am NOT going to
dig them up this year to see if they have sprouted.  It is bad
for them.  I shall try to cultivate patience, no matter how long
they are coming up."

"I am going to help mother plant the vegetable garden to-day,"
said Felicity.

"Oh, I never like the vegetable garden," said the Story Girl.
"Except when I am hungry.  Then I DO like to go and look at the
nice little rows of onions and beets.  But I love a flower
garden.  I think I could be always good if I lived in a garden
all the time."

"Adam and Eve lived in a garden all the time," said Felicity,
"and THEY were far from being always good."

"They mightn't have kept good as long as they did if they hadn't
lived in a garden," said the Story Girl.

We were now summoned to breakfast.  Peter and the Story Girl
slipped away through the gap, followed by Paddy, and the rest of
us walked up the orchard to the house.

"Well, what do you think of the Story Girl?" asked Felicity.

"She's just fine," said Felix, enthusiastically.  "I never heard
anything like her to tell stories."

"She can't cook," said Felicity, "and she hasn't a good
complexion.  Mind you, she says she's going to be an actress when
she grows up.  Isn't that dreadful?"

We didn't exactly see why.

"Oh, because actresses are always wicked people," said Felicity
in a shocked tone.  "But I daresay the Story Girl will go and be
one just as soon as she can.  Her father will back her up in it.
He is an artist, you know."

Evidently Felicity thought artists and actresses and all such
poor trash were members one of another.

"Aunt Olivia says the Story Girl is fascinating," said Cecily.

The very adjective!  Felix and I recognized its beautiful fitness
at once.  Yes, the Story Girl WAS fascinating and that was the
final word to be said on the subject.

Dan did not come down until breakfast was half over, and Aunt
Janet talked to him after a fashion which made us realize that it
would be well to keep, as the piquant country phrase went, from
the rough side of her tongue.  But all things considered, we
liked the prospect of our summer very much.  Felicity to look
at--the Story Girl to tell us tales of wonder--Cecily to admire
us--Dan and Peter to play with--what more could reasonable
fellows want?



CHAPTER IV. THE WEDDING VEIL OF THE PROUD PRINCESS

When we had lived for a fortnight in Carlisle we belonged there,
and the freedom of all its small fry was conferred on us.  With
Peter and Dan, with Felicity and Cecily and the Story Girl, with
pale, gray-eyed little Sara Ray, we were boon companions.  We
went to school, of course; and certain home chores were assigned
to each of us for the faithful performance of which we were held
responsible.  But we had long hours for play.  Even Peter had
plenty of spare time when the planting was over.

We got along very well with each other in the main, in spite of
some minor differences of opinion.  As for the grown-up denizens
of our small world, they suited us also.

We adored Aunt Olivia; she was pretty and merry and kind; and,
above all, she had mastered to perfection the rare art of letting
children alone.  If we kept ourselves tolerably clean, and
refrained from quarrelling or talking slang, Aunt Olivia did not
worry us.  Aunt Janet, on the contrary, gave us so much good
advice and was so constantly telling us to do this or not to do
the other thing, that we could not remember half her
instructions, and did not try.

Uncle Roger was, as we had been informed, quite jolly and fond of
teasing.  We liked him; but we had an uncomfortable feeling that
the meaning of his remarks was not always that which met the ear.
Sometimes we believed Uncle Roger was making fun of us, and the
deadly seriousness of youth in us resented that.

The Uncle Alec we gave our warmest love.  We felt that we always
had a friend at court in Uncle Alec, no matter what we did or
left undone.  And we never had to turn HIS speeches inside out to
discover their meaning.

The social life of juvenile Carlisle centred in the day and
Sunday Schools.  We were especially interested in our Sunday
School, for we were fortunate enough to be assigned to a teacher
who made our lessons so interesting that we no longer regarded
Sunday School attendance as a disagreeable weekly duty; but
instead looked forward to it with pleasure, and tried to carry
out our teacher's gentle precepts--at least on Mondays and
Tuesdays.  I am afraid the remembrance grew a little dim the rest
of the week.

She was also deeply interested in missions; and one talk on this
subject inspired the Story Girl to do a little home missionary
work on her own account.  The only thing she could think of,
along this line, was to persuade Peter to go to church.

Felicity did not approve of the design, and said so plainly.

"He won't know how to behave, for he's never been inside a church
door in his life," she warned the Story Girl.  "He'll likely do
something awful, and then you'll feel ashamed and wish you'd
never asked him to go, and we'll all be disgraced.  It's all
right to have our mite boxes for the heathen, and send
missionaries to them.  They're far away and we don't have to
associate with them.  But I don't want to have to sit in a pew
with a hired boy."

But the Story Girl undauntedly continued to coax the reluctant
Peter.  It was not an easy matter.  Peter did not come of a
churchgoing stock; and besides, he alleged, he had not yet made
up his mind whether to be a Presbyterian or a Methodist.

"It isn't a bit of difference which you are," pleaded the Story
Girl.  "They both go to heaven."

"But one way must be easier or better than the other, or else
they'd all be one kind," argued Peter.  "I want to find the
easiest way.  And I've got a hankering after the Methodists.  My
Aunt Jane was a Methodist."

"Isn't she one still?" asked Felicity pertly.

"Well, I don't know exactly.  She's dead," said Peter rebukingly.
"Do people go on being just the same after they're dead?"

"No, of course not.  They're angels then--not Methodists or
anything, but just angels.  That is, if they go to heaven."

"S'posen they went to the other place?"

But Felicity's theology broke down at this point.  She turned her
back on Peter and walked disdainfully away.

The Story Girl returned to the main point with a new argument.

"We have such a lovely minister, Peter.  He looks just like the
picture of St. John my father sent me, only he is old and his
hair is white.  I know you'd like him.  And even if you are going
to be a Methodist it won't hurt you to go to the Presbyterian
church.  The nearest Methodist church is six miles away, at
Markdale, and you can't attend there just now.  Go to the
Presbyterian church until you're old enough to have a horse."

"But s'posen I got too fond of being Presbyterian and couldn't
change if I wanted to?" objected Peter.

Altogether, the Story Girl had a hard time of it; but she
persevered; and one day she came to us with the announcement that
Peter had yielded.

"He's going to church with us to-morrow," she said triumphantly.

We were out in Uncle Roger's hill pasture, sitting on some
smooth, round stones under a clump of birches.  Behind us was an
old gray fence, with violets and dandelions thick in its corners.
Below us was the Carlisle valley, with its orchard-embowered
homesteads, and fertile meadows.  Its upper end was dim with a
delicate spring mist.  Winds blew up the field like wave upon
wave of sweet savour--spice of bracken and balsam.

We were eating little jam "turnovers," which Felicity had made
for us.  Felicity's turnovers were perfection.  I looked at her
and wondered why it was not enough that she should be so pretty
and capable of making such turnovers.  If she were only more
interesting!  Felicity had not a particle of the nameless charm
and allurement which hung about every motion of the Story Girl,
and made itself manifest in her lightest word and most careless
glance.  Ah well, one cannot have every good gift!  The Story
Girl had no dimples at her slim, brown wrists.

We all enjoyed our turnovers except Sara Ray.  She ate hers but
she knew she should not have done so.  Her mother did not approve
of snacks between meals, or of jam turnovers at any time.  Once,
when Sara was in a brown study, I asked her what she was thinking
of.

"I'm trying to think of something ma hasn't forbid," she answered
with a sigh.

We were all glad to hear that Peter was going to church, except
Felicity.  She was full of gloomy forebodings and warnings.

"I'm surprised at you, Felicity King," said Cecily severely.
"You ought to be glad that poor boy is going to get started in
the right way."

"There's a great big patch on his best pair of trousers,"
protested Felicity.

"Well, that's better than a hole," said the Story Girl,
addressing herself daintily to her turnover.  "God won't notice
the patch."

"No, but the Carlisle people will," retorted Felicity, in a tone
which implied that what the Carlisle people thought was far more
important.  "And I don't believe that Peter has got a decent
stocking to his name.  What will you feel like if he goes to
church with the skin of his legs showing through the holes, Miss
Story Girl?"

"I'm not a bit afraid," said the Story Girl staunchly.  "Peter
knows better than that."

"Well, all I hope is that he'll wash behind his ears," said
Felicity resignedly.

"How is Pat to-day?" asked Cecily, by way of changing the
conversation.

"Pat isn't a bit better.  He just mopes about the kitchen," said
the Story Girl anxiously.  "I went out to the barn and I saw a
mouse.  I had a stick in my hand and I fetched a swipe at it--so.
I killed it stone dead.  Then I took it in to Paddy.  Will you
believe it?  He wouldn't even look at it.  I'm so worried.  Uncle
Roger says he needs a dose of physic.  But how is he to be made
take it, that's the question.  I mixed a powder in some milk and
tried to pour it down his throat while Peter held him.  Just look
at the scratches I got!  And the milk went everywhere except down
Pat's throat."

"Wouldn't it be awful if--if anything happened to Pat?" whispered
Cecily.

"Well, we could have a jolly funeral, you know," said Dan.

We looked at him in such horror that Dan hastened to apologize.

"I'd be awful sorry myself if Pat died.  But if he DID, we'd have
to give him the right kind of a funeral," he protested.  "Why,
Paddy just seems like one of the family."

The Story Girl finished her turnover, and stretched herself out
on the grasses, pillowing her chin in her hands and looking at
the sky.  She was bare headed, as usual, and her scarlet ribbon
was bound filletwise about her head.  She had twined freshly
plucked dandelions around it and the effect was that of a crown
of brilliant golden stars on her sleek, brown curls.

"Look at that long, thin, lacy cloud up there," she said.  "What
does it make you think of, girls?"

"A wedding veil," said Cecily.

"That is just what it is--the Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess.
I know a story about it.  I read it in a book.  Once upon a
time"--the Story Girl's eyes grew dreamy, and her accents floated
away on the summer air like wind-blown rose petals--"there was a
princess who was the most beautiful princess in the world, and
kings from all lands came to woo her for a bride.  But she was as
proud as she was beautiful.  She laughed all her suitors to
scorn.  And when her father urged her to choose one of them as
her husband she drew herself up haughtily--so--"

The Story Girl sprang to her feet and for a moment we saw the
proud princess of the old tale in all her scornful loveliness--

"and she said,

"'I will not wed until a king comes who can conquer all kings.
Then I shall be the wife of the king of the world and no one can
hold herself higher than I.'

"So every king went to war to prove that he could conquer every
one else, and there was a great deal of bloodshed and misery.
But the proud princess laughed and sang, and she and her maidens
worked at a wonderful lace veil which she meant to wear when the
king of all kings came.  It was a very beautiful veil; but her
maidens whispered that a man had died and a woman's heart had
broken for every stitch set in it.

"Just when a king thought he had conquered everybody some other
king would come and conquer HIM; and so it went on until it did
not seem likely the proud princess would ever get a husband at
all.  But still her pride was so great that she would not yield,
even though everybody except the kings who wanted to marry her,
hated her for the suffering she had caused.  One day a horn was
blown at the palace gate; and there was one tall man in complete
armor with his visor down, riding on a white horse.  When he said
he had come to marry the princess every one laughed, for he had
no retinue and no beautiful apparel, and no golden crown.

"'But I am the king who conquers all kings,' he said.

"'You must prove it before I shall marry you,' said the proud
princess.  But she trembled and turned pale, for there was
something in his voice that frightened her.  And when he laughed,
his laughter was still more dreadful.

"'I can easily prove it, beautiful princess,' he said, 'but you
must go with me to my kingdom for the proof.  Marry me now, and
you and I and your father and all your court will ride
straightway to my kingdom; and if you are not satisfied then that
I am the king who conquers all kings you may give me back my ring
and return home free of me forever more.'

"It was a strange wooing and the friends of the princess begged
her to refuse.  But her pride whispered that it would be such a
wonderful thing to be the queen of the king of the world; so she
consented; and her maidens dressed her, and put on the long lace
veil that had been so many years a-making.  Then they were
married at once, but the bridegroom never lifted his visor and no
one saw his face.  The proud princess held herself more proudly
than ever, but she was as white as her veil.  And there was no
laughter or merry-making, such as should be at a wedding, and
every one looked at every one else with fear in his eyes.

"After the wedding the bridegroom lifted his bride before him on
his white horse, and her father and all the members of his court
mounted, too, and rode after them.  On and on they rode, and the
skies grew darker and the wind blew and wailed, and the shades of
evening came down.  And just in the twilight they rode into a
dark valley, filled with tombs and graves.

"'Why have you brought me here?' cried the proud princess
angrily.

"'This is my kingdom,' he answered.  'These are the tombs of the
kings I have conquered.  Behold me, beautiful princess.  I am
Death!'

"He lifted his visor.  All saw his awful face.  The proud
princess shrieked.

"'Come to my arms, my bride,' he cried.  'I have won you fairly.
I am the king who conquers all kings!'

"He clasped her fainting form to his breast and spurred his white
horse to the tombs.  A tempest of rain broke over the valley and
blotted them from sight.  Very sadly the old king and courtiers
rode home, and never, never again did human eye behold the proud
princess.  But when those long, white clouds sweep across the
sky, the country people in the land where she lived say, 'Look
you, there is the Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess.'"

The weird spell of the tale rested on us for some moments after
the Story Girl had finished.  We had walked with her in the place
of death and grown cold with the horror that chilled the heart of
the poor princess.  Dan presently broke the spell.

"You see it doesn't do to be too proud, Felicity," he remarked,
giving her a poke.  "You'd better not say too much about Peter's
patches."



CHAPTER V. PETER GOES TO CHURCH

There was no Sunday School the next afternoon, as superintendent
and teachers wished to attend a communion service at Markdale.
The Carlisle service was in the evening, and at sunset we were
waiting at Uncle Alec's front door for Peter and the Story Girl.

None of the grown-ups were going to church.  Aunt Olivia had a
sick headache and Uncle Roger stayed home with her.  Aunt Janet
and Uncle Alec had gone to the Markdale service and had not yet
returned.

Felicity and Cecily were wearing their new summer muslins for the
first time--and were acutely conscious of the fact.  Felicity,
her pink and white face shadowed by her drooping,
forget-me-not-wreathed, leghorn hat, was as beautiful as usual;
but Cecily, having tortured her hair with curl papers all night,
had a rampant bush of curls all about her head which quite
destroyed the sweet, nun-like expression of her little features.
Cecily cherished a grudge against fate because she had not been
given naturally curly hair as had the other two girls.  But she
attained the desire of her heart on Sundays at least, and was
quite well satisfied.  It was impossible to convince her that the
satin smooth lustre of her week-day tresses was much more
becoming to her.

Presently Peter and the Story Girl appeared, and we were all more
or less relieved to see that Peter looked quite respectable,
despite the indisputable patch on his trousers.  His face was
rosy, his thick black curls were smoothly combed, and his tie was
neatly bowed; but it was his legs which we scrutinized most
anxiously.  At first glance they seemed well enough; but closer
inspection revealed something not altogether customary.

"What is the matter with your stockings, Peter?" asked Dan
bluntly.

"Oh, I hadn't a pair without holes in the legs," answered Peter
easily, "because ma hadn't time to darn them this week.  So I put
on two pairs.  The holes don't come in the same places, and you'd
never notice them unless you looked right close."

"Have you got a cent for collection?" demanded Felicity.

"I've got a Yankee cent.  I s'pose it will do, won't it?"

Felicity shook her head vehemently.

"Oh, no, no.  It may be all right to pass a Yankee cent on a
store keeper or an egg peddler, but it would never do for
church."

"I'll have to go without any, then," said Peter.  "I haven't
another cent.  I only get fifty cents a week and I give it all to
ma last night."

But Peter must have a cent.  Felicity would have given him one
herself--and she was none too lavish of her coppers--rather than
have him go without one.  Dan, however, lent him one, on the
distinct understanding that it was to be repaid the next week.

Uncle Roger wandered by at this moment and, beholding Peter,
said,

"'Is Saul also among the prophets?'  What can have induced you to
turn church-goer, Peter, when all Olivia's gentle persuasions
were of no avail?  The old, old argument I suppose--'beauty draws
us with a single hair.'"

Uncle Roger looked quizzically at Felicity.  We did not know what
his quotations meant, but we understood he thought Peter was
going to church because of Felicity.  Felicity tossed her head.

"It isn't my fault that he's going to church," she said
snappishly.  "It's the Story Girl's doings."

Uncle Roger sat down on the doorstep, and gave himself over to
one of the silent, inward paroxysms of laughter we all found so
very aggravating.  He shook his big, blond head, shut his eyes,
and murmured,

"Not her fault!  Oh, Felicity, Felicity, you'll be the death of
your dear Uncle yet if you don't watch out."

Felicity started off indignantly, and we followed, picking up
Sara Ray at the foot of the hill.

The Carlisle church was a very old-fashioned one, with a square,
ivy-hung tower.  It was shaded by tall elms, and the graveyard
surrounded it completely, many of the graves being directly under
its windows.  We always took the corner path through it, passing
the King plot where our kindred of four generations slept in a
green solitude of wavering light and shadow.

There was Great-grandfather King's flat tombstone of rough Island
sandstone, so overgrown with ivy that we could hardly read its
lengthy inscription, recording his whole history in brief, and
finishing with eight lines of original verse composed by his
widow.  I do not think that poetry was Great-grandmother King's
strong point.  When Felix read it, on our first Sunday in
Carlisle, he remarked dubiously that it LOOKED like poetry but
didn't SOUND like it.

There, too, slept the Emily whose faithful spirit was supposed to
haunt the orchard; but Edith who had kissed the poet lay not with
her kindred.  She had died in a far, foreign land, and the murmur
of an alien sea sounded about her grave.

White marble tablets, ornamented with weeping willow trees,
marked where Grandfather and Grandmother King were buried, and a
single shaft of red Scotch granite stood between the graves of
Aunt Felicity and Uncle Felix.  The Story Girl lingered to lay a
bunch of wild violets, misty blue and faintly sweet, on her
mother's grave; and then she read aloud the verse on the stone.

"'They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death
they were not divided.'"

The tones of her voice brought out the poignant and immortal
beauty and pathos of that wonderful old lament.  The girls wiped
their eyes; and we boys felt as if we might have done so, too,
had nobody been looking.  What better epitaph could any one wish
than to have it said that he was lovely and pleasant in his life?
When I heard the Story Girl read it I made a secret compact with
myself that I would try to deserve such an epitaph.

"I wish I had a family plot," said Peter, rather wistfully.  "I
haven't ANYTHING you fellows have.  The Craigs are just buried
anywhere they happen to die."

"I'd like to buried here when I die," said Felix.  "But I hope it
won't be for a good while yet," he added in a livelier tone, as
we moved onward to the church.

The interior of the church was as old-fashioned as its exterior.
It was furnished with square box pews; the pulpit was a
"wine-glass" one, and was reached by a steep, narrow flight of
steps.  Uncle Alec's pew was at the top of the church, quite near
the pulpit.

Peter's appearance did not attract as much attention as we had
fondly expected.  Indeed, nobody seemed to notice him at all.
The lamps were not yet lighted and the church was filled with a
soft twilight and hush.  Outside, the sky was purple and gold and
silvery green, with a delicate tangle of rosy cloud above the
elms.

"Isn't it awful nice and holy in here?" whispered Peter
reverently.  "I didn't know church was like this.  It's nice."

Felicity frowned at him, and the Story Girl touched her with her
slippered foot to remind him that he must not talk in church.
Peter stiffened up and sat at attention during the service.
Nobody could have behaved better.  But when the sermon was over
and the collection was being taken up, he made the sensation
which his entrance had not produced.

Elder Frewen, a tall, pale man, with long, sandy side-whiskers,
appeared at the door of our pew with the collection plate. We
knew Elder Frewen quite well and like him; he was Aunt Janet's
cousin and often visited her.  The contrast between his week-day
jollity and the unearthly solemnity of his countenance on Sundays
always struck us as very funny.  It seemed so to strike Peter;
for as Peter dropped his cent into the plate he laughed aloud!

Everybody looked at our pew.  I have always wondered why Felicity
did not die of mortification on the spot.  The Story Girl turned
white, and Cecily turned red.  As for that poor, unlucky Peter,
the shame of his countenance was pitiful to behold.  He never
lifted his head for the remainder of the service; and he followed
us down the aisle and across the graveyard like a beaten dog.
None of us uttered a word until we reached the road, lying in the
white moonshine of the May night.  Then Felicity broke the tense
silence by remarking to the Story Girl,

"I told you so!"

The Story Girl made no response.  Peter sidled up to her.

"I'm awful sorry," he said contritely.  "I never meant to laugh.
It just happened before I could stop myself.  It was this way--"

"Don't you ever speak to me again," said the Story Girl, in a
tone of cold concentrated fury.  "Go and be a Methodist, or a
Mohammedan, or ANYTHING! I don't care what you are!  You have
HUMILIATED me!"

She marched off with Sara Ray, and Peter dropped back to us with
a frightened face.

"What is it I've done to her?" he whispered.  "What does that big
word mean?"

"Oh, never mind," I said crossly--for I felt that Peter HAD
disgraced us--"She's just mad--and no wonder.  Whatever made you
act so crazy, Peter?"

"Well, I didn't mean to.  And I wanted to laugh twice before that
and DIDN'T.  It was the Story Girl's stories made me want to
laugh, so I don't think it's fair for her to be mad at me.  She
hadn't ought to tell me stories about people if she don't want me
to laugh when I see them.  When I looked at Samuel Ward I thought
of him getting up in meeting one night, and praying that he might
be guided in his upsetting and downrising.  I remembered the way
she took him off, and I wanted to laugh.  And then I looked at
the pulpit and thought of the story she told about the old Scotch
minister who was too fat to get in at the door of it, and had to
h'ist himself by his two hands over it, and then whispered to the
other minister so that everybody heard him.

"'_This pulpit door was made for speerits_'--and I wanted to
laugh.  And then Mr. Frewen come--and I thought of her story
about his sidewhiskers--how when his first wife died of
information of the lungs he went courting Celia Ward, and Celia
told him she wouldn't marry him unless he shaved them whiskers
off.  And he wouldn't, just to be stubborn.  And one day one of
them caught fire, when he was burning brush, and burned off, and
every one thought he'd HAVE to shave the other off then.  But he
didn't and just went round with one whisker till the burned one
grew out.  And then Celia gave in and took him, because she saw
there wasn't no hope of HIM ever giving in.  I just remembered
that story, and I thought I could see him, taking up the cents so
solemn, with one long whisker; and the laugh just laughed itself
before I could help it."

We all exploded with laughter on the spot, much to the horror of
Mrs. Abraham Ward, who was just driving past, and who came up
the next day and told Aunt Janet we had "acted scandalous" on the
road home from church.  We felt ashamed ourselves, because we
knew people should conduct themselves decently and in order on
Sunday farings-forth.  But, as with Peter, it "had laughed
itself."

Even Felicity laughed.  Felicity was not nearly so angry with
Peter as might have been expected.  She even walked beside him
and let him carry her Bible.  They talked quite confidentially.
Perhaps she forgave him the more easily, because he had justified
her in her predictions, and thus afforded her a decided triumph
over the Story Girl.

"I'm going to keep on going to church," Peter told her.  "I like
it.  Sermons are more int'resting than I thought, and I like the
singing.  I wish I could make up my mind whether to be a
Presbyterian or a Methodist.  I s'pose I might ask the ministers
about it."

"Oh, no, no, don't do that," said Felicity in alarm.  "Ministers
wouldn't want to be bothered with such questions."

"Why not?  What are ministers for if they ain't to tell people
how to get to heaven?"

"Oh, well, it's all right for grown-ups to ask them things, of
course.  But it isn't respectful for little boys--especially
hired boys."

"I don't see why.  But anyhow, I s'pose it wouldn't be much use,
because if he was a Presbyterian minister he'd say I ought to be
a Presbyterian, and if he was a Methodist he'd tell me to be one,
too.  Look here, Felicity, what IS the difference between them?"

"I--I don't know," said Felicity reluctantly.  "I s'pose children
can't understand such things.  There must be a great deal of
difference, of course, if we only knew what it was.  Anyhow, I am
a Presbyterian, and I'm glad of it."

We walked on in silence for a time, thinking our own young
thoughts.  Presently they were scattered by an abrupt and
startling question from Peter.

"What does God look like?" he said.

It appeared that none of us had any idea.

"The Story Girl would prob'ly know," said Cecily.

"I wish I knew," said Peter gravely.  "I wish I could see a
picture of God.  It would make Him seem lots more real."

"I've often wondered myself what he looks like," said Felicity in
a burst of confidence.  Even in Felicity, so it would seem, there
were depths of thought unplumbed.

"I've seen pictures of Jesus," said Felix meditatively.  "He
looks just like a man, only better and kinder.  But now that I
come to think of it, I've never seen a picture of God."

"Well, if there isn't one in Toronto it isn't likely there's one
anywhere," said Peter disappointedly.  "I saw a picture of the
devil once," he added.  "It was in a book my Aunt Jane had.  She
got it for a prize in school.  My Aunt Jane was clever."

"It couldn't have been a very good book if there was such a
picture in it," said Felicity.

"It was a real good book.  My Aunt Jane wouldn't have a book that
wasn't good," retorted Peter sulkily.

He refused to discuss the subject further, somewhat to our
disappointment.  For we had never seen a picture of the person
referred to, and we were rather curious regarding it.

"We'll ask Peter to describe it sometime when he's in a better
humour," whispered Felix.

Sara Ray having turned in at her own gate, I ran ahead to join
the Story Girl, and we walked up the hill together.  She had
recovered her calmness of mind, but she made no reference to
Peter.  When we reached our lane and passed under Grandfather
King's big willow the fragrance of the orchard struck us in the
face like a wave.  We could see the long rows of trees, a white
gladness in the moonshine.  It seemed to us that there was in the
orchard something different from other orchards that we had
known.  We were too young to analyze the vague sensation.  In
later years we were to understand that it was because the orchard
blossomed not only apple blossoms but all the love, faith, joy,
pure happiness and pure sorrow of those who had made it and
walked there.

"The orchard doesn't seem the same place by moonlight at all,"
said the Story Girl dreamily.  "It's lovely, but it's different.
When I was very small I used to believe the fairies danced in it
on moonlight nights.  I would like to believe it now but I
can't."

"Why not?"

"Oh, it's so hard to believe things you know are not true.  It
was Uncle Edward who told me there were no such things as
fairies.  I was just seven.  He is a minister, so of course I
knew he spoke the truth.  It was his duty to tell me, and I do
not blame him, but I have never felt quite the same to Uncle
Edward since."

Ah, do we ever "feel quite the same" towards people who destroy
our illusions?  Shall I ever be able to forgive the brutal
creature who first told me there was no such person as Santa
Claus?  He was a boy, three years older than myself; and he may
now, for aught I know, be a most useful and respectable member of
society, beloved by his kind.  But I know what he must ever seem
to me!

We waited at Uncle Alec's door for the others to come up.  Peter
was by way of skulking shamefacedly past into the shadows; but
the Story Girl's brief, bitter anger had vanished.

"Wait for me, Peter," she called.

She went over to him and held out her hand.

"I forgive you," she said graciously.

Felix and I felt that it would really be worth while to offend
her, just to be forgiven in such an adorable voice.  Peter
eagerly grasped her hand.

"I tell you what, Story Girl, I'm awfully sorry I laughed in
church, but you needn't be afraid I ever will again.  No, sir!
And I'm going to church and Sunday School regular, and I'll say
my prayers every night.  I want to be like the rest of you.  And
look here!  I've thought of the way my Aunt Jane used to give
medicine to a cat.  You mix the powder in lard, and spread it on
his paws and his sides and he'll lick it off, 'cause a cat can't
stand being messy.  If Paddy isn't any better to-morrow, we'll do
that."

They went away together hand in hand, children-wise, up the lane
of spruces crossed with bars of moonlight.  And there was peace
over all that fresh and flowery land, and peace in our little
hearts.



CHAPTER VI. THE MYSTERY OF GOLDEN MILESTONE

Paddy was smeared with medicated lard the next day, all of us
assisting at the rite, although the Story Girl was high
priestess.  Then, out of regard for mats and cushions, he was
kept in durance vile in the granary until he had licked his fur
clean.  This treatment being repeated every day for a week, Pat
recovered his usual health and spirits, and our minds were set at
rest to enjoy the next excitement--collecting for a school
library fund.

Our teacher thought it would be an excellent thing to have a
library in connection with the school; and he suggested that each
of the pupils should try to see how much money he or she could
raise for the project during the month of June.  We might earn it
by honest toil, or gather it in by contributions levied on our
friends.

The result was a determined rivalry as to which pupil should
collect the largest sum; and this rivalry was especially intense
in our home coterie.

Our relatives started us with a quarter apiece.  For the rest, we
knew we must depend on our own exertions.  Peter was handicapped
at the beginning by the fact that he had no family friend to
finance him.

"If my Aunt Jane'd been living she'd have given me something," he
remarked.  "And if my father hadn't run away he might have given
me something too.  But I'm going to do the best I can anyhow.
Your Aunt Olivia says I can have the job of gathering the eggs,
and I'm to have one egg out of every dozen to sell for myself."

Felicity made a similar bargain with her mother.  The Story Girl
and Cecily were each to be paid ten cents a week for washing
dishes in their respective homes.  Felix and Dan contracted to
keep the gardens free from weeds.  I caught brook trout in the
westering valley of spruces and sold them for a cent apiece.

Sara Ray was the only unhappy one among us.  She could do
nothing.  She had no relatives in Carlisle except her mother, and
her mother did not approve of the school library project, and
would not give Sara a cent, or put her in any way of earning one.
To Sara, this was humiliation indescribable.  She felt herself an
outcast and an alien to our busy little circle, where each member
counted every day, with miserly delight, his slowly increasing
hoard of small cash.

"I'm just going to pray to God to send me some money," she
announced desperately at last.

"I don't believe that will do any good," said Dan.  "He gives
lots of things, but he doesn't give money, because people can
earn that for themselves."

"I can't," said Sara, with passionate defiance.  "I think He
ought to take that into account."

"Don't worry, dear," said Cecily, who always poured balm.  "If
you can't collect any money everybody will know it isn't your
fault."

"I won't ever feel like reading a single book in the library if I
can't give something to it," mourned Sara.

Dan and the girls and I were sitting in a row on Aunt Olivia's
garden fence, watching Felix weed.  Felix worked well, although
he did not like weeding--"fat boys never do," Felicity informed
him.  Felix pretended not to hear her, but I knew he did, because
his ears grew red.  Felix's face never blushed, but his ears
always gave him away.  As for Felicity, she did not say things
like that out of malice prepense.  It never occurred to her that
Felix did not like to be called fat.

"I always feel so sorry for the poor weeds," said the Story Girl
dreamily.  "It must be very hard to be rooted up."

"They shouldn't grow in the wrong place," said Felicity
mercilessly.

"When weeds go to heaven I suppose they will be flowers,"
continued the Story Girl.

"You do think such queer things," said Felicity.

"A rich man in Toronto has a floral clock in his garden," I said.
"It looks just like the face of a clock, and there are flowers in
it that open at every hour, so that you can always tell the
time."

"Oh, I wish we had one here," exclaimed Cecily.

"What would be the use of it?" asked the Story Girl a little
disdainfully.  "Nobody ever wants to know the time in a garden."

I slipped away at this point, suddenly remembering that it was
time to take a dose of magic seed.  I had bought it from Billy
Robinson three days before in school.  Billy had assured me that
it would make me grow fast.

I was beginning to feel secretly worried because I did not grow.
I had overheard Aunt Janet say I was going to be short, like
Uncle Alec.  Now, I loved Uncle Alec, but I wanted to be taller
than he was.  So when Billy confided to me, under solemn promise
of secrecy, that he had some "magic seed," which would make boys
grow, and would sell me a box of it for ten cents, I jumped at
the offer.  Billy was taller than any boy of his age in Carlisle,
and he assured me it all came from taking magic seed.

"I was a regular runt before I begun," he said, "and look at me
now.  I got it from Peg Bowen.  She's a witch, you know.  I
wouldn't go near her again for a bushel of magic seed.  It was an
awful experience.  I haven't much left, but I guess I've enough
to do me till I'm as tall as I want to be.  You must take a pinch
of the seed every three hours, walking backward, and you must
never tell a soul you're taking it, or it won't work.  I wouldn't
spare any of it to any one but you."

I felt deeply grateful to Billy, and sorry that I had not liked
him better.  Somehow, nobody did like Billy Robinson over and
above.  But I vowed I WOULD like him in future.  I paid him the
ten cents cheerfully and took the magic seed as directed,
measuring myself carefully every day by a mark on the hall door.
I could not see any advance in growth yet, but then I had been
taking it only three days.

One day the Story Girl had an inspiration.

"Let us go and ask the Awkward Man and Mr. Campbell for a
contribution to the library fund," she said.  "I am sure no one
else has asked them, because nobody in Carlisle is related to
them.  Let us all go, and if they give us anything we'll divide
it equally among us."

It was a daring proposition, for both Mr. Campbell and the
Awkward Man were regarded as eccentric personages; and Mr.
Campbell was supposed to detest children.  But where the Story
Girl led we would follow to the death.  The next day being
Saturday, we started out in the afternoon.

We took a short cut to Golden Milestone, over a long, green, dewy
land full of placid meadows, where sunshine had fallen asleep.
At first all was not harmonious.  Felicity was in an ill humour;
she had wanted to wear her second best dress, but Aunt Janet had
decreed that her school clothes were good enough to go "traipsing
about in the dust."  Then the Story Girl arrived, arrayed not in
any second best but in her very best dress and hat, which her
father had sent her from Paris--a dress of soft, crimson silk,
and a white leghorn hat encircled by flame-red poppies.  Neither
Felicity nor Cecily could have worn it; but it became the Story
Girl perfectly.  In it she was a thing of fire and laughter and
glow, as if the singular charm of her temperament were visible
and tangible in its vivid colouring and silken texture.

"I shouldn't think you'd put on your best clothes to go begging
for the library in," said Felicity cuttingly.

"Aunt Olivia says that when you are going to have an important
interview with a man you ought to look your very best," said the
Story Girl, giving her skirt a lustrous swirl and enjoying the
effect.

"Aunt Olivia spoils you," said Felicity.

"She doesn't either, Felicity King!  Aunt Olivia is just sweet.
She kisses me good-night every night, and your mother NEVER
kisses you."

"My mother doesn't make kisses so common," retorted Felicity.
"But she gives us pie for dinner every day."

"So does Aunt Olivia."

"Yes, but look at the difference in the size of the pieces!  And
Aunt Olivia only gives you skim milk.  My mother gives us cream."

"Aunt Olivia's skim milk is as good as your mother's cream,"
cried the Story Girl hotly.

"Oh, girls, don't fight," said Cecily, the peacemaker.  "It's
such a nice day, and we'll have a nice time if you don't spoil it
by fighting."

"We're NOT fighting," said Felicity.  "And I like Aunt Olivia.
But my mother is just as good as Aunt Olivia, there now!"

"Of course she is.  Aunt Janet is splendid," agreed the Story
Girl.

They smiled at each other amicably.  Felicity and the Story Girl
were really quite fond of each other, under the queer surface
friction that commonly resulted from their intercourse.

"You said once you knew a story about the Awkward Man," said
Felix.  "You might tell it to us."

"All right," agreed the Story Girl.  "The only trouble is, I
don't know the whole story.  But I'll tell you all I do know.  I
call it 'The Mystery of the Golden Milestone.'"

"Oh, I don't believe that story is true," said Felicity.  "I
believe Mrs. Griggs was just romancing.  She DOES romance,
mother says."

"Yes; but I don't believe she could ever have thought of such a
thing as this herself, so I believe it must be true," said the
Story Girl.  "Anyway, this is the story, boys.  You know the
Awkward Man has lived alone ever since his mother died, ten years
ago.  Abel Griggs is his hired man, and he and his wife live in a
little house down the Awkward Man's lane.  Mrs. Griggs makes his
bread for him, and she cleans up his house now and then.  She
says he keeps it very neat.  But till last fall there was one
room she never saw.  It was always locked--the west one, looking
out over his garden.  One day last fall the Awkward Man went to
Summerside, and Mrs. Griggs scrubbed his kitchen.  Then she went
over the whole house and she tried the door of the west room.
Mrs. Griggs is a VERY curious woman.  Uncle Roger says all women
have as much curiosity as is good for them, but Mrs. Griggs has
more.  She expected to find the door locked as usual.  It was NOT
locked.  She opened it and went in.  What do you suppose she
found?"

"Something like--like Bluebeard's chamber?" suggested Felix in a
scared tone.

"Oh, no, NO!  Nothing like THAT could happen in Prince Edward
Island.  But if there HAD been beautiful wives hanging up by
their hair all round the walls I don't believe Mrs. Griggs could
have been much more astonished.  The room had never been
furnished in his mother's time, but now it was ELEGANTLY
furnished, though Mrs. Griggs says SHE doesn't know when or how
that furniture was brought there.  She says she never saw a room
like it in a country farmhouse.  It was like a bed-room and
sitting-room combined.  The floor was covered with a carpet like
green velvet.  There were fine lace curtains at the windows and
beautiful pictures on the walls.  There was a little white bed,
and a dressing-table, a bookcase full of books, a stand with a
work basket on it, and a rocking-chair.  There was a woman's
picture above the bookcase.  Mrs. Griggs says she thinks it was a
coloured photograph, but she didn't know who it was.  Anyway, it
was a very pretty girl.  But the most amazing thing of all was
that A WOMAN'S DRESS was hanging over a chair by the table.  Mrs.
Griggs says it NEVER belonged to Jasper Dale's mother, for she
thought it a sin to wear anything but print and drugget; and this
dress was of PALE BLUE silk.  Besides that, there was a pair of
blue satin slippers on the floor beside it--HIGH-HEELED slippers.
And on the fly-leaves of the books the name 'Alice' was written.
Now, there never was an Alice in the Dale connection and nobody
ever heard of the Awkward Man having a sweetheart.  There, isn't
that a lovely mystery?"

"It's a pretty queer yarn," said Felix.  "I wonder if it is
true--and what it means."

"I intend to find out what it means," said the Story Girl.  "I am
going to get acquainted with the Awkward Man sometime, and then
I'll find out his Alice-secret."

"I don't see how you'll ever get acquainted with him," said
Felicity.  "He never goes anywhere except to church.  He just
stays home and reads books when he isn't working.  Mother says he
is a perfect hermit."

"I'll manage it somehow," said the Story Girl--and we had no
doubt that she would.  "But I must wait until I'm a little older,
for he wouldn't tell the secret of the west room to a little
girl.  And I mustn't wait till I'm TOO old, for he is frightened
of grown-up girls, because he thinks they laugh at his
awkwardness.  I know I will like him.  He has such a nice face,
even if he is awkward.  He looks like a man you could tell things
to."

"Well, I'd like a man who could move around without falling over
his own feet," said Felicity.  "And then the look of him!  Uncle
Roger says he is long, lank, lean, narrow, and contracted."

"Things always sound worse than they are when Uncle Roger says
them," said the Story Girl.  "Uncle Edward says Jasper Dale is a
very clever man and it's a great pity he wasn't able to finish
his college course.  He went to college two years, you know.
Then his father died, and he stayed home with his mother because
she was very delicate.  I call him a hero.  I wonder if it is
true that he writes poetry.  Mrs. Griggs says it is.  She says
she has seen him writing it in a brown book.  She said she
couldn't get near enough to read it, but she knew it was poetry
by the shape of it."

"Very likely.  If that blue silk dress story is true, I'd believe
ANYTHING of him," said Felicity.

We were near Golden Milestone now.  The house was a big,
weather-gray structure, overgrown with vines and climbing roses.
Something about the three square windows in the second story gave
it an appearance of winking at us in a friendly fashion through
its vines--at least, so the Story Girl said; and, indeed, we
could see it for ourselves after she had once pointed it out to
us.

We did not get into the house, however.  We met the Awkward man
in his yard, and he gave us a quarter apiece for our library.  He
did not seem awkward or shy; but then we were only children, and
his foot was on his native heath.

He was a tall, slender man, who did not look his forty years, so
unwrinkled was his high, white forehead, so clear and lustrous
his large, dark-blue eyes, so free from silver threads his rather
long black hair.  He had large hands and feet, and walked with a
slight stoop.  I am afraid we stared at him rather rudely while
the Story Girl talked to him.  But was not an Awkward Man, who
was also a hermit and kept blue silk dresses in a locked room,
and possibly wrote poetry, a legitimate object of curiosity?  I
leave it to you.

When we got away we compared notes, and found that we all liked
him--and this, although he had said little and had appeared
somewhat glad to get rid of us.

"He gave us the money like a gentleman," said the Story Girl.  "I
felt he didn't grudge it.  And now for Mr. Campbell.  It was on
HIS account I put on my red silk.  I don't suppose the Awkward
Man noticed it at all, but Mr. Campbell will, or I'm much
mistaken."



CHAPTER VII. HOW BETTY SHERMAN WON A HUSBAND

The rest of us did not share the Story Girl's enthusiasm
regarding our call on Mr. Campbell.  We secretly dreaded it.  If,
as was said, he detested children, who knew what sort of a
reception we might meet?

Mr. Campbell was a rich, retired farmer, who took life easily.
He had visited New York and Boston, Toronto and Montreal; he had
even been as far as the Pacific coast.  Therefore he was regarded
in Carlisle as a much travelled man; and he was known to be "well
read" and intelligent.  But it was also known that Mr. Campbell
was not always in a good humour.  If he liked you there was
nothing he would not do for you; if he disliked you--well, you
were not left in ignorance of it.  In short, we had the
impression that Mr. Campbell resembled the famous little girl
with the curl in the middle of her forehead.  "When he was good,
he was very, very good, and when he was bad he was horrid."  What
if this were one of his horrid days?

"He can't DO anything to us, you know," said the Story Girl.  "He
may be rude, but that won't hurt any one but himself."

"Hard words break no bones," observed Felicity philosophically.

"But they hurt your feelings.  I am afraid of Mr. Campbell," said
Cecily candidly.

"Perhaps we'd better give up and go home," suggested Dan.

"You can go home if you like," said the Story Girl scornfully.
"But I am going to see Mr. Campbell.  I know I can manage him.
But if I have to go alone, and he gives me anything, I'll keep it
all for my own collection, mind you."

That settled it.  We were not going to let the Story Girl get
ahead of us in the manner of collecting.

Mr. Campbell's housekeeper ushered us into his parlour and left
us.  Presently Mr. Campbell himself was standing in the doorway,
looking us over.  We took heart of grace.  It seemed to be one of
his good days, for there was a quizzical smile on his broad,
clean-shaven, strongly-featured face.  Mr. Campbell was a tall
man, with a massive head, well thatched with thick, black hair,
gray-streaked.  He had big, black eyes, with many wrinkles around
them, and a thin, firm, long-lipped mouth.  We thought him
handsome, for an old man.

His gaze wandered over us with uncomplimentary indifference until
it fell on the Story Girl, leaning back in an arm-chair.  She
looked like a slender red lily in the unstudied grace of her
attitude.  A spark flashed into Mr. Campbell's black eyes.

"Is this a Sunday School deputation?" he inquired rather
ironically.

"No. We have come to ask a favour of you," said the Story Girl.

The magic of her voice worked its will on Mr. Campbell, as on all
others.  He came in, sat down, hooked his thumb into his vest
pocket, and smiled at her.

"What is it?" he asked.

"We are collecting for our school library, and we have called to
ask you for a contribution," she replied.

"Why should I contribute to your school library?" demanded Mr.
Campbell.

This was a poser for us.  Why should he, indeed?  But the Story
Girl was quite equal to it.  Leaning forward, and throwing an
indescribable witchery into tone and eyes and smile, she said,

"Because a lady asks you."

Mr. Campbell chuckled.

"The best of all reasons," he said.  "But see here, my dear young
lady, I'm an old miser and curmudgeon, as you may have heard.  I
HATE to part with my money, even for a good reason.  And I NEVER
part with any of it, unless I am to receive some benefit from the
expenditure.  Now, what earthly good could I get from your three
by six school library?  None whatever.  But I shall make you a
fair offer.  I have heard from my housekeeper's urchin of a son
that you are a 'master hand' to tell stories.  Tell me one, here
and now.  I shall pay you in proportion to the entertainment you
afford me.  Come now, and do your prettiest."

There was a fine mockery in his tone that put the Story Girl on
her mettle instantly.  She sprang to her feet, an amazing change
coming over her.  Her eyes flashed and burned; crimson spots
glowed in her cheeks.

"I shall tell you the story of the Sherman girls, and how Betty
Sherman won a husband," she said.

We gasped.  Was the Story Girl crazy?  Or had she forgotten that
Betty Sherman was Mr. Campbell's own great-grandmother, and that
her method of winning a husband was not exactly in accordance
with maidenly traditions.

But Mr. Campbell chuckled again.

"An excellent test," he said.  "If you can amuse ME with that
story you must be a wonder.  I've heard it so often that it has
no more interest for me than the alphabet."

"One cold winter day, eighty years ago," began the Story Girl
without further parley, "Donald Fraser was sitting by the window
of his new house, playing his fiddle for company, and looking out
over the white, frozen bay before his door.  It was bitter,
bitter cold, and a storm was brewing.  But, storm, or no storm,
Donald meant to go over the bay that evening to see Nancy
Sherman.  He was thinking of her as he played 'Annie Laurie,' for
Nancy was more beautiful than the lady of the song.  'Her face,
it is the fairest that e'er the sun shone on,' hummed Donald--and
oh, he thought so, too!  He did not know whether Nancy cared for
him or not.  He had many rivals.  But he knew that if she would
not come to be the mistress of his new house no one else ever
should.  So he sat there that afternoon and dreamed of her, as he
played sweet old songs and rollicking jigs on his fiddle.

"While he was playing a sleigh drove up to the door, and Neil
Campbell came in.  Donald was not overly glad to see him, for he
suspected where he was going.  Neil Campbell, who was Highland
Scotch and lived down at Berwick, was courting Nancy Sherman,
too; and, what was far worse, Nancy's father favoured him,
because he was a richer man than Donald Fraser.  But Donald was
not going to show all he thought--Scotch people never do--and he
pretended to be very glad to see Neil and made him heartily
welcome.

"Neil sat down by the roaring fire, looking quite well satisfied
with himself.  It was ten miles from Berwick to the bay shore,
and a call at a half way house was just the thing.  Then Donald
brought out the whisky.  They always did that eighty years ago,
you know.  If you were a woman, you could give your visitors a
dish of tea; but if you were a man and did not offer them a
'taste' of whisky, you were thought either very mean or very
ignorant.

"'You look cold,' said Donald, in his great, hearty voice.  'Sit
nearer the fire, man, and put a bit of warmth in your veins.
It's bitter cold the day.  And now tell me the Berwick news.  Has
Jean McLean made up with her man yet?  And is it true that Sandy
McQuarrie is to marry Kate Ferguson?  'Twill be a match now!
Sure, with her red hair, Sandy will not be like to lose his bride
past finding.'

"Neil had plenty of news to tell.  And the more whisky he drank
the more he told.  He didn't notice that Donald was not taking
much.  Neil talked on and on, and of course he soon began to tell
things it would have been much wiser not to tell.  Finally he
told Donald that he was going over the bay to ask Nancy Sherman
that very night to marry him.  And if she would have him, then
Donald and all the folks should see a wedding that WAS a wedding.

"Oh, wasn't Donald taken aback!  This was more than he had
expected.  Neil hadn't been courting Nancy very long, and Donald
never dreamed he would propose to her QUITE so soon.

"At first Donald didn't know what to do.  He felt sure deep down
in his heart, that Nancy liked HIM.  She was very shy and modest,
but you know a girl can let a man see she likes him without going
out of her way.  But Donald knew that if Neil proposed first he
would have the best chance.  Neil was rich and the Shermans were
poor, and old Elias Sherman would have the most to say in the
matter.  If he told Nancy she must take Neil Campbell she would
never dream of disobeying him.  Old Elias Sherman was a man who
had to be obeyed.  But if Nancy had only promised some one else
first her father would not make her break her word.

"Wasn't it a hard plight for poor Donald?  But he was a
Scotchman, you know, and it's pretty hard to stick a Scotchman
long.  Presently a twinkle came into his eyes, for he remembered
that all was fair in love and war.  So he said to Neil, oh, so
persuasively,

"'Have some more, man, have some more.  'Twill keep the heart in
you in the teeth of that wind.  Help yourself.  There's plenty
more where that came from.'

"Neil didn't want MUCH persuasion.  He took some more, and said
slyly,

"'Is it going over the bay the night that yourself will be
doing?'

"Donald shook his head.

"'I had thought of it,' he owned, 'but it looks a wee like a
storm, and my sleigh is at the blacksmith's to be shod.  If I
went it must be on Black Dan's back, and he likes a canter over
the ice in a snow-storm as little as I.  His own fireside is the
best place for a man to-night, Campbell.  Have another taste,
man, have another taste.'

"Neil went on 'tasting,' and that sly Donald sat there with a
sober face, but laughing eyes, and coaxed him on.  At last Neil's
head fell forward on his breast, and he was sound asleep.  Donald
got up, put on his overcoat and cap, and went to the door.

"'May your sleep be long and sweet, man,' he said, laughing
softly, 'and as for the waking, 'twill be betwixt you and me.'

"With that he untied Neil's horse, climbed into Neil's sleigh,
and tucked Neil's buffalo robe about him.

"'Now, Bess, old girl, do your bonniest,' he said.  'There's more
than you know hangs on your speed.  If the Campbell wakes too
soon Black Dan could show you a pair of clean heels for all your
good start.  On, my girl.'

"Brown Bess went over the ice like a deer, and Donald kept
thinking of what he should say to Nancy--and more still of what
she would say to him.  SUPPOSE he was mistaken.  SUPPOSE she said
'no!'

"'Neil would have the laugh on me then.  Sure he's sleeping well.
And the snow is coming soon.  There'll be a bonny swirl on the
bay ere long.  I hope no harm will come to the lad if he starts
to cross.  When he wakes he'll be in such a fine Highland temper
that he'll never stop to think of danger.  Well, Bess, old girl,
here we are.  Now, Donald Fraser, pluck up heart and play the
man.  Never flinch because a slip of a lass looks scornful at you
out of the bonniest dark-blue eyes on earth.'

"But in spite of his bold words Donald's heart was thumping as he
drove into the Sherman yard.  Nancy was there milking a cow by
the stable door, but she stood up when she saw Donald coming.
Oh, she was very beautiful!  Her hair was like a skein of golden
silk, and her eyes were as blue as the gulf water when the sun
breaks out after a storm.  Donald felt more nervous than ever.
But he knew he must make the most of his chance.  He might not
see Nancy alone again before Neil came.  He caught her hand and
stammered out,

"'Nan, lass, I love you.  You may think 'tis a hasty wooing, but
that's a story I can tell you later maybe.  I know well I'm not
worthy of you, but if true love could make a man worthy there'd
be none before me.  Will you have me, Nan?'

"Nancy didn't SAY she would have him.  She just LOOKED it, and
Donald kissed her right there in the snow.

"The next morning the storm was over.  Donald knew Neil must be
soon on his track.  He did not want to make the Sherman house the
scene of a quarrel, so he resolved to get away before the
Campbell came.  He persuaded Nancy to go with him to visit some
friends in another settlement.  As he brought Neil's sleigh up to
the door he saw a black speck far out on the bay and laughed.

"'Black Dan goes well, but he'll not be quick enough,' he said.

"Half an hour later Neil Campbell rushed into the Sherman kitchen
and oh, how angry he was!  There was nobody there but Betty
Sherman, and Betty was not afraid of him.  She was never afraid
of anybody.  She was very handsome, with hair as brown as October
nuts and black eyes and crimson cheeks; and she had always been
in love with Neil Campbell herself.

"'Good morning, Mr. Campbell,' she said, with a toss of her head.
'It's early abroad you are.  And on Black Dan, no less!  Was I
mistaken in thinking that Donald Fraser said once that his
favourite horse should never be backed by any man but him?  But
doubtless a fair exchange is no robbery, and Brown Bess is a good
mare in her way.'

"'Where is Donald Fraser?' said Neil, shaking his fist.  'It's
him I'm seeking, and it's him I will be finding.  Where is he,
Betty Sherman?'

"'Donald Fraser is far enough away by this time,' mocked Betty.
'He is a prudent fellow, and has some quickness of wit under that
sandy thatch of his.  He came here last night at sunset, with a
horse and sleigh not his own, or lately gotten, and he asked Nan
in the stable yard to marry him.  Did a man ask ME to marry him
at the cow's side with a milking pail in my hand, it's a cold
answer he'd get for his pains.  But Nan thought differently, and
they sat late together last night, and 'twas a bonny story Nan
wakened me to hear when she came to bed--the story of a braw
lover who let his secret out when the whisky was above the wit,
and then fell asleep while his rival was away to woo and win his
lass.  Did you ever hear a like story, Mr. Campbell?'

"'Oh, yes,' said Neil fiercely.  'It is laughing at me over the
country side and telling that story that Donald Fraser will be
doing, is it?  But when I meet him it is not laughing he will be
doing.  Oh, no.  There will be another story to tell!'

"'Now, don't meddle with the man,' cried Betty.  'What a state to
be in because one good-looking lass likes sandy hair and gray
eyes better than Highland black and blue!  You have not the
spirit of a wren, Neil Campbell.  Were I you, I would show Donald
Fraser that I could woo and win a lass as speedily as any
Lowlander of them all; that I would!  There's many a girl would
gladly say 'yes' for your asking.  And here stands one!  Why not
marry ME, Neil Campbell?  Folks say I'm as bonny as Nan--and I
could love you as well as Nan loves her Donald--ay, and ten times
better!'

"What do you suppose the Campbell did?  Why, just the thing he
ought to have done.  He took Betty at her word on the spot; and
there was a double wedding soon after.  And it is said that Neil
and Betty were the happiest couple in the world--happier even
than Donald and Nancy.  So all was well because it ended well!"

The Story Girl curtsied until her silken skirts swept the floor.
Then she flung herself in her chair and looked at Mr. Campbell,
flushed, triumphant, daring.

The story was old to us.  It had once been published in a
Charlottetown paper, and we had read in Aunt Olivia's scrapbook,
where the Story Girl had learned it.  But we had listened
entranced.  I have written down the bare words of the story, as
she told it; but I can never reproduce the charm and colour and
spirit she infused into it.  It LIVED for us.  Donald and Neil,
Nancy and Betty, were there in that room with us.  We saw the
flashes of expression on their faces, we heard their voices,
angry or tender, mocking or merry, in Lowland and Highland
accent.  We realized all the mingled coquetry and feeling and
defiance and archness in Betty Sherman's daring speech.  We had
even forgotten all about Mr. Campbell.

That gentleman, in silence, took out his wallet, extracted a note
therefrom, and handed it gravely to the Story Girl.

"There are five dollars for you," he said, "and your story was
well worth it.  You ARE a wonder.  Some day you will make the
world realize it.  I've been about a bit, and heard some good
things, but I've never enjoyed anything more than that threadbare
old story I heard in my cradle.  And now, will you do me a
favour?"

"Of course," said the delighted Story Girl.

"Recite the multiplication table for me," said Mr. Campbell.

We stared.  Well might Mr. Campbell be called eccentric.  What on
earth did he want the multiplication table recited for?  Even the
Story Girl was surprised.  But she began promptly, with twice one
and went through it to twelve times twelve.  She repeated it
simply, but her voice changed from one tone to another as each in
succession grew tired.  We had never dreamed that there was so
much in the multiplication table.  As she announced it, the fact
that three times three was nine was exquisitely ridiculous, five
times six almost brought tears to our eyes, eight times seven was
the most tragic and frightful thing ever heard of, and twelve
times twelve rang like a trumpet call to victory.

Mr. Campbell nodded his satisfaction.

"I thought you could do it," he said.  "The other day I found
this statement in a book.  'Her voice would have made the
multiplication table charming!' I thought of it when I heard
yours.  I didn't believe it before, but I do now."

Then he let us go.

"You see," said the Story Girl as we went home, "you need never
be afraid of people."

"But we are not all Story Girls," said Cecily.

That night we heard Felicity talking to Cecily in their room.

"Mr. Campbell never noticed one of us except the Story Girl," she
said, "but if I had put on MY best dress as she did maybe she
wouldn't have taken all the attention."

"Could you ever do what Betty Sherman did, do you suppose?" asked
Cecily absently.

"No; but I believe the Story Girl could," answered Felicity
rather snappishly.



CHAPTER VIII. A TRAGEDY OF CHILDHOOD

The Story Girl went to Charlottetown for a week in June to visit
Aunt Louisa.  Life seemed very colourless without her, and even
Felicity admitted that it was lonesome.  But three days after her
departure Felix told us something on the way home from school
which lent some spice to existence immediately.

"What do you think?" he said in a very solemn, yet excited, tone.
"Jerry Cowan told me at recess this afternoon that he HAD SEEN A
PICTURE OF GOD--that he has it at home in an old, red-covered
history of the world, and has looked at it OFTEN."

To think that Jerry Cowan should have seen such a picture often!
We were as deeply impressed as Felix had meant us to be.

"Did he say what it was like?" asked Peter.

"No--only that it was a picture of God, walking in the garden of
Eden."

"Oh," whispered Felicity--we all spoke in low tones on the
subject, for, by instinct and training, we thought and uttered
the Great Name with reverence, in spite of our devouring
curiosity--"oh, WOULD Jerry Cowan bring it to school and let us
see it?"

"I asked him that, soon as ever he told me," said Felix.  "He
said he might, but he couldn't promise, for he'd have to ask his
mother if he could bring the book to school.  If she'll let him
he'll bring it to-morrow."

"Oh, I'll be almost afraid to look at it," said Sara Ray
tremulously.

I think we all shared her fear to some extent.  Nevertheless, we
went to school the next day burning with curiosity.  And we were
disappointed.  Possibly night had brought counsel to Jerry Cowan;
or perhaps his mother had put him up to it.  At all events, he
announced to us that he couldn't bring the red-covered history to
school, but if we wanted to buy the picture outright he would
tear it out of the book and sell it to us for fifty cents.

We talked the matter over in serious conclave in the orchard that
evening.  We were all rather short of hard cash, having devoted
most of our spare means to the school library fund.  But the
general consensus of opinion was that we must have the picture,
no matter what pecuniary sacrifices were involved.  If we could
each give about seven cents we would have the amount.  Peter
could only give four, but Dan gave eleven, which squared matters.

"Fifty cents would be pretty dear for any other picture, but of
course this is different," said Dan.

"And there's a picture of Eden thrown in, too, you know," added
Felicity.

"Fancy selling God's picture," said Cecily in a shocked, awed
tone.

"Nobody but a Cowan would do it, and that's a fact," said Dan.

"When we get it we'll keep it in the family Bible," said
Felicity.  "That's the only proper place."

"Oh, I wonder what it will be like," breathed Cecily.

We all wondered.  Next day in school we agreed to Jerry Cowan's
terms, and Jerry promised to bring the picture up to Uncle Alec's
the following afternoon.

We were all intensely excited Saturday morning.  To our dismay,
it began to rain just before dinner.

"What if Jerry doesn't bring the picture to-day because of the
rain?" I suggested.

"Never you fear," answered Felicity decidedly.  "A Cowan would
come through ANYTHING for fifty cents."

After dinner we all, without any verbal decision about it, washed
our faces and combed our hair.  The girls put on their second
best dresses, and we boys donned white collars.  We all had the
unuttered feeling that we must do such honour to that Picture as
we could.  Felicity and Dan began a small spat over something,
but stopped at once when Cecily said severely,

"How DARE you quarrel when you are going to look at a picture of
God to-day?"

Owing to the rain we could not foregather in the orchard, where
we had meant to transact the business with Jerry.  We did not
wish our grown-ups around at our great moment, so we betook
ourselves to the loft of the granary in the spruce wood, from
whose window we could see the main road and hail Jerry.  Sara Ray
had joined us, very pale and nervous, having had, so it appeared,
a difference of opinion with her mother about coming up the hill
in the rain.

"I'm afraid I did very wrong to come against ma's will," she said
miserably, "but I COULDN'T wait.  I wanted to see the picture as
soon as you did."

We waited and watched at the window.  The valley was full of
mist, and the rain was coming down in slanting lines over the
tops of the spruces.  But as we waited the clouds broke away and
the sun came out flashingly; the drops on the spruce boughs
glittered like diamonds.

"I don't believe Jerry can be coming," said Cecily in despair.
"I suppose his mother must have thought it was dreadful, after
all, to sell such a picture."

"There he is now!" cried Dan, waving excitedly from the window.

"He's carrying a fish-basket," said Felicity.  "You surely don't
suppose he would bring THAT picture in a fish-basket!"

Jerry HAD brought it in a fish-basket, as appeared when he
mounted the granary stairs shortly afterwards.  It was folded up
in a newspaper packet on top of the dried herring with which the
basket was filled.  We paid him his money, but we would not open
the packet until he had gone.

"Cecily," said Felicity in a hushed tone.  "You are the best of
us all.  YOU open the parcel."

"Oh, I'm no gooder than the rest of you," breathed Cecily, "but
I'll open it if you like."

With trembling fingers Cecily opened the parcel.  We stood
around, hardly breathing.  She unfolded it and held it up.  We
saw it.

Suddenly Sara began to cry.

"Oh, oh, oh, does God look like THAT?" she wailed.

Felix and I spoke not.  Disappointment, and something worse,
sealed our speech.  DID God look like that--like that stern,
angrily frowning old man with the tossing hair and beard of the
wood-cut Cecily held.

"I suppose He must, since that is His picture," said Dan
miserably.

"He looks awful cross," said Peter simply.

"Oh, I wish we'd never, never seen it," cried Cecily.

We all wished that--too late.  Our curiosity had led us into some
Holy of Holies, not to be profaned by human eyes, and this was
our punishment.

"I've always had a feeling right along," wept Sara, "that it
wasn't RIGHT to buy--or LOOK AT--God's picture."

As we stood there wretchedly we heard flying feet below and a
blithe voice calling,

"Where are you, children?"

The Story Girl had returned!  At any other moment we would have
rushed to meet her in wild joy.  But now we were too crushed and
miserable to move.

"Whatever is the matter with you all?" demanded the Story Girl,
appearing at the top of the stairs.  "What is Sara crying about?
What have you got there?"

"A picture of God," said Cecily with a sob in her voice, "and oh,
it is so dreadful and ugly.  Look!"

The Story Girl looked.  An expression of scorn came over her
face.

"Surely you don't believe God looks like that," she said
impatiently, while her fine eyes flashed.  "He doesn't--He
couldn't.  He is wonderful and beautiful.  I'm surprised at you.
THAT is nothing but the picture of a cross old man."

Hope sprang up in our hearts, although we were not wholly
convinced.

"I don't know," said Dan dubiously.  "It says under the picture
'God in the Garden of Eden.' It's PRINTED."

"Well, I suppose that's what the man who drew it thought God was
like," answered the Story Girl carelessly.  "But HE couldn't have
known any more than you do.  HE had never seen Him."

"It's all very well for you to say so," said Felicity, "but YOU
don't know either.  I wish I could believe that isn't like
God--but I don't know what to believe."

"Well, if you won't believe me, I suppose you'll believe the
minister," said the Story Girl.  "Go and ask him.  He's in the
house this very minute.  He came up with us in the buggy."

At any other time we would never have dared catechize the
minister about anything.  But desperate cases call for desperate
measures.  We drew straws to see who should go and do the asking,
and the lot fell to Felix.

"Better wait until Mr. Marwood leaves, and catch him in the
lane," advised the Story Girl.  "You'll have a lot of grown-ups
around you in the house."

Felix took her advice.  Mr. Marwood, presently walking
benignantly along the lane, was confronted by a fat, small boy
with a pale face but resolute eyes.

The rest of us remained in the background but within hearing.

"Well, Felix, what is it?" asked Mr. Marwood kindly.

"Please, sir, does God really look like this?" asked Felix,
holding out the picture.  "We hope He doesn't--but we want to
know the truth, and that is why I'm bothering you.  Please excuse
us and tell me."

The minister looked at the picture.  A stern expression came into
his gentle blue eyes and he got as near to frowning as it was
possible for him to get.

"Where did you get that thing?" he asked.

THING!  We began to breathe easier.

"We bought it from Jerry Cowan.  He found it in a red-covered
history of the world.  It SAYS it's God's picture," said Felix.

"It is nothing of the sort," said Mr. Marwood indignantly.
"There is no such thing as a picture of God, Felix.  No human
being knows what he looks like--no human being CAN know.  We
should not even try to think what He looks like.  But, Felix, you
may be sure that God is infinitely more beautiful and loving and
tender and kind than anything we can imagine of Him.  Never
believe anything else, my boy.  As for this--this SACRILEGE--take
it and burn it."

We did not know what a sacrilege meant, but we knew that Mr.
Marwood had declared that the picture was not like God.  That was
enough for us.  We felt as if a terrible weight had been lifted
from our minds.

"I could hardly believe the Story Girl, but of course the
minister KNOWS," said Dan happily.

"We've lost fifty cents because of it," said Felicity gloomily.

We had lost something of infinitely more value than fifty cents,
although we did not realize it just then.  The minister's words
had removed from our minds the bitter belief that God was like
that picture; but on something deeper and more enduring than mind
an impression had been made that was never to be removed.  The
mischief was done.  From that day to this the thought or the
mention of God brings up before us involuntarily the vision of a
stern, angry, old man.  Such was the price we were to pay for the
indulgence of a curiosity which each of us, deep in our hearts,
had, like Sara Ray, felt ought not to be gratified.

"Mr. Marwood told me to burn it," said Felix.

"It doesn't seem reverent to do that," said Cecily.  "Even if it
isn't God's picture, it has His name on it."

"Bury it," said the Story Girl.

We did bury it after tea, in the depths of the spruce grove; and
then we went into the orchard.  It was so nice to have the Story
Girl back again.  She had wreathed her hair with Canterbury
Bells, and looked like the incarnation of rhyme and story and
dream.

"Canterbury Bells is a lovely name for a flower, isn't it?" she
said.  "It makes you think of cathedrals and chimes, doesn't it?
Let's go over to Uncle Stephen's Walk, and sit on the branches of
the big tree.  It's too wet on the grass, and I know a story--a
TRUE story, about an old lady I saw in town at Aunt Louisa's.
Such a dear old lady, with lovely silvery curls."

After the rain the air seemed dripping with odours in the warm
west wind--the tang of fir balsam, the spice of mint, the wild
woodsiness of ferns, the aroma of grasses steeping in the
sunshine,--and with it all a breath of wild sweetness from far
hill pastures.

Scattered through the grass in Uncle Stephen's Walk, were
blossoming pale, aerial flowers which had no name that we could
ever discover.  Nobody seemed to know anything about them.  They
had been there when Great-grandfather King bought the place.  I
have never seen them elsewhere, or found them described in any
floral catalogue.  We called them the White Ladies.  The Story
Girl gave them the name.  She said they looked like the souls of
good women who had had to suffer much and had been very patient.
They were wonderfully dainty, with a strange, faint, aromatic
perfume which was only to be detected at a little distance and
vanished if you bent over them.  They faded soon after they were
plucked; and, although strangers, greatly admiring them, often
carried away roots and seeds, they could never be coaxed to grow
elsewhere.

"My story is about Mrs. Dunbar and the Captain of the FANNY,"
said the Story Girl, settling herself comfortably on a bough,
with her brown head against a gnarled trunk.  "It's sad and
beautiful--and true.  I do love to tell stories that I know
really happened.  Mrs. Dunbar lives next door to Aunt Louisa in
town.  She is so sweet.  You wouldn't think to look at her that
she had a tragedy in her life, but she has.  Aunt Louisa told me
the tale.  It all happened long, long ago.  Interesting things
like this all did happen long ago, it seems to me.  They never
seem to happen now.  This was in '49, when people were rushing to
the gold fields in California.  It was just like a fever, Aunt
Louisa says.  People took it, right here on the Island; and a
number of young men determined they would go to California.

"It is easy to go to California now; but it was a very different
matter then.  There were no railroads across the land, as there
are now, and if you wanted to go to California you had to go in a
sailing vessel, all the way around Cape Horn.  It was a long and
dangerous journey; and sometimes it took over six months.  When
you got there you had no way of sending word home again except by
the same plan.  It might be over a year before your people at
home heard a word about you--and fancy what their feelings would
be!

"But these young men didn't think of these things; they were led
on by a golden vision.  They made all their arrangements, and
they chartered the brig _Fanny_ to take them to California.

"The captain of the _Fanny_ is the hero of my story.  His name
was Alan Dunbar, and he was young and handsome.  Heroes always
are, you know, but Aunt Louisa says he really was.  And he was in
love--wildly in love,--with Margaret Grant.  Margaret was as
beautiful as a dream, with soft blue eyes and clouds of golden
hair; and she loved Alan Dunbar just as much as he loved her.
But her parents were bitterly opposed to him, and they had
forbidden Margaret to see him or speak to him.  They hadn't
anything against him as a MAN, but they didn't want her to throw
herself away on a sailor.

"Well, when Alan Dunbar knew that he must go to California in the
_Fanny_ he was in despair.  He felt that he could NEVER go so far
away for so long and leave his Margaret behind.  And Margaret
felt that she could never let him go.  I know EXACTLY how she
felt."

"How can you know?" interrupted Peter suddenly.  "You ain't old
enough to have a beau. How can you know?"

The Story Girl looked at Peter with a frown.  She did not like to
be interrupted when telling a story.

"Those are not things one KNOWS about," she said with dignity.
"One FEELS about them."

Peter, crushed but not convinced, subsided, and the Story Girl
went on.

"Finally, Margaret ran away with Alan, and they were married in
Charlottetown.  Alan intended to take his wife with him to
California in the _Fanny_.  If it was a hard journey for a man it
was harder still for a woman, but Margaret would have dared
anything for Alan's sake.  They had three days--ONLY three
days--of happiness, and then the blow fell.  The crew and the
passengers of the _Fanny_ refused to let Captain Dunbar take his
wife with him.  They told him he must leave her behind.  And all
his prayers were of no avail.  They say he stood on the deck of
the _Fanny_ and pleaded with the men while the tears ran down his
face; but they would not yield, and he had to leave Margaret
behind.  Oh, what a parting it was!"

There was heartbreak in the Story Girl's voice and tears came
into our eyes.  There, in the green bower of Uncle Stephen's
Walk, we cried over the pathos of a parting whose anguish had
been stilled for many years.

"When it was all over, Margaret's father and mother forgave her,
and she went back home to wait--to WAIT.  Oh, it is so dreadful
just to WAIT, and do nothing else.  Margaret waited for nearly a
year.  How long it must have seemed to her!  And at last there
came a letter--but not from Alan.  Alan was DEAD.  He had died in
California and had been buried there.  While Margaret had been
thinking of him and longing for him and praying for him he had
been lying in his lonely, faraway grave."

Cecily sprang up, shaking with sobs.

"Oh, don't--don't go on," she implored.  "I CAN'T bear any more."

"There is no more," said the Story Girl.  "That was the end of
it--the end of everything for Margaret.  It didn't kill HER, but
her heart died."

"I just wish I'd hold of those fellows who wouldn't let the
Captain take his wife," said Peter savagely.

"Well, it was awful said," said Felicity, wiping her eyes.  "But
it was long ago and we can't do any good by crying over it now.
Let us go and get something to eat.  I made some nice little
rhubarb tarts this morning."

We went.  In spite of new disappointments and old heartbreaks we
had appetites.  And Felicity did make scrumptious rhubarb tarts!



CHAPTER IX. MAGIC SEED

When the time came to hand in our collections for the library
fund Peter had the largest--three dollars.  Felicity was a good
second with two and a half.  This was simply because the hens had
laid so well.

"If you'd had to pay father for all the extra handfuls of wheat
you've fed to those hens, Miss Felicity, you wouldn't have so
much," said Dan spitefully.

"I didn't," said Felicity indignantly.  "Look how Aunt Olivia's
hens laid, too, and she fed them herself just the same as usual."

"Never mind," said Cecily, "we have all got something to give.
If you were like poor Sara Ray, and hadn't been able to collect
anything, you might feel bad."

But Sara Ray HAD something to give.  She came up the hill after
tea, all radiant.  When Sara Ray smiled--and she did not waste
her smiles--she was rather pretty in a plaintive, apologetic way.
A dimple or two came into sight, and she had very nice
teeth--small and white, like the traditional row of pearls.

"Oh, just look," she said.  "Here are three dollars--and I'm
going to give it all to the library fund.  I had a letter to-day
from Uncle Arthur in Winnipeg, and he sent me three dollars.  He
said I was to use it ANY way I liked, so ma couldn't refuse to
let me give it to the fund.  She thinks it's an awful waste, but
she always goes by what Uncle Arthur says.  Oh, I've prayed so
hard that some money might come some way, and now it has.  See
what praying does!"

I was very much afraid that we did not rejoice quite as
unselfishly in Sara's good fortune as we should have done.  WE
had earned our contributions by the sweat of our brow, or by the
scarcely less disagreeable method of "begging."  And Sara's had as
good as descended upon her out of the skies, as much like a
miracle as anything you could imagine.

"She prayed for it, you know," said Felix, after Sara had gone
home.

"That's too easy a way of earning money," grumbled Peter
resentfully.  "If the rest of us had just set down and done
nothing, only prayed, how much do you s'pose we'd have?  It don't
seem fair to me."

"Oh, well, it's different with Sara," said Dan.  "We COULD earn
money and she COULDN'T.  You see?  But come on down to the
orchard.  The Story Girl had a letter from her father to-day and
she's going to read it to us."

We went promptly.  A letter from the Story Girl's father was
always an event; and to hear her read it was almost as good as
hearing her tell a story.

Before coming to Carlisle, Uncle Blair Stanley had been a mere
name to us.  Now he was a personality.  His letters to the Story
Girl, the pictures and sketches he sent her, her adoring and
frequent mention of him, all combined to make him very real to
us.

We FELT then, what we did not understand till later years, that
our grown-up relatives did not altogether admire or approve of
Uncle Blair.  He belonged to a different world from theirs.  They
had never known him very intimately or understood him.  I realize
now that Uncle Blair was a bit of a Bohemian--a respectable sort
of tramp.  Had he been a poor man he might have been a more
successful artist.  But he had a small fortune of his own and,
lacking the spur of necessity, or of disquieting ambition, he
remained little more than a clever amateur.  Once in a while he
painted a picture which showed what he could do; but for the
rest, he was satisfied to wander over the world, light-hearted
and content.  We knew that the Story Girl was thought to resemble
him strongly in appearance and temperament, but she had far more
fire and intensity and strength of will--her inheritance from
King and Ward.  She would never be satisfied as a dabbler;
whatever her future career should be, into it she would throw all
her powers of mind and heart and soul.

But Uncle Blair could do at least one thing surpassingly well.
He could write letters.  Such letters!  By contrast, Felix and I
were secretly ashamed of father's epistles.  Father could talk
well but, as Felix said, he couldn't write worth a cent.  The
letters we had received from him since his arrival in Rio de
Janeiro were mere scrawls, telling us to be good boys and not
trouble Aunt Janet, incidentally adding that he was well and
lonesome.  Felix and I were always glad to get his letters, but
we never read them aloud to an admiring circle in the orchard.

Uncle Blair was spending the summer in Switzerland; and the
letter the Story Girl read to us, among the fair, frail White
Ladies of the Walk, where the west wind came now with a sigh, and
again with a rush, and then brushed our faces as softly as the
down of a thistle, was full of the glamour of mountain-rimmed
lakes, and purple chalets, and "snowy summits old in story."  We
climbed Mount Blanc, saw the Jungfrau soaring into cloudland, and
walked among the gloomy pillars of Bonnivard's prison.  Finally,
the Story Girl told us the tale of the Prisoner of Chillon, in
words that were Byron's, but in a voice that was all her own.

"It must be splendid to go to Europe," sighed Cecily longingly.

"I am going some day," said the Story Girl airily.

We looked at her with a slightly incredulous awe.  To us, in
those years, Europe seemed almost as remote and unreachable as
the moon.  It was hard to believe that one of US should ever go
there.  But Aunt Julia had gone--and SHE had been brought up in
Carlisle on this very farm.  So it was possible that the Story
Girl might go too.

"What will you do there?" asked Peter practically.

"I shall learn how to tell stories to all the world," said the
Story Girl dreamily.

It was a lovely, golden-brown evening; the orchard, and the
farm-lands beyond, were full of ruby lights and kissing shadows.
Over in the east, above the Awkward Man's house, the Wedding Veil
of the Proud Princess floated across the sky, presently turning
as rosy as if bedewed with her heart's blood.  We sat there and
talked until the first star lighted a white taper over the beech
hill.

Then I remembered that I had forgotten to take my dose of magic
seed, and I hastened to do it, although I was beginning to lose
faith in it.  I had not grown a single bit, by the merciless
testimony of the hall door.

I took the box of seed out of my trunk in the twilit room and
swallowed the decreed pinch.  As I did so, Dan's voice rang out
behind me.

"Beverley King, what have you got there?"

I thrust the box hastily into my trunk and confronted Dan.

"None of your business," I said defiantly.

"Yes, 'tis."  Dan was too much in earnest to resent my blunt
speech.  "Look here, Bev, is that magic seed?  And did you get it
from Billy Robinson?"

Dan and I looked at each other, suspicion dawning in our eyes.

"What do you know about Billy Robinson and his magic seed?" I
demanded.

"Just this.  I bought a box from him for--for--something.  He
said he wasn't going to sell any of it to anybody else.  Did he
sell any to you?"

"Yes, he did," I said in disgust--for I was beginning to
understand that Billy and his magic seed were arrant frauds.

"What for?  YOUR mouth is a decent size," said Dan.

"Mouth?  It had nothing to do with my mouth!  He said it would
make me grow tall.  And it hasn't--not an inch!  I don't see what
you wanted it for!  You are tall enough."

"I got it for my mouth," said Dan with a shame-faced grin.  "The
girls in school laugh at it so.  Kate Marr says it's like a gash
in a pie.  Billy said that seed would shrink it for sure."

Well, there it was!  Billy had deceived us both.  Nor were we the
only victims.  We did not find the whole story out at once.
Indeed, the summer was almost over before, in one way or another,
the full measure of that shameless Billy Robinson's iniquity was
revealed to us.  But I shall anticipate the successive relations
in this chapter.  Every pupil of Carlisle school, so it
eventually appeared, had bought magic seed, under solemn promise
of secrecy.  Felix had believed blissfully that it would make him
thin.  Cecily's hair was to become naturally curly, and Sara Ray
was not to be afraid of Peg Bowen any more.  It was to make
Felicity as clever as the Story Girl and it was to make the Story
Girl as good a cook as Felicity.  What Peter had bought magic
seed for remained a secret longer than any of the others.
Finally--it was the night before what we expected would be the
Judgment Day--he confessed to me that he had taken it to make
Felicity fond of him.  Skilfully indeed had that astute Billy
played on our respective weaknesses.

The keenest edge to our humiliation was given by the discovery
that the magic seed was nothing more or less than caraway, which
grew in abundance at Billy Robinson's uncle's in Markdale.  Peg
Bowen had had nothing to do with it.

Well, we had all been badly hoaxed.  But we did not trumpet our
wrongs abroad.  We did not even call Billy to account.  We
thought that least said was soonest mended in such a matter.  We
went very softly indeed, lest the grown-ups, especially that
terrible Uncle Roger, should hear of it.

"We should have known better than to trust Billy Robinson," said
Felicity, summing up the case one evening when all had been made
known.  "After all, what could you expect from a pig but a
grunt?"

We were not surprised to find that Billy Robinson's contribution
to the library fund was the largest handed in by any of the
scholars.  Cecily said she didn't envy him his conscience.  But I
am afraid she measured his conscience by her own.  I doubt very
much if Billy's troubled him at all.



CHAPTER X. A DAUGHTER OF EVE

"I hate the thought of growing up," said the Story Girl
reflectively, "because I can never go barefooted then, and nobody
will ever see what beautiful feet I have."

She was sitting, the July sunlight, on the ledge of the open
hayloft window in Uncle Roger's big barn; and the bare feet below
her print skirt WERE beautiful.  They were slender and shapely
and satin smooth with arched insteps, the daintiest of toes, and
nails like pink shells.

We were all the hayloft.  The Story Girl had been telling us a
tale

    "Of old, unhappy, far-off things,
    And battles long ago."

Felicity and Cecily were curled up in a corner, and we boys
sprawled idly on the fragrant, sun-warm heaps.  We had "stowed"
the hay in the loft that morning for Uncle Roger, so we felt that
we had earned the right to loll on our sweet-smelling couch.
Haylofts are delicious places, with just enough of shadow and
soft, uncertain noises to give an agreeable tang of mystery.  The
swallows flew in and out of their nest above our heads, and
whenever a sunbeam fell through a chink the air swarmed with
golden dust.  Outside of the loft was a vast, sunshiny gulf of
blue sky and mellow air, wherein floated argosies of fluffy
cloud, and airy tops of maple and spruce.

Pat was with us, of course, prowling about stealthily, or making
frantic, bootless leaps at the swallows.  A cat in a hayloft is a
beautiful example of the eternal fitness of things.  We had not
heard of this fitness then, but we all felt that Paddy was in his
own place in a hayloft.

"I think it is very vain to talk about anything you have yourself
being beautiful," said Felicity.

"I am not a bit vain," said the Story Girl, with entire
truthfulness.  "It is not vanity to know your own good points.
It would just be stupidity if you didn't.  It's only vanity when
you get puffed up about them.  I am not a bit pretty.  My only
good points are my hair and eyes and feet.  So I think it's real
mean that one of them has to be covered up the most of the time.
I'm always glad when it gets warm enough to go barefooted.  But,
when I grow up they'll have to covered all the time.  It IS
mean."

"You'll have to put your shoes and stockings on when you go to
the magic lantern show to-night," said Felicity in a tone of
satisfaction.

"I don't know that.  I'm thinking of going barefooted."

"Oh, you wouldn't!  Sara Stanley, you're not in earnest!"
exclaimed Felicity, her blue eyes filling with horror.

The Story Girl winked with the side of her face next to Felix and
me, but the side next the girls changed not a muscle.  She dearly
loved to "take a rise" out of Felicity now and then.

"Indeed, I would if I just made up my mind to.  Why not?  Why not
bare feet--if they're clean--as well as bare hands and face?"

"Oh, you wouldn't!  It would be such a disgrace!" said poor
Felicity in real distress.

"We went to school barefooted all June," argued that wicked Story
Girl.  "What is the difference between going to the schoolhouse
barefooted in the daytime and going in the evening?"

"Oh, there's EVERY difference.  I can't just explain it--but
every one KNOWS there is a difference.  You know it yourself.
Oh, PLEASE, don't do such a thing, Sara."

"Well, I won't, just to oblige you," said the Story Girl, who
would have died the death before she would have gone to a "public
meeting" barefooted.

We were all rather excited over the magic lantern show which an
itinerant lecturer was to give in the schoolhouse that evening.
Even Felix and I, who had seen such shows galore, were
interested, and the rest were quite wild.  There had never been
such a thing in Carlisle before.  We were all going, Peter
included.  Peter went everywhere with us now.  He was a regular
attendant at church and Sunday School, where his behaviour was as
irreproachable as if he had been "raised" in the caste of Vere de
Vere.  It was feather in the Story Girl's cap, for she took all
the credit of having started Peter on the right road.  Felicity
was resigned, although the fatal patch on Peter's best trousers
was still an eyesore to her.  She declared she never got any good
of the singing, because Peter stood up then and every one could
see the patch.  Mrs. James Clark, whose pew was behind ours,
never took her eye off it--or so Felicity averred.

But Peter's stockings were always darned.  Aunt Olivia had seen
to that, ever since she heard of Peter's singular device
regarding them on his first Sunday.  She had also given Peter a
Bible, of which he was so proud that he hated to use it lest he
should soil it.

"I think I'll wrap it up and keep it in my box," he said.  "I've
an old Bible of Aunt Jane's at home that I can use.  I s'pose
it's just the same, even if it is old, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes," Cecily had assured him.  "The Bible is always the
same."

"I thought maybe they'd got some new improvements on it since
Aunt Jane's day," said Peter, relieved.

"Sara Ray is coming along the lane, and she's crying," announced
Dan, who was peering out of a knot-hole on the opposite side of
the loft.

"Sara Ray is crying half her time," said Cecily impatiently.
"I'm sure she cries a quartful of tears a month.  There are times
when you can't help crying.  But I hide then.  Sara just goes and
cries in public."

The lachrymose Sara presently joined us and we discovered the
cause of her tears to be the doleful fact that her mother had
forbidden her to go to the magic lantern show that night.  We all
showed the sympathy we felt.

"She SAID yesterday you could go," said the Story Girl
indignantly.  "Why has she changed her mind?"

"Because of the measles in Markdale," sobbed Sara.  "She says
Markdale is full of them, and there'll be sure to be some of the
Markdale people at the show.  So I'm not to go.  And I've never
seen a magic lantern--I've never seen ANYTHING."

"I don't believe there's any danger of catching measles," said
Felicity.  "If there was we wouldn't be allowed to go."

"I wish I COULD get the measles," said Sara defiantly.  "Maybe
I'd be of some importance to ma then."

"Suppose Cecily goes down with you and coaxes your mother,"
suggested the Story Girl.  "Perhaps she'd let you go then.  She
likes Cecily.  She doesn't like either Felicity or me, so it
would only make matters worse for us to try."

"Ma's gone to town--pa and her went this afternoon--and they're
not coming back till to-morrow.  There's nobody home but Judy
Pineau and me."

"Then," said the Story Girl, "why don't you just go to the show
anyhow?  Your mother won't ever know, if you coax Judy to hold
her tongue."

"Oh, but that's wrong," said Felicity.  "You shouldn't put Sara
up to disobeying her mother."

Now, Felicity for once was undoubtedly right.  The Story Girl's
suggestion WAS wrong; and if it had been Cecily who protested,
the Story Girl would probably have listened to her, and proceeded
no further in the matter.  But Felicity was one of those
unfortunate people whose protests against wrong-doing serve only
to drive the wrong-doer further on her sinful way.

The Story Girl resented Felicity's superior tone, and proceeded
to tempt Sara in right good earnest.  The rest of us held our
tongues.  It was, we told ourselves, Sara's own lookout.

"I have a good mind to do it," said Sara.  "but I can't get my
good clothes; they're in the spare room, and ma locked the door,
for fear somebody would get at the fruit cake.  I haven't a
single thing to wear, except my school gingham."

"Well, that's new and pretty," said the Story Girl.  "We'll lend
you some things.  You can have my lace collar.  That'll make the
gingham quite elegant.  And Cecily will lend you her second best
hat."

"But I've no shoes or stockings.  They're locked up too."

"You can have a pair of mine," said Felicity, who probably
thought that since Sara was certain to yield to temptation, she
might as well be garbed decently for her transgression.

Sara did yield.  When the Story Girl's voice entreated it was not
easy to resist its temptation, even if you wanted to.  That
evening, when we started for the schoolhouse, Sara Ray was among
us, decked out in borrowed plumes.

"Suppose she DOES catch the measles?" Felicity said aside.

"I don't believe there'll be anybody there from Markdale.  The
lecturer is going to Markdale next week.  They'll wait for that,"
said the Story Girl airily.

It was a cool, dewy evening, and we walked down the long, red
hill in the highest of spirits.  Over a valley filled with beech
and spruce was a sunset afterglow--creamy yellow and a hue that
was not so much red as the dream of red, with a young moon swung
low in it.  The air was sweet with the breath of mown hayfields
where swaths of clover had been steeping in the sun.  Wild roses
grew pinkly along the fences, and the roadsides were star-dusted
with buttercups.

Those of us who had nothing the matter with our consciences
enjoyed our walk to the little whitewashed schoolhouse in the
valley.  Felicity and Cecily were void of offence towards all
men.  The Story Girl walked uprightly like an incarnate flame in
her crimson silk.  Her pretty feet were hidden in the
tan-coloured, buttoned Paris boots which were the secret envy of
every school girl in Carlisle.

But Sara Ray was not happy.  Her face was so melancholy that the
Story Girl lost patience with her.  The Story Girl herself was
not altogether at ease.  Probably her own conscience was
troubling her.  But admit it she would not.

"Now, Sara," she said, "you just take my advice and go into this
with all your heart if you go at all.  Never mind if it is bad.
There's no use being naughty if you spoil your fun by wishing all
the time you were good.  You can repent afterwards, but there is
no use in mixing the two things together."

"I'm not repenting," protested Sara.  "I'm only scared of ma
finding it out."

"Oh!"  The Story Girl's voice expressed her scorn.  For remorse
she had understanding and sympathy; but fear of her fellow
creatures was something unknown to her.  "Didn't Judy Pineau
promise you solemnly she wouldn't tell?"

"Yes; but maybe some one who sees me there will mention it to
ma."

"Well, if you're so scared you'd better not go.  It isn't too
late.  Here's your own gate," said Cecily.

But Sara could not give up the delights of the show.  So she
walked on, a small, miserable testimony that the way of the
transgressor is never easy, even when said transgressor is only a
damsel of eleven.

The magic lantern show was a splendid one.  The views were good
and the lecturer witty.  We repeated his jokes to each other all
the way home.  Sara, who had not enjoyed the exhibition at all,
seemed to feel more cheerful when it was over and she was going
home.  The Story Girl on the contrary was gloomy.

"There WERE Markdale people there," she confided to me, "and the
Williamsons live next door to the Cowans, who have measles.  I
wish I'd never egged Sara on to going--but don't tell Felicity I
said so.  If Sara Ray had really enjoyed the show I wouldn't
mind.  But she didn't.  I could see that.  So I've done wrong and
made her do wrong--and there's nothing to show for it."

The night was scented and mysterious.  The wind was playing an
eerie fleshless melody in the reeds of the brook hollow.  The sky
was dark and starry, and across it the Milky Way flung its
shimmering misty ribbons.

"There's four hundred million stars in the Milky Way," quoth
Peter, who frequently astonished us by knowing more than any
hired boy could be expected to.  He had a retentive memory, and
never forgot anything he heard or read.  The few books left to
him by his oft-referred-to Aunt Jane had stocked his mind with a
miscellaneous information which sometimes made Felix and me doubt
if we knew as much as Peter after all.  Felicity was so impressed
by his knowledge of astronomy that she dropped back from the
other girls and walked beside him.  She had not done so before
because he was barefooted.  It was permissible for hired boys to
go to public meetings--when not held in the church--with bare
feet, and no particular disgrace attached to it.  But Felicity
would not walk with a barefooted companion.  It was dark now, so
nobody would notice his feet.

"I know a story about the Milky Way," said the Story Girl,
brightening up.  "I read it in a book of Aunt Louisa's in town,
and I learned it off by heart.  Once there were two archangels in
heaven, named Zerah and Zulamith--"

"Have angels names--same as people?" interrupted Peter.

"Yes, of course.  They MUST have.  They'd be all mixed up if they
hadn't."

"And when I'm an angel--if I ever get to be one--will my name
still be Peter?"

"No.  You'll have a new name up there," said Cecily gently.  "It
says so in the Bible."

"Well, I'm glad of that.  Peter would be such a funny name for an
angel.  And what is the difference between angels and
archangels?"

"Oh, archangels are angels that have been angels so long that
they've had time to grow better and brighter and more beautiful
than newer angels," said the Story Girl, who probably made that
explanation up on the spur of the moment, just to pacify Peter.

"How long does it take for an angel to grow into an archangel?"
pursued Peter.

"Oh, I don't know.  Millions of years likely.  And even then I
don't suppose ALL the angels do.  A good many of them must just
stay plain angels, I expect."

"I shall be satisfied just to be a plain angel," said Felicity
modestly.

"Oh, see here, if you're going to interrupt and argue over
everything, we'll never get the story told," said Felix.  "Dry
up, all of you, and let the Story Girl go on."

We dried up, and the Story Girl went on.

"Zerah and Zulamith loved each other, just as mortals love, and
this is forbidden by the laws of the Almighty.  And because Zerah
and Zulamith had so broken God's law they were banished from His
presence to the uttermost bounds of the universe.  If they had
been banished TOGETHER it would have been no punishment; so Zerah
was exiled to a star on one side of the universe, and Zulamith
was sent to a star on the other side of the universe; and between
them was a fathomless abyss which thought itself could not cross.
Only one thing could cross it--and that was love.  Zulamith
yearned for Zerah with such fidelity and longing that he began to
build up a bridge of light from his star; and Zerah, not knowing
this, but loving and longing for him, began to build a similar
bridge of light from her star.  For a thousand thousand years
they both built the bridge of light, and at last they met and
sprang into each other's arms.  Their toil and loneliness and
suffering were all over and forgotten, and the bridge they had
built spanned the gulf between their stars of exile.

"Now, when the other archangels saw what had been done they flew
in fear and anger to God's white throne, and cried to Him,

"'See what these rebellious ones have done!  They have built them
a bridge of light across the universe, and set Thy decree of
separation at naught.  Do Thou, then, stretch forth Thine arm and
destroy their impious work.'

"They ceased--and all heaven was hushed.  Through the silence
sounded the voice of the Almighty.

"'Nay,' He said, 'whatsoever in my universe true love hath
builded not even the Almighty can destroy.  The bridge must stand
forever.'

"And," concluded the Story Girl, her face upturned to the sky and
her big eyes filled with starlight, "it stands still.  That
bridge is the Milky Way."

"What a lovely story," sighed Sara Ray, who had been wooed to a
temporary forgetfulness of her woes by its charm.

The rest of us came back to earth, feeling that we had been
wandering among the hosts of heaven.  We were not old enough to
appreciate fully the wonderful meaning of the legend; but we felt
its beauty and its appeal.  To us forevermore the Milky Way would
be, not Peter's overwhelming garland of suns, but the lucent
bridge, love-created, on which the banished archangels crossed
from star to star.

We had to go up Sara Ray's lane with her to her very door, for
she was afraid Peg Bowen would catch her if she went alone.  Then
the Story Girl and I walked up the hill together.  Peter and
Felicity lagged behind.  Cecily and Dan and Felix were walking
before us, hand in hand, singing a hymn.  Cecily had a very sweet
voice, and I listened in delight.  But the Story Girl sighed.

"What if Sara does take the measles?" she asked miserably.

"Everyone has to have the measles sometime," I said comfortingly,
"and the younger you are the better."



CHAPTER XI. THE STORY GIRL DOES PENANCE

Ten days later, Aunt Olivia and Uncle Roger went to town one
evening, to remain over night, and the next day.  Peter and the
Story Girl were to stay at Uncle Alec's during their absence.

We were in the orchard at sunset, listening to the story of King
Cophetua and the beggar maid--all of us, except Peter, who was
hoeing turnips, and Felicity, who had gone down the hill on an
errand to Mrs. Ray.

The Story Girl impersonated the beggar maid so vividly, and with
such an illusion of beauty, that we did not wonder in the least
at the king's love for her.  I had read the story before, and it
had been my opinion that it was "rot."  No king, I felt certain,
would ever marry a beggar maid when he had princesses galore from
whom to choose.  But now I understood it all.

When Felicity returned we concluded from her expression that she
had news.  And she had.

"Sara is real sick," she said, with regret, and something that
was not regret mingled in her voice.  "She has a cold and sore
throat, and she is feverish.  Mrs. Ray says if she isn't better
by the morning she's going to send for the doctor.  AND SHE IS
AFRAID IT'S THE MEASLES."

Felicity flung the last sentence at the Story Girl, who turned
very pale.

"Oh, do you suppose she caught them at the magic lantern show?"
she said miserably.

"Where else could she have caught them?" said Felicity
mercilessly.  "I didn't see her, of course--Mrs. Ray met me at
the door and told me not to come in.  But Mrs. Ray says the
measles always go awful hard with the Rays--if they don't die
completely of them it leaves them deaf or half blind, or
something like that.  Of course," added Felicity, her heart
melting at sight of the misery in the Story Girl's piteous eyes,
"Mrs. Ray always looks on the dark side, and it may not be the
measles Sara has after all."

But Felicity had done her work too thoroughly.  The Story Girl
was not to be comforted.

"I'd give anything if I'd never put Sara up to going to that
show," she said.  "It's all my fault--but the punishment falls on
Sara, and that isn't fair.  I'd go this minute and confess the
whole thing to Mrs. Ray; but if I did it might get Sara into more
trouble, and I mustn't do that.  I sha'n't sleep a wink
to-night."

I don't think she did.  She looked very pale and woebegone when
she came down to breakfast.  But, for all that, there was a
certain exhilaration about her.

"I'm going to do penance all day for coaxing Sara to disobey her
mother," she announced with chastened triumph.

"Penance?" we murmured in bewilderment.

"Yes.  I'm going to deny myself everything I like, and do
everything I can think of that I don't like, just to punish
myself for being so wicked.  And if any of you think of anything
I don't, just mention it to me.  I thought it out last night.
Maybe Sara won't be so very sick if God sees I'm truly sorry."

"He can see it anyhow, without you're doing anything," said
Cecily.

"Well, my conscience will feel better."

"I don't believe Presbyterians ever do penance," said Felicity
dubiously.  "I never heard of one doing it."

But the rest of us rather looked with favour on the Story Girl's
idea.  We felt sure that she would do penance as picturesquely
and thoroughly as she did everything else.

"You might put peas in your shoes, you know," suggested Peter.

"The very thing!  I never thought of that.  I'll get some after
breakfast.  I'm not going to eat a single thing all day, except
bread and water--and not much of that!"

This, we felt, was a heroic measure indeed.  To sit down to one
of Aunt Janet's meals, in ordinary health and appetite, and eat
nothing but bread and water--that would be penance with a
vengeance!  We felt WE could never do it.  But the Story Girl did
it.  We admired and pitied her.  But now I do not think that she
either needed our pity or deserved our admiration.  Her ascetic
fare was really sweeter to her than honey of Hymettus.  She was,
though quite unconsciously, acting a part, and tasting all the
subtle joy of the artist, which is so much more exquisite than
any material pleasure.

Aunt Janet, of course, noticed the Story Girl's abstinence and
asked if she was sick.

"No.  I am just doing penance, Aunt Janet, for a sin I committed.
I can't confess it, because that would bring trouble on another
person.  So I'm going to do penance all day.  You don't mind, do
you?"

Aunt Janet was in a very good humour that morning, so she merely
laughed.

"Not if you don't go too far with your nonsense," she said
tolerantly.

"Thank you.  And will you give me a handful of hard peas after
breakfast, Aunt Janet?  I want to put them in my shoes."

"There isn't any; I used the last in the soup yesterday."

"Oh!"  The Story Girl was much disappointed.  "Then I suppose
I'll have to do without.  The new peas wouldn't hurt enough.
They're so soft they'd just squash flat."

"I'll tell you," said Peter, "I'll pick up a lot of those little
round pebbles on Mr. King's front walk.  They'll be just as good
as peas."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Aunt Janet.  "Sara must not
do penance in that way.  She would wear holes in her stockings,
and might seriously bruise her feet."

"What would you say if I took a whip and whipped my bare
shoulders till the blood came?" demanded the Story Girl
aggrieved.

"I wouldn't SAY anything," retorted Aunt Janet.  "I'd simply turn
you over my knee and give you a sound, solid spanking, Miss Sara.
You'd find that penance enough."

The Story Girl was crimson with indignation.  To have such a
remark made to you--when you were fourteen and a half--and before
the boys, too!  Really, Aunt Janet could be very dreadful.

It was vacation, and there was not much to do that day; we were
soon free to seek the orchard.  But the Story Girl would not
come.  She had seated herself in the darkest, hottest corner of
the kitchen, with a piece of old cotton in her hand.

"I am not going to play to-day," she said, "and I'm not going to
tell a single story.  Aunt Janet won't let me put pebbles in my
shoes, but I've put a thistle next my skin on my back and it
sticks into me if I lean back the least bit.  And I'm going to
work buttonholes all over this cotton.  I hate working
buttonholes worse than anything in the world, so I'm going to
work them all day."

"What's the good of working buttonholes on an old rag?" asked
Felicity.

"It isn't any good.  The beauty of penance is that it makes you
feel uncomfortable.  So it doesn't matter what you do, whether
it's useful or not, so long as it's nasty.  Oh, I wonder how Sara
is this morning."

"Mother's going down this afternoon," said Felicity.  "She says
none of us must go near the place till we know whether it is the
measles or not."

"I've thought of a great penance," said Cecily eagerly.  "Don't
go to the missionary meeting to-night."

The Story Girl looked piteous.

"I thought of that myself--but I CAN'T stay home, Cecily.  It
would be more than flesh and blood could endure.  I MUST hear
that missionary speak.  They say he was all but eaten by
cannibals once.  Just think how many new stories I'd have to tell
after I'd heard him!  No, I must go, but I'll tell you what I'll
do.  I'll wear my school dress and hat.  THAT will be penance.
Felicity, when you set the table for dinner, put the
broken-handled knife for me.  I hate it so.  And I'm going to
take a dose of Mexican Tea every two hours.  It's such dreadful
tasting stuff--but it's a good blood purifier, so Aunt Janet
can't object to it."

The Story Girl carried out her self-imposed penance fully.  All
day she sat in the kitchen and worked buttonholes, subsisting on
bread and water and Mexican Tea.

Felicity did a mean thing.  She went to work and made little
raisin pies, right there in the kitchen before the Story Girl.
The smell of raisin pies is something to tempt an anchorite; and
the Story Girl was exceedingly fond of them.  Felicity ate two in
her very presence, and then brought the rest out to us in the
orchard.  The Story Girl could see us through the window,
carousing without stint on raisin pies and Uncle Edward's
cherries.  But she worked on at her buttonholes.  She would not
look at the exciting serial in the new magazine Dan brought home
from the post-office, neither would she open a letter from her
father.  Pat came over, but his most seductive purrs won no
notice from his mistress, who refused herself the pleasure of
even patting him.

Aunt Janet could not go down the hill in the afternoon to find
out how Sara was because company came to tea--the Millwards from
Markdale.  Mr. Millward was a doctor, and Mrs. Millward was a
B.A.  Aunt Janet was very desirous that everything should be as
nice as possible, and we were all sent to our rooms before tea to
wash and dress up.  The Story Girl slipped over home, and when
she came back we gasped.  She had combed her hair out straight,
and braided it in a tight, kinky, pudgy braid; and she wore an
old dress of faded print, with holes in the elbows and ragged
flounces, which was much too short for her.

"Sara Stanley, have you taken leave of your senses?" demanded
Aunt Janet.  "What do you mean by putting on such a rig!  Don't
you know I have company to tea?"

"Yes, and that is just why I put it on, Aunt Janet.  I want to
mortify the flesh--"

"I'll 'mortify' you, if I catch you showing yourself to the
Millwards like that, my girl!  Go right home and dress yourself
decently--or eat your supper in the kitchen."

The Story Girl chose the latter alternative.  She was highly
indignant.  I verily believe that to sit at the dining-room
table, in that shabby, outgrown dress, conscious of looking her
ugliest, and eating only bread and water before the critical
Millwards would have been positive bliss to her.

When we went to the missionary meeting that evening, the Story
Girl wore her school dress and hat, while Felicity and Cecily
were in their pretty muslins.  And she had tied her hair with a
snuff-brown ribbon which was very unbecoming to her.

The first person we saw in the church porch was Mrs. Ray.  She
told us that Sara had nothing worse than a feverish cold.

The missionary had at least seven happy listeners that night.  We
were all glad that Sara did not have measles, and the Story Girl
was radiant.

"Now you see all your penance was wasted," said Felicity, as we
walked home, keeping close together because of the rumour that
Peg Bowen was abroad.

"Oh, I don't know.  I feel better since I punished myself.  But
I'm going to make up for it to-morrow," said the Story Girl
energetically.  "In fact, I'll begin to-night.  I'm going to the
pantry as soon as I get home, and I'll read father's letter
before I go to bed.  Wasn't the missionary splendid?  That
cannibal story was simply grand.  I tried to remember every word,
so that I can tell it just as he told it.  Missionaries are such
noble people."

"I'd like to be a missionary and have adventures like that," said
Felix.

"It would be all right if you could be sure the cannibals would
be interrupted in the nick of time as his were," said Dan.  "But
sposen they weren't?"

"Nothing would prevent cannibals from eating Felix if they once
caught him," giggled Felicity.  "He's so nice and fat."

I am sure Felix felt very unlike a missionary at that precise
moment.

"I'm going to put two cents more a week in my missionary box than
I've been doing," said Cecily determinedly.

Two cents more a week out of Cecily's egg money, meant something
of a sacrifice.  It inspired the rest of us.  We all decided to
increase our weekly contribution by a cent or so.  And Peter, who
had had no missionary box at all, up to this time, determined to
start one.

"I don't seem to be able to feel as int'rested in missionaries as
you folks do," he said, "but maybe if I begin to give something
I'll get int'rested.  I'll want to know how my money's being
spent.  I won't be able to give much.  When your father's run
away, and your mother goes out washing, and you're only old
enough to get fifty cents a week, you can't give much to the
heathen.  But I'll do the best I can.  My Aunt Jane was fond of
missions.  Are there any Methodist heathen?  I s'pose I ought to
give my box to them, rather than to Presbyterian heathen."

"No, it's only after they're converted that they're anything in
particular," said Felicity.  "Before that, they're just plain
heathen.  But if you want your money to go to a Methodist
missionary you can give it to the Methodist minister at Markdale.
I guess the Presbyterians can get along without it, and look
after their own heathen."

"Just smell Mrs. Sampson's flowers," said Cecily, as we passed a
trim white paling close to the road, over which blew odours
sweeter than the perfume of Araby's shore.  "Her roses are all
out and that bed of Sweet William is a sight by daylight."

"Sweet William is a dreadful name for a flower," said the Story
Girl.  "William is a man's name, and men are NEVER sweet.  They
are a great many nice things, but they are NOT sweet and
shouldn't be.  That is for women.  Oh, look at the moonshine on
the road in that gap between the spruces!  I'd like a dress of
moonshine, with stars for buttons."

"It wouldn't do," said Felicity decidedly.  "You could see
through it."

Which seemed to settle the question of moonshine dresses
effectually.



CHAPTER XII. THE BLUE CHEST OF RACHEL WARD

"It's utterly out of the question," said Aunt Janet seriously.
When Aunt Janet said seriously that anything was out of the
question it meant that she was thinking about it, and would
probably end up by doing it.  If a thing really was out of the
question she merely laughed and refused to discuss it at all.

The particular matter in or out of the question that opening day
of August was a project which Uncle Edward had recently mooted.
Uncle Edward's youngest daughter was to be married; and Uncle
Edward had written over, urging Uncle Alec, Aunt Janet and Aunt
Olivia to go down to Halifax for the wedding and spend a week
there.

Uncle Alec and Aunt Olivia were eager to go; but Aunt Janet at
first declared it was impossible.

"How could we go away and leave the place to the mercy of all
those young ones?" she demanded.  "We'd come home and find them
all sick, and the house burned down."

"Not a bit of fear of it," scoffed Uncle Roger.  "Felicity is as
good a housekeeper as you are; and I shall be here to look after
them all, and keep them from burning the house down.  You've been
promising Edward for years to visit him, and you'll never have a
better chance.  The haying is over and harvest isn't on, and Alec
needs a change.  He isn't looking well at all."

I think it was Uncle Roger's last argument which convinced Aunt
Janet.  In the end she decided to go.  Uncle Roger's house was to
be closed, and he and Peter and the Story Girl were to take up
their abode with us.

We were all delighted.  Felicity, in especial, seemed to be in
seventh heaven.  To be left in sole charge of a big house, with
three meals a day to plan and prepare, with poultry and cows and
dairy and garden to superintend, apparently furnished forth
Felicity's conception of Paradise.  Of course, we were all to
help; but Felicity was to "run things," and she gloried in it.

The Story Girl was pleased, too.

"Felicity is going to give me cooking lessons," she confided to
me, as we walked in the orchard.  "Isn't that fine?  It will be
easier when there are no grown-ups around to make me nervous, and
laugh if I make mistakes."

Uncle Alec and aunts left on Monday morning.  Poor Aunt Janet was
full of dismal forebodings, and gave us so many charges and
warnings that we did not try to remember any of them; Uncle Alec
merely told us to be good and mind what Uncle Roger said.  Aunt
Olivia laughed at us out of her pansy-blue eyes, and told us she
knew exactly what we felt like and hoped we'd have a gorgeous
time.

"Mind they go to bed at a decent hour," Aunt Janet called back to
Uncle Roger as she drove out of the gate.  "And if anything
dreadful happens telegraph us."

Then they were really gone and we were all left "to keep house."

Uncle Roger and Peter went away to their work.  Felicity at once
set the preparations for dinner a-going, and allotted to each of
us his portion of service.  The Story Girl was to prepare the
potatoes; Felix and Dan were to pick and shell the peas; Cecily
was to attend the fire; I was to peel the turnips.  Felicity made
our mouths water by announcing that she was going to make a
roly-poly jam pudding for dinner.

I peeled my turnips on the back porch, put them in their pot, and
set them on the stove.  Then I was at liberty to watch the
others, who had longer jobs.  The kitchen was a scene of happy
activity.  The Story Girl peeled her potatoes, somewhat slowly
and awkwardly--for she was not deft at household tasks; Dan and
Felix shelled peas and tormented Pat by attaching pods to his
ears and tail; Felicity, flushed and serious, measured and
stirred skilfully.

"I am sitting on a tragedy," said the Story Girl suddenly.

Felix and I stared.  We were not quite sure what a "tragedy" was,
but we did not think it was an old blue wooden chest, such as the
Story Girl was undoubtedly sitting on, if eyesight counted for
anything.

The old chest filled up the corner between the table and the
wall.  Neither Felix nor I had ever thought about it
particularly.  It was very large and heavy, and Felicity
generally said hard things of it when she swept the kitchen.

"This old blue chest holds a tragedy," explained the Story Girl.
"I know a story about it."

"Cousin Rachel Ward's wedding things are all in that old chest,"
said Felicity.

Who was Cousin Rachel Ward?  And why were her wedding things shut
up in an old blue chest in Uncle Alec's kitchen?  We demanded the
tale instantly.  The Story Girl told it to us as she peeled her
potatoes.  Perhaps the potatoes suffered--Felicity declared the
eyes were not properly done at all--but the story did not.

"It is a sad story," said the Story Girl, "and it happened fifty
years ago, when Grandfather and Grandmother King were quite
young.  Grandmother's cousin Rachel Ward came to spend a winter
with them.  She belonged to Montreal and she was an orphan too,
just like the Family Ghost.  I have never heard what she looked
like, but she MUST have been beautiful, of course."

"Mother says she was awful sentimental and romantic," interjected
Felicity.

"Well, anyway, she met Will Montague that winter.  He was
handsome--everybody says so"--

"And an awful flirt," said Felicity.

"Felicity, I WISH you wouldn't interrupt.  It spoils the effect.
What would you feel like if I went and kept stirring things that
didn't belong to it into that pudding?  I feel just the same way.
Well, Will Montague fell in love with Rachel Ward, and she with
him, and it was all arranged that they were to be married from
here in the spring.  Poor Rachel was so happy that winter; she
made all her wedding things with her own hands.  Girls did, then,
you know, for there was no such thing as a sewing-machine.  Well,
at last in April the wedding day came, and all the guests were
here, and Rachel was dressed in her wedding robes, waiting for
her bridegroom.  And"--the Story Girl laid down her knife and
potato and clasped her wet hands--"WILL MONTAGUE NEVER CAME!"

We felt as much of a shock as if we had been one of the expectant
guests ourselves.

"What happened to him?  Was HE killed too?" asked Felix.

The Story Girl sighed and resumed her work.

"No, indeed.  I wish he had been.  THAT would have been suitable
and romantic.  No, it was just something horrid.  He had to run
away for debt!  Fancy!  He acted mean right through, Aunt Janet
says.  He never sent even a word to Rachel, and she never heard
from him again."

"Pig!" said Felix forcibly.

"She was broken-hearted of course.  When she found out what had
happened, she took all her wedding things, and her supply of
linen, and some presents that had been given her, and packed them
all away in this old blue chest.  Then she went away back to
Montreal, and took the key with her.  She never came back to the
Island again--I suppose she couldn't bear to.  And she has lived
in Montreal ever since and never married.  She is an old woman
now--nearly seventy-five.  And this chest has never been opened
since."

"Mother wrote to Cousin Rachel ten years ago," said Cecily, "and
asked her if she might open the chest to see if the moths had got
into it.  There's a crack in the back as big as your finger.
Cousin Rachel wrote back that if it wasn't for one thing that was
in the trunk she would ask mother to open the chest and dispose
of the things as she liked.  But she could not bear that any one
but herself should see or touch that one thing.  So she wanted it
left as it was.  Ma said she washed her hands of it, moths or no
moths.  She said if Cousin Rachel had to move that chest every
time the floor had to be scrubbed it would cure her of her
sentimental nonsense.  But I think," concluded Cecily, "that I
would feel just like Cousin Rachel in her place."

"What was the thing she couldn't bear any one to see?" I asked.

"Ma thinks it was her wedding dress.  But father says he believes
it was Will Montague's picture," said Felicity.  "He saw her put
it in.  Father knows some of the things that are in the chest.
He was ten years old, and he saw her pack it.  There's a white
muslin wedding dress and a veil--and--and--a--a"--Felicity
dropped her eyes and blushed painfully.

"A petticoat, embroidered by hand from hem to belt," said the
Story Girl calmly.

"And a china fruit basket with an apple on the handle," went on
Felicity, much relieved.  "And a tea set, and a blue
candle-stick."

"I'd dearly love to see all the things that are in it," said the
Story Girl.

"Pa says it must never be opened without Cousin Rachel's
permission," said Cecily.

Felix and I looked at the chest reverently.  It had taken on a
new significance in our eyes, and seemed like a tomb wherein lay
buried some dead romance of the vanished years.

"What happened to Will Montague?" I asked.

"Nothing!" said the Story Girl viciously.  "He just went on
living and flourishing.  He patched up matters with his creditors
after awhile, and came back to the Island; and in the end he
married a real nice girl, with money, and was very happy.  Did
you ever HEAR of anything so unjust?"

"Beverley King," suddenly cried Felicity, who had been peering
into a pot, "YOU'VE GONE AND PUT THE TURNIPS ON TO BOIL WHOLE
JUST LIKE POTATOES!"

"Wasn't that right?" I cried, in an agony of shame.

"Right!" but Felicity had already whisked the turnips out, and
was slicing them, while all the others were laughing at me.  I
had added a tradition on my own account to the family archives.

Uncle Roger roared when he heard it; and he roared again at night
over Peter's account of Felix attempting to milk a cow.  Felix
had previously acquired the knack of extracting milk from the
udder.  But he had never before tried to "milk a whole cow."  He
did not get on well; the cow tramped on his foot, and finally
upset the bucket.

"What are you to do when a cow won't stand straight?" spluttered
Felix angrily.

"That's the question," said Uncle Roger, shaking his head
gravely.

Uncle Roger's laughter was hard to bear, but his gravity was
harder.

Meanwhile, in the pantry the Story Girl, apron-enshrouded, was
being initiated into the mysteries of bread-making.  Under
Felicity's eyes she set the bread, and on the morrow she was to
bake it.

"The first thing you must do in the morning is knead it well,"
said Felicity, "and the earlier it's done the better--because
it's such a warm night."

With that we went to bed, and slept as soundly as if tragedies of
blue chests and turnips and crooked cows had no place in the
scheme of things at all.



CHAPTER XIII. AN OLD PROVERB WITH A NEW MEANING

It was half-past five when we boys got up the next morning.  We
were joined on the stairs by Felicity, yawning and rosy.

"Oh, dear me, I overslept myself.  Uncle Roger wanted breakfast
at six.  Well, I suppose the fire is on anyhow, for the Story
Girl is up.  I guess she got up early to knead the bread.  She
couldn't sleep all night for worrying over it."

The fire was on, and a flushed and triumphant Story Girl was
taking a loaf of bread from the oven.

"Just look," she said proudly.  "I have every bit of the bread
baked.  I got up at three, and it was lovely and light, so I just
gave it a right good kneading and popped it into the oven.  And
it's all done and out of the way.  But the loaves don't seem
quite as big as they should be," she added doubtfully.

"Sara Stanley!"  Felicity flew across the kitchen.  "Do you mean
that you put the bread right into the oven after you kneaded it
without leaving it to rise a second time?"

The Story Girl turned quite pale.

"Yes, I did," she faltered.  "Oh, Felicity, wasn't it right?"

"You've ruined the bread," said Felicity flatly.  "It's as heavy
as a stone.  I declare, Sara Stanley, I'd rather have a little
common sense than be a great story teller."

Bitter indeed was the poor Story Girl's mortification.

"Don't tell Uncle Roger," she implored humbly.

"Oh, I won't tell him," promised Felicity amiably.  "It's lucky
there's enough old bread to do to-day.  This will go to the hens.
But it's an awful waste of good flour."

The Story Girl crept out with Felix and me to the morning
orchard, while Dan and Peter went to do the barn work.

"It isn't ANY use for me to try to learn to cook," she said.

"Never mind," I said consolingly.  "You can tell splendid
stories."

"But what good would that do a hungry boy?" wailed the Story
Girl.

"Boys ain't ALWAYS hungry," said Felix gravely.  "There's times
when they ain't."

"I don't believe it," said the Story Girl drearily.

"Besides," added Felix in the tone of one who says while there is
life there is yet hope, "you may learn to cook yet if you keep on
trying."

"But Aunt Olivia won't let me waste the stuff.  My only hope was
to learn this week.  But I suppose Felicity is so disgusted with
me now that she won't give me any more lessons."

"I don't care," said Felix.  "I like you better than Felicity,
even if you can't cook.  There's lots of folks can make bread.
But there isn't many who can tell a story like you."

"But it's better to be useful than just interesting," sighed the
Story Girl bitterly.

And Felicity, who was useful, would, in her secret soul, have
given anything to be interesting.  Which is the way of human
nature.

Company descended on us that afternoon.  First came Aunt Janet's
sister, Mrs. Patterson, with a daughter of sixteen years and a
son of two.  They were followed by a buggy-load of Markdale
people; and finally, Mrs. Elder Frewen and her sister from
Vancouver, with two small daughters of the latter, arrived.

"It never rains but it pours," said Uncle Roger, as he went out
to take their horse.  But Felicity's foot was on her native
heath.  She had been baking all the afternoon, and, with a pantry
well stocked with biscuits, cookies, cakes, and pies, she cared
not if all Carlisle came to tea.  Cecily set the table, and the
Story Girl waited on it and washed all the dishes afterwards.
But all the blushing honours fell to Felicity, who received so
many compliments that her airs were quite unbearable for the rest
of the week.  She presided at the head of the table with as much
grace and dignity as if she had been five times twelve years old,
and seemed to know by instinct just who took sugar and who took
it not.  She was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and was so
pretty that I could hardly eat for looking at her--which is the
highest compliment in a boy's power to pay.

The Story Girl, on the contrary, was under eclipse.  She was pale
and lustreless from her disturbed night and early rising; and no
opportunity offered to tell a melting tale.  Nobody took any
notice of her.  It was Felicity's day.

After tea Mrs. Frewen and her sister wished to visit their
father's grave in the Carlisle churchyard.  It appeared that
everybody wanted to go with them; but it was evident that
somebody must stay home with Jimmy Patterson, who had just fallen
sound asleep on the kitchen sofa.  Dan finally volunteered to
look after him.  He had a new Henty book which he wanted to
finish, and that, he said, was better fun than a walk to the
graveyard.

"I think we'll be back before he wakes," said Mrs. Patterson,
"and anyhow he is very good and won't be any trouble.  Don't let
him go outside, though.  He has a cold now."

We went away, leaving Dan sitting on the door-sill reading his
book, and Jimmy P. snoozing blissfully on the sofa.  When we
returned--Felix and the girls and I were ahead of the others--Dan
was still sitting in precisely the same place and attitude; but
there was no Jimmy in sight.

"Dan, where's the baby?" cried Felicity.

Dan looked around.  His jaw fell in blank amazement.  I never say
any one look as foolish as Dan at that moment.

"Good gracious, I don't know," he said helplessly.

"You've been so deep in that wretched book that he's got out, and
dear knows where he is," cried Felicity distractedly.

"I wasn't," cried Dan.  "He MUST be in the house.  I've been
sitting right across the door ever since you left, and he
couldn't have got out unless he crawled right over me.  He must
be in the house."

"He isn't in the kitchen," said Felicity rushing about wildly,
"and he couldn't get into the other part of the house, for I shut
the hall door tight, and no baby could open it--and it's shut
tight yet.  So are all the windows.  He MUST have gone out of
that door, Dan King, and it's your fault."

"He DIDN'T go out of this door," reiterated Dan stubbornly.  "I
know that."

"Well, where is he, then?  He isn't here.  Did he melt into air?"
demanded Felicity.  "Oh, come and look for him, all of you.
Don't stand round like ninnies.  We MUST find him before his
mother gets here.  Dan King, you're an idiot!"

Dan was too frightened to resent this, at the time.  However and
wherever Jimmy had gone, he WAS gone, so much was certain.  We
tore about the house and yard like maniacs; we looked into every
likely and unlikely place.  But Jimmy we could not find, anymore
than if he had indeed melted into air.  Mrs. Patterson came, and
we had not found him.  Things were getting serious.  Uncle Roger
and Peter were summoned from the field.  Mrs. Patterson became
hysterical, and was taken into the spare room with such remedies
as could be suggested.  Everybody blamed poor Dan.  Cecily asked
him what he would feel like if Jimmy was never, never found.  The
Story Girl had a gruesome recollection of some baby at Markdale
who had wandered away like that--

"And they never found him till the next spring, and all they
found was--HIS SKELETON, with the grass growing through it," she
whispered.

"This beats me," said Uncle Roger, when a fruitless hour had
elapsed.  "I do hope that baby hasn't wandered down to the swamp.
It seems impossible he could walk so far; but I must go and see.
Felicity, hand me my high boots out from under the sofa, there's
a girl."

Felicity, pale and tearful, dropped on her knees and lifted the
cretonne frill of the sofa.  There, his head pillowed hardly on
Uncle Roger's boots, lay Jimmy Patterson, still sound asleep!

"Well, I'll be--jiggered!" said Uncle Roger.

"I KNEW he never went out of the door," cried Dan triumphantly.

When the last buggy had driven away, Felicity set a batch of
bread, and the rest of us sat around the back porch steps in the
cat's light and ate cherries, shooting the stones at each other.
Cecily was in quest of information.

"What does 'it never rains but it pours' mean?"

"Oh, it means if anything happens something else is sure to
happen," said the Story Girl.  "I'll illustrate.  There's Mrs.
Murphy.  She never had a proposal in her life till she was forty,
and then she had three in the one week, and she was so flustered
she took the wrong one and has been sorry ever since.  Do you see
what it means now?"

"Yes, I guess so," said Cecily somewhat doubtfully.  Later on we
heard her imparting her newly acquired knowledge to Felicity in
the pantry.

"'It never rains but it pours' means that nobody wants to marry
you for ever so long, and then lots of people do."



CHAPTER XIV. FORBIDDEN FRUIT

We were all, with the exception of Uncle Roger, more or less
grumpy in the household of King next day.  Perhaps our nerves had
been upset by the excitement attendant on Jimmy Patterson's
disappearance.  But it is more likely that our crankiness was the
result of the supper we had eaten the previous night.  Even
children cannot devour mince pie, and cold fried pork ham, and
fruit cake before going to bed with entire impunity.  Aunt Janet
had forgotten to warn Uncle Roger to keep an eye on our bedtime
snacks, and we ate what seemed good unto us.

Some of us had frightful dreams, and all of us carried chips on
our shoulders at breakfast.  Felicity and Dan began a bickering
which they kept up the entire day.  Felicity had a natural
aptitude for what we called "bossing," and in her mother's
absence she deemed that she had a right to rule supreme.  She
knew better than to make any attempt to assert authority over the
Story Girl, and Felix and I were allowed some length of tether;
but Cecily, Dan, and Peter were expected to submit dutifully to
her decrees.  In the main they did; but on this particular
morning Dan was plainly inclined to rebel.  He had had time to
grow sore over the things that Felicity had said to him when
Jimmy Patterson was thought lost, and he began the day with a
flatly expressed determination that he was not going to let
Felicity rule the roost.

It was not a pleasant day, and to make matters worse it rained
until late in the afternoon.  The Story Girl had not recovered
from the mortifications of the previous day; she would not talk,
and she would not tell a single story; she sat on Rachel Ward's
chest and ate her breakfast with the air of a martyr.  After
breakfast she washed the dishes and did the bed-room work in grim
silence; then, with a book under one arm and Pat under the other,
she betook herself to the window-seat in the upstairs hall, and
would not be lured from that retreat, charmed we never so wisely.
She stroked the purring Paddy, and read steadily on, with
maddening indifference to all our pleadings.

Even Cecily, the meek and mild, was snappish, and complained of
headache.  Peter had gone home to see his mother, and Uncle Roger
had gone to Markdale on business.  Sara Ray came up, but was so
snubbed by Felicity that she went home, crying.  Felicity got the
dinner by herself, disdaining to ask or command assistance.  She
banged things about and rattled the stove covers until even
Cecily protested from her sofa.  Dan sat on the floor and
whittled, his sole aim and object being to make a mess and annoy
Felicity, in which noble ambition he succeeded perfectly.

"I wish Aunt Janet and Uncle Alec were home," said Felix.  "It's
not half so much fun having the grown-ups away as I thought it
would be."

"I wish I was back in Toronto," I said sulkily.  The mince pie
was to blame for THAT wish.

"I wish you were, I'm sure," said Felicity, riddling the fire
noisily.

"Any one who lives with you, Felicity King, will always be
wishing he was somewhere else," said Dan.

"I wasn't talking to you, Dan King," retorted Felicity, "'Speak
when you're spoken to, come when you're called.'"

"Oh, oh, oh," wailed Cecily on the sofa.  "I WISH it would stop
raining.  I WISH my head would stop aching.  I WISH ma had never
gone away.  I WISH you'd leave Felicity alone, Dan."

"I wish girls had some sense," said Dan--which brought the orgy
of wishing to an end for the time.  A wishing fairy might have
had the time of her life in the King kitchen that
morning--particularly if she were a cynically inclined fairy.

But even the effects of unholy snacks wear away at length.  By
tea-time things had brightened up.  The rain had ceased, and the
old, low-raftered room was full of sunshine which danced on the
shining dishes of the dresser, made mosaics on the floor, and
flickered over the table whereon a delicious meal was spread.
Felicity had put on her blue muslin, and looked so beautiful in
it that her good humour was quite restored.  Cecily's headache
was better, and the Story Girl, refreshed by an afternoon siesta,
came down with smiles and sparkling eyes.  Dan alone continued to
nurse his grievances, and would not even laugh when the Story
Girl told us a tale brought to mind by some of the "Rev.  Mr.
Scott's plums" which were on the table.

"The Rev. Mr. Scott was the man who thought the pulpit door must
be made for speerits, you know," she said.  "I heard Uncle Edward
telling ever so many stories about him.  He was called to this
congregation, and he laboured here long and faithfully, and was
much beloved, though he was very eccentric."

"What does that mean?" asked Peter.

"Hush!  It just means queer," said Cecily, nudging him with her
elbow.  "A common man would be queer, but when it's a minister,
it's eccentric."

"When he gets very old," continued the Story Girl, "the
Presbytery thought it was time he was retired.  HE didn't think
so; but the Presbytery had their way, because there were so many
of them to one of him.  He was retired, and a young man was
called to Carlisle.  Mr. Scott went to live in town, but he came
out to Carlisle very often, and visited all the people regularly,
just the same as when he was their minister.  The young minister
was a very good young man, and tried to do his duty; but he was
dreadfully afraid of meeting old Mr. Scott, because he had been
told that the old minister was very angry at being set aside, and
would likely give him a sound drubbing, if he ever met him.  One
day the young minister was visiting the Crawfords in Markdale,
when they suddenly heard old Mr. Scott's voice in the kitchen.
The young minister turned pale as the dead, and implored Mrs.
Crawford to hid him.  But she couldn't get him out of the room,
and all she could do was to hide him in the china closet.  The
young minister slipped into the china closet, and old Mr. Scott
came into the room.  He talked very nicely, and read, and prayed.
They made very long prayers in those days, you know; and at the
end of his prayer he said, 'Oh Lord, bless the poor young man
hiding in the closet.  Give him courage not to fear the face of
man.  Make him a burning and a shining light to this sadly abused
congregation.'  Just imagine the feelings of the young minister
in the china closet!  But he came right out like a man, though
his face was very red, as soon as Mr. Scott had done praying.
And Mr. Scott was lovely to him, and shook hands, and never
mentioned the china closet.  And they were the best of friends
ever afterwards."

"How did old Mr. Scott find out the young minister was in the
closet?" asked Felix.

"Nobody ever knew.  They supposed he had seen him through the
window before he came into the house, and guessed he must be in
the closet--because there was no way for him to get out of the
room."

"Mr. Scott planted the yellow plum tree in Grandfather's time,"
said Cecily, peeling one of the plums, "and when he did it he
said it was as Christian an act as he ever did.  I wonder what he
meant.  I don't see anything very Christian about planting a
tree."

"I do," said the Story Girl sagely.

When next we assembled ourselves together, it was after milking,
and the cares of the day were done with.  We foregathered in the
balsam-fragrant aisles of the fir wood, and ate early August
apples to such an extent that the Story Girl said we made her
think of the Irishman's pig.

"An Irishman who lived at Markdale had a little pig," she said,
"and he gave it a pailful of mush.  The pig at the whole pailful,
and then the Irishman put the pig IN the pail, and it didn't fill
more than half the pail.  Now, how was that, when it held a whole
pailful of mush?"

This seemed to be a rather unanswerable kind of conundrum.  We
discussed the problem as we roamed the wood, and Dan and Peter
almost quarrelled over it, Dan maintaining that the thing was
impossible, and Peter being of the opinion that the mush was
somehow "made thicker" in the process of being eaten, and so took
up less room.  During the discussion we came out to the fence of
the hill pasture where grew the "bad berry" bushes.

Just what these "bad berries" were I cannot tell.  We never knew
their real name.  They were small, red-clustered berries of a
glossy, seductive appearance, and we were forbidden to eat them,
because it was thought they might be poisonous.  Dan picked a
cluster and held it up.

"Dan King, don't you DARE eat those berries," said Felicity in
her "bossiest" tone.  "They're poison.  Drop them right away."

Now, Dan had not had the slightest intention of eating the
berries.  But at Felicity's prohibition the rebellion which had
smouldered in him all day broke into sudden flame.  He would show
her!

"I'll eat them if I please, Felicity King," he said in a fury:
"I don't believe they're poison.  Look here!"

Dan crammed the whole bunch into his capacious mouth and chewed
it up.

"They taste great," he said, smacking; and he ate two more
clusters, regardless of our horror-stricken protestations and
Felicity's pleadings.

We feared that Dan would drop dead on the spot.  But nothing
occurred immediately.  When an hour had passed we concluded that
the bad berries were not poison after all, and we looked upon Dan
as quite a hero for daring to eat them.

"I knew they wouldn't hurt me," he said loftily.  "Felicity's so
fond of making a fuss over everything."

Nevertheless, when it grew dark and we returned to the house, I
noticed that Dan was rather pale and quiet.  He lay down on the
kitchen sofa.

"Don't you feel all right, Dan?" I whispered anxiously.

"Shut up," he said.

I shut up.

Felicity and Cecily were setting out a lunch in the pantry when
we were all startled by a loud groan from the sofa.

"Oh, I'm sick--I'm awful sick," said Dan abjectly, all the
defiance and bravado gone out of him.

We all went to pieces, except Cecily, who alone retained her
presence of mind.

"Have you got a pain in your stomach?" she demanded.

"I've got an awful pain here, if that's where my stomach is,"
moaned Dan, putting his hand on a portion of his anatomy
considerably below his stomach.  "Oh--oh--oh!"

"Go for Uncle Roger," commanded Cecily, pale but composed.
"Felicity, put on the kettle.  Dan, I'm going to give you mustard
and warm water."

The mustard and warm water produced its proper effect promptly,
but gave Dan no relief.  He continued to writhe and groan.  Uncle
Roger, who had been summoned from his own place, went at once for
the doctor, telling Peter to go down the hill for Mrs. Ray.
Peter went, but returned accompanied by Sara only.  Mrs. Ray and
Judy Pineau were both away.  Sara might better have stayed home;
she was of no use, and could only add to the general confusion,
wandering aimlessly about, crying and asking if Dan was going to
die.

Cecily took charge of things.  Felicity might charm the palate,
and the Story Girl bind captive the soul; but when pain and
sickness wrung the brow it was Cecily who was the ministering
angel.  She made the writhing Dan go to bed.  She made him
swallow every available antidote which was recommended in "the
doctor's book;" and she applied hot cloths to him until her
faithful little hands were half scalded off.

There was no doubt Dan was suffering intense pain.  He moaned and
writhed, and cried for his mother.

"Oh, isn't it dreadful!" said Felicity, wringing her hands as she
walked the kitchen floor.  "Oh, why doesn't the doctor come?  I
TOLD Dan the bad berries were poison.  But surely they can't kill
people ALTOGETHER."

"Pa's cousin died of eating something forty years ago," sobbed
Sara Ray.

"Hold your tongue," said Peter in a fierce whisper.  "You oughter
have more sense than to say such things to the girls.  They don't
want to be any worse scared than they are."

"But Pa's cousin DID die," reiterated Sara.

"My Aunt Jane used to rub whisky on for a pain," suggested Peter.

"We haven't any whisky," said Felicity disapprovingly.  "This is
a temperance house."

"But rubbing whisky on the OUTSIDE isn't any harm," argued Peter.
"It's only when you take it inside it is bad for you."

"Well, we haven't any, anyhow," said Felicity.  "I suppose
blueberry wine wouldn't do in its place?"

Peter did not think blueberry wine would be any good.

It was ten o'clock before Dan began to get better; but from that
time he improved rapidly.  When the doctor, who had been away
from home when Uncle Roger reached Markdale, came at half past
ten, he found his patient very weak and white, but free from
pain.

Dr. Grier patted Cecily on the head, told her she was a little
brick, and had done just the right thing, examined some of the
fatal berries and gave it as his opinion that they were probably
poisonous, administered some powders to Dan and advised him not
to tamper with forbidden fruit in future, and went away.

Mrs. Ray now appeared, looking for Sara, and said she would stay
all night with us.

"I'll be much obliged to you if you will," said Uncle Roger.  "I
feel a bit shook.  I urged Janet and Alec to go to Halifax, and
took the responsibility of the children while they were away, but
I didn't know what I was letting myself in for.  If anything had
happened I could never have forgiven myself--though I believe
it's beyond the power of mortal man to keep watch over the things
children WILL eat.  Now, you young fry, get straight off to your
beds.  Dan is out of danger, and you can't do any more good.  Not
that any of you have done much, except Cecily.  She's got a head
of her shoulders."

"It's been a horrid day all through," said Felicity drearily, as
we climbed the stairs.

"I suppose we made it horrid ourselves," said the Story Girl
candidly.  "But it'll be a good story to tell sometime," she
added.

"I'm awful tired and thankful," sighed Cecily.

We all felt that way.



CHAPTER XV. A DISOBEDIENT BROTHER

Dan was his own man again in the morning, though rather pale and
weak; he wanted to get up, but Cecily ordered him to stay in bed.
Fortunately Felicity forgot to repeat the command, so Dan did
stay in bed.  Cecily carried his meals to him, and read a Henty
book to him all her spare time.  The Story Girl went up and told
him wondrous tales; and Sara Ray brought him a pudding she had
made herself.  Sara's intentions were good, but the pudding--
well, Dan fed most of it to Paddy, who had curled himself up at
the foot of the bed, giving the world assurance of a cat by his
mellifluous purring.

"Ain't he just a great old fellow?" said Dan.  "He knows I'm kind
of sick, just as well as a human.  He never pays no attention to
me when I'm well."

Felix and Peter and I were required to help Uncle Roger in some
carpentering work that day, and Felicity indulged in one of the
house-cleaning orgies so dear to her soul; so that it was evening
before we were all free to meet in the orchard and loll on the
grasses of Uncle Stephen's Walk.  In August it was a place of
shady sweetness, fragrant with the odour of ripening apples, full
of dear, delicate shadows.  Through its openings we looked afar
to the blue rims of the hills and over green, old, tranquil
fields, lying the sunset glow.  Overhead the lacing leaves made a
green, murmurous roof.  There was no such thing as hurry in the
world, while we lingered there and talked of "cabbages and
kings."  A tale of the Story Girl's, wherein princes were thicker
than blackberries, and queens as common as buttercups, led to our
discussion of kings.  We wondered what it would be like to be a
king.  Peter thought it would be fine, only kind of inconvenient,
wearing a crown all the time.

"Oh, but they don't," said the Story Girl.  "Maybe they used to
once, but now they wear hats.  The crowns are just for special
occasions.  They look very much like other people, if you can go
by their photographs."

"I don't believe it would be much fun as a steady thing," said
Cecily.  "I'd like to SEE a queen though.  That is one thing I
have against the Island--you never have a chance to see things
like that here."

"The Prince of Wales was in Charlottetown once," said Peter.  "My
Aunt Jane saw him quite close by."

"That was before we were born, and such a thing won't happen
again until after we're dead," said Cecily, with very unusual
pessimism.

"I think queens and kings were thicker long ago," said the Story
Girl.  "They do seem dreadfully scarce now.  There isn't one in
this country anywhere.  Perhaps I'll get a glimpse of some when I
go to Europe."

Well, the Story Girl was destined to stand before kings herself,
and she was to be one whom they delighted to honour.  But we did
not know that, as we sat in the old orchard.  We thought it quite
sufficiently marvellous that she should expect to have the chance
of just seeing them.

"Can a queen do exactly as she pleases?" Sara Ray wanted to know.

"Not nowadays," explained the Story Girl.

"Then I don't see any use in being one," Sara decided.

"A king can't do as he pleases now, either," said Felix.  "If he
tries to, and if it isn't what pleases other people, the
Parliament or something squelches him."

"Isn't 'squelch' a lovely word?" said the Story Girl
irrelevantly.  "It's so expressive.  Squ-u-e-l-ch!"

Certainly it was a lovely word, as the Story Girl said it.  Even
a king would not have minded being squelched, if it were done to
music like that.

"Uncle Roger says that Martin Forbes' wife has squelched HIM,"
said Felicity.  "He says Martin can't call his soul his own since
he was married."

"I'm glad of it," said Cecily vindictively.

We all stared.  This was so very unlike Cecily.

"Martin Forbes is the brother of a horrid man in Summerside who
called me Johnny, that's why," she explained.  "He was visiting
here with his wife two years ago, and he called me Johnny every
time he spoke to me.  Just you fancy!  I'll NEVER forgive him."

"That isn't a Christian spirit," said Felicity rebukingly.

"I don't care.  Would YOU forgive James Forbes if he had called
YOU Johnny?" demanded Cecily.

"I know a story about Martin Forbes' grandfather," said the Story
Girl.  "Long ago they didn't have any choir in the Carlisle
church--just a precentor you know.  But at last they got a choir,
and Andrew McPherson was to sing bass in it.  Old Mr. Forbes
hadn't gone to church for years, because he was so rheumatic, but
he went the first Sunday the choir sang, because he had never
heard any one sing bass, and wanted to hear what it was like.
Grandfather King asked him what he thought of the choir.  Mr.
Forbes said it was 'verra guid,' but as for Andrew's bass, 'there
was nae bass aboot it--it was just a bur-r-r-r the hale time.'"

If you could have heard the Story Girl's "bur-r-r-r!" Not old Mr.
Forbes himself could have invested it with more of Doric scorn.
We rolled over in the cool grass and screamed with laughter.

"Poor Dan," said Cecily compassionately.  "He's up there all
alone in his room, missing all the fun.  I suppose it's mean of
us to be having such a good time here, when he has to stay in
bed."

"If Dan hadn't done wrong eating the bad berries when he was told
not to, he wouldn't be sick," said Felicity.  "You're bound to
catch it when you do wrong.  It was just a Providence he didn't
die."

"That makes me think of another story about old Mr. Scott," said
the Story Girl.  "You know, I told you he was very angry because
the Presbytery made him retire.  There were two ministers in
particular he blamed for being at the bottom of it.  One time a
friend of his was trying to console him, and said to him,

"'You should be resigned to the will of Providence.'

"'Providence had nothing to do with it,' said old Mr. Scott.
''Twas the McCloskeys and the devil.'"

"You shouldn't speak of the--the--DEVIL," said Felicity, rather
shocked.

"Well, that's just what Mr. Scott said."

"Oh, it's all right for a MINISTER to speak of him.  But it isn't
nice for little girls.  If you HAVE to speak of--of--him--you
might say the Old Scratch.  That is what mother calls him."

"''Twas the McCloskeys and the Old Scratch,'" said the Story Girl
reflectively, as if she were trying to see which version was the
more effective.  "It wouldn't do," she decided.

"I don't think it's any harm to mention the--the--that person,
when you're telling a story," said Cecily.  "It's only in plain
talking it doesn't do.  It sounds too much like swearing then."

"I know another story about Mr. Scott," said the Story Girl.
"Not long after he was married his wife wasn't quite ready for
church one morning when it was time to go.  So, just to teach her
a lesson, he drove off alone, and left her to walk all the
way--it was nearly two miles--in the heat and dust.  She took it
very quietly.  It's the best way, I guess, when you're married to
a man like old Mr. Scott.  But just a few Sundays after wasn't he
late himself!  I suppose Mrs. Scott thought that what was sauce
for the goose was sauce for the gander, for she slipped out and
drove off to church as he had done.  Old Mr. Scott finally
arrived at the church, pretty hot and dusty, and in none too good
a temper.  He went into the pulpit, leaned over it and looked at
his wife, sitting calmly in her pew at the side.

"'It was cleverly done,' he said, right out loud, 'BUT DINNA TRY
IT AGAIN!'"

In the midst of our laughter Pat came down the Walk, his stately
tail waving over the grasses.  He proved to be the precursor of
Dan, clothed and in his right mind.

"Do you think you should have got up, Dan?" said Cecily
anxiously.

"I had to," said Dan.  "The window was open, and it was more'n I
could stand to hear you fellows laughing down here and me missing
it all. 'Sides, I'm all right again.  I feel fine."

"I guess this will be a lesson to you, Dan King," said Felicity,
in her most maddening tone.  "I guess you won't forget it in a
hurry.  You won't go eating the bad berries another time when
you're told not to."

Dan had picked out a soft spot in the grass for himself, and was
in the act of sitting down, when Felicity's tactful speech
arrested him midway.  He straightened up and turned a wrathful
face on his provoking sister.  Then, red with indignation, but
without a word, he stalked up the walk.

"Now he's gone off mad," said Cecily reproachfully.  "Oh,
Felicity, why couldn't you have held your tongue?"

"Why, what did I say to make him mad?" asked Felicity in honest
perplexity.

"I think it's awful for brothers and sisters to be always
quarrelling," sighed Cecily.  "The Cowans fight all the time; and
you and Dan will soon be as bad."

"Oh, talk sense," said Felicity.  "Dan's got so touchy it isn't
safe to speak to him.  I should think he'd be sorry for all the
trouble he made last night.  But you just back him up in
everything, Cecily."

"I don't!"

"You do!  And you've no business to, specially when mother's
away.  She left ME in charge."

"You didn't take much charge last night when Dan got sick," said
Felix maliciously.  Felicity had told him at tea that night he
was getting fatter than ever.  This was his tit-for-tat.  "You
were pretty glad to leave it all to Cecily then."

"Who's talking to you?" said Felicity.

"Now, look here," said the Story Girl, "the first thing we know
we'll all be quarrelling, and then some of us will sulk all day
to-morrow.  It's dreadful to spoil a whole day.  Just let's all
sit still and count a hundred before we say another word."

We sat still and counted the hundred.  When Cecily finished she
got up and went in search of Dan, resolved to soothe his wounded
feelings.  Felicity called after her to tell Dan there was a jam
turnover she had put away in the pantry specially for him.  Felix
held out to Felicity a remarkably fine apple which he had been
saving for his own consumption; and the Story Girl began a tale
of an enchanted maiden in a castle by the sea; but we never heard
the end of it.  For, just as the evening star was looking whitely
through the rosy window of the west, Cecily came flying through
the orchard, wringing her hands.

"Oh, come, come quick," she gasped.  "Dan's eating the bad
berries again--he's et a whole bunch of them--he says he'll show
Felicity.  I can't stop him.  Come you and try."

We rose in a body and rushed towards the house.  In the yard we
encountered Dan, emerging from the fir wood and champing the
fatal berries with unrepentant relish.

"Dan King, do you want to commit suicide?" demanded the Story
Girl.

"Look here, Dan," I expostulated.  "You shouldn't do this.  Think
how sick you were last night and all the trouble you made for
everybody.  Don't eat any more, there's a good chap."

"All right," said Dan.  "I've et all I want.  They taste fine.  I
don't believe it was them made me sick."

But now that his anger was over he looked a little frightened.
Felicity was not there.  We found her in the kitchen, lighting up
the fire.

"Bev, fill the kettle with water and put it on to heat," she said
in a resigned tone.  "If Dan's going to be sick again we've got
to be ready for it.  I wish mother was home, that's all.  I hope
she'll never go away again.  Dan King, you just wait till I tell
her of the way you've acted."

"Fudge!  I ain't going to be sick," said Dan.  "And if YOU begin
telling tales, Felicity King, I'LL tell some too.  I know how
many eggs mother said you could use while she was away--and I
know how many you HAVE used.  I counted.  So you'd better mind
your own business, Miss."

"A nice way to talk to your sister when you may be dead in an
hour's time!" retorted Felicity, in tears between her anger and
her real alarm about Dan.

But in an hour's time Dan was still in good health, and announced
his intention of going to bed.  He went, and was soon sleeping as
peacefully as if he had nothing on either conscience or stomach.
But Felicity declared she meant to keep the water hot until all
danger was past; and we sat up to keep her company.  We were
sitting there when Uncle Roger walked in at eleven o'clock.

"What on earth are you young fry doing up at this time of night?"
he asked angrily.  "You should have been in your beds two hours
ago.  And with a roaring fire on a night that's hot enough to
melt a brass monkey!  Have you taken leave of your senses?"

"It's because of Dan," explained Felicity wearily.  "He went and
et more of the bad berries--a whole lot of them--and we were sure
he'd be sick again.  But he hasn't been yet, and now he's
asleep."

"Is that boy stark, staring mad?" said Uncle Roger.

"It was Felicity's fault," cried Cecily, who always took Dan's
part through evil report and good report.  "She told him she
guessed he'd learned a lesson and wouldn't do what she'd told him
not to again.  So he went and et them because she vexed him so."

"Felicity King, if you don't watch out you'll grow up into the
sort of woman who drives her husband to drink," said Uncle Roger
gravely.

"How could I tell Dan would act so like a mule!" cried Felicity.

"Get off to bed, every one of you.  It's a thankful man I'll be
when your father and mother come home.  The wretched bachelor who
undertakes to look after a houseful of children like you is to be
pitied.  Nobody will ever catch me doing it again.  Felicity, is
there anything fit to eat in the pantry?"

That last question was the most unkindest cut of all.  Felicity
could have forgiven Uncle Roger anything but that.  It really was
unpardonable.  She confided to me as we climbed the stairs that
she hated Uncle Roger.  Her red lips quivered and the tears of
wounded pride brimmed over in her beautiful blue eyes.  In the
dim candle-light she looked unbelievably pretty and appealing.  I
put my arm about her and gave her a cousinly salute.

"Never you mind him, Felicity," I said.  "He's only a grown-up."



CHAPTER XVI. THE GHOSTLY BELL

Friday was a comfortable day in the household of King.  Everybody
was in good humour.  The Story Girl sparkled through several
tales that ranged from the afrites and jinns of Eastern myth,
through the piping days of chivalry, down to the homely anecdotes
of Carlisle workaday folks.  She was in turn an Oriental princess
behind a silken veil, the bride who followed her bridegroom to
the wars of Palestine disguised as a page, the gallant lady who
ransomed her diamond necklace by dancing a coranto with a
highwayman on a moonlit heath, and "Buskirk's girl" who joined
the Sons and Daughters of Temperance "just to see what was into
it;" and in each impersonation she was so thoroughly the thing
impersonated that it was a matter of surprise to us when she
emerged from each our own familiar Story Girl again.

Cecily and Sara Ray found a "sweet" new knitted lace pattern in
an old magazine and spent a happy afternoon learning it and
"talking secrets."  Chancing--accidentally, I vow--to overhear
certain of these secrets, I learned that Sara Ray had named an
apple for Johnny Price--"and, Cecily, true's you live, there was
eight seeds in it, and you know eight means 'they both love'
"--while Cecily admitted that Willy Fraser had written on his
slate and showed it to her,

    "If you love me as I love you,
    No knife can cut our love in two"--

"but, Sara Ray, NEVER you breathe this to a living soul."

Felix also averred that he heard Sara ask Cecily very seriously,

"Cecily, how old must we be before we can have a REAL beau?"

But Sara always denied it; so I am inclined to believe Felix
simply made it up himself.

Paddy distinguished himself by catching a rat, and being
intolerably conceited about it--until Sara Ray cured him by
calling him a "dear, sweet cat," and kissing him between the
ears.  Then Pat sneaked abjectly off, his tail drooping.  He
resented being called a sweet cat.  He had a sense of humour, had
Pat.  Very few cats have; and most of them have such an
inordinate appetite for flattery that they will swallow any
amount of it and thrive thereon.  Paddy had a finer taste.  The
Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments
to his liking.  The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist
and say, "Bless your gray heart, Paddy, you're a good sort of old
rascal," and Pat would purr his satisfaction; I used to take a
handful of the skin on his back, shake him gently and say, "Pat,
you've forgotten more than any human being ever knew," and I vow
Paddy would lick his chops with delight.  But to be called "a
sweet cat!"  Oh, Sara, Sara!

Felicity tried--and had the most gratifying luck with--a new and
complicated cake recipe--a gorgeous compound of a plumminess to
make your mouth water.  The number of eggs she used in it would
have shocked Aunt Janet's thrifty soul, but that cake, like
beauty, was its own excuse.  Uncle Roger ate three slices of it
at tea-time and told Felicity she was an artist.  The poor man
meant it as a compliment; but Felicity, who knew Uncle Blair was
an artist and had a poor opinion of such fry, looked indignant
and retorted, indeed she wasn't!

"Peter says there's any amount of raspberries back in the maple
clearing," said Dan.  "S'posen we all go after tea and pick
some?"

"I'd like to," sighed Felicity, "but we'd come home tired and
with all the milking to do.  You boys better go alone."

"Peter and I will attend to the milking for one evening," said
Uncle Roger.  "You can all go.  I have an idea that a raspberry
pie for to-morrow night, when the folks come home, would hit the
right spot."

Accordingly, after tea we all set off, armed with jugs and cups.
Felicity, thoughtful creature, also took a small basketful of
jelly cookies along with her.  We had to go back through the
maple woods to the extreme end of Uncle Roger's farm--a pretty
walk, through a world of green, whispering boughs and spice-sweet
ferns, and shifting patches of sunlight.  The raspberries were
plentiful, and we were not long in filling our receptacles.  Then
we foregathered around a tiny wood spring, cold and pellucid
under its young maples, and ate the jelly cookies; and the Story
Girl told us a tale of a haunted spring in a mountain glen where
a fair white lady dwelt, who pledged all comers in a golden cup
with jewels bright.

"And if you drank of the cup with her," said the Story Girl, her
eyes glowing through the emerald dusk about us, "you were never
seen in the world again; you were whisked straightway to
fairyland, and lived there with a fairy bride.  And you never
WANTED to come back to earth, because when you drank of the magic
cup you forgot all your past life, except for one day in every
year when you were allowed to remember it."

"I wish there was such a place as fairyland--and a way to get to
it," said Cecily.

"I think there IS such a place--in spite of Uncle Edward," said
the Story Girl dreamily, "and I think there is a way of getting
there too, if we could only find it."

Well, the Story Girl was right.  There is such a place as
fairyland--but only children can find the way to it.  And they do
not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that
they forget the way.  One bitter day, when they seek it and
cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the
tragedy of life.  On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind
them and the age of gold is over.  Henceforth they must dwell in
the common light of common day.  Only a few, who remain children
at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed
are they above mortals.  They, and only they, can bring us
tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from
which we must evermore be exiles.  The world calls them its
singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are
just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.

As we sat there the Awkward Man passed by, with his gun over his
shoulder and his dog at his side.  He did not look like an
awkward man, there in the heart of the maple woods.  He strode
along right masterfully and lifted his head with the air of one
who was monarch of all he surveyed.

The Story Girl kissed her fingertips to him with the delightful
audacity which was a part of her; and the Awkward Man plucked
off his hat and swept her a stately and graceful bow.

"I don't understand why they call him the awkward man," said
Cecily, when he was out of earshot.

"You'd understand why if you ever saw him at a party or a
picnic," said Felicity, "trying to pass plates and dropping them
whenever a woman looked at him.  They say it's pitiful to see
him."

"I must get well acquainted with that man next summer," said the
Story Girl.  "If I put it off any longer it will be too late.
I'm growing so fast, Aunt Olivia says I'll have to wear ankle
skirts next summer.  If I begin to look grown-up he'll get
frightened of me, and then I'll never find out the Golden
Milestone mystery."

"Do you think he'll ever tell you who Alice is?" I asked.

"I have a notion who Alice is already," said the mysterious
creature.  But she would tell us nothing more.

When the jelly cookies were all eaten it was high time to be
moving homeward, for when the dark comes down there are more
comfortable places than a rustling maple wood and the precincts
of a possibly enchanted spring.  When we reached the foot of the
orchard and entered it through a gap in the hedge it was the
magical, mystical time of "between lights."  Off to the west was
a daffodil glow hanging over the valley of lost sunsets, and
Grandfather King's huge willow rose up against it like a rounded
mountain of foliage.  In the east, above the maple woods, was a
silvery sheen that hinted the moonrise.  But the orchard was a
place of shadows and mysterious sounds.  Midway up the open space
in its heart we met Peter; and if ever a boy was given over to
sheer terror that boy was Peter.  His face was as white as a
sunburned face could be, and his eyes were brimmed with panic.

"Peter, what is the matter?" cried Cecily.

"There's--SOMETHING--in the house, RINGING A BELL,"  said Peter,
in a shaking voice.  Not the Story Girl herself could have
invested that "something" with more of creepy horror.  We all
drew close together.  I felt a crinkly feeling along my back
which I had never known before.  If Peter had not been so
manifestly frightened we might have thought he was trying to
"pass a joke" on us.  But such abject terror as his could not be
counterfeited.

"Nonsense!" said Felicity, but her voice shook.  "There isn't a
bell in the house to ring.  You must have imagined it, Peter.  Or
else Uncle Roger is trying to fool us."

"Your Uncle Roger went to Markdale right after milking," said
Peter.  "He locked up the house and gave me the key.  There
wasn't a soul in it then, that I'm sure of.  I druv the cows to
the pasture, and I got back about fifteen minutes ago.  I set
down on the front door steps for a moment, and all at once I
heard a bell ring in the house eight times.  I tell you I was
skeered.  I made a bolt for the orchard--and you won't catch me
going near that house till your Uncle Roger comes home."

You wouldn't catch any of us doing it.  We were almost as badly
scared as Peter.  There we stood in a huddled demoralized group.
Oh, what an eerie place that orchard was!  What shadows!  What
noises!  What spooky swooping of bats!  You COULDN'T look every
way at once, and goodness only knew what might be behind you!

"There CAN'T be anybody in the house," said Felicity.

"Well, here's the key--go and see for yourself," said Peter.

Felicity had no intention of going and seeing.

"I think you boys ought to go," she said, retreating behind the
defence of sex.  "You ought to be braver than girls."

"But we ain't," said Felix candidly.  "I wouldn't be much scared
of anything REAL.  But a haunted house is a different thing."

"I always thought something had to be done in a place before it
could be haunted," said Cecily.  "Somebody killed or something
like that, you know.  Nothing like that ever happened in our
family.  The Kings have always been respectable."

"Perhaps it is Emily King's ghost," whispered Felix.

"She never appeared anywhere but in the orchard," said the Story
Girl.  "Oh, oh, children, isn't there something under Uncle
Alec's tree?"

We peered fearfully through the gloom.  There WAS
something--something that wavered and
fluttered--advanced--retreated--

"That's only my old apron," said Felicity.  "I hung it there
to-day when I was looking for the white hen's nest.  Oh, what
shall we do?  Uncle Roger may not be back for hours.  I CAN'T
believe there's anything in the house."

"Maybe it's only Peg Bowen," suggested Dan.

There was not a great deal of comfort in this.  We were almost as
much afraid of Peg Bowen as we would be of any spectral visitant.

Peter scoffed at the idea.

"Peg Bowen wasn't in the house before your Uncle Roger locked it
up, and how could she get in afterwards?" he said.  "No, it isn't
Peg Bowen.  It's SOMETHING that WALKS."

"I know a story about a ghost," said the Story Girl, the ruling
passion strong even in extremity.  "It is about a ghost with
eyeholes but no eyes--"

"Don't," cried Cecily hysterically.  "Don't you go on!  Don't you
say another word! I can't bear it!  Don't you!"

The Story Girl didn't.  But she had said enough.  There was
something in the quality of a ghost with eyeholes but no eyes
that froze our young blood.

There never were in all the world six more badly scared children
than those who huddled in the old King orchard that August night.

All at once--something--leaped from the bough of a tree and
alighted before us.  We split the air with a simultaneous shriek.
We would have run, one and all, if there had been anywhere to run
to.  But there wasn't--all around us were only those shadowy
arcades.  Then we saw with shame that it was only our Paddy.

"Pat, Pat," I said, picking him up, feeling a certain comfort in
his soft, solid body.  "Stay with us, old fellow."

But Pat would none of us.  He struggled out of my clasp and
disappeared over the long grasses with soundless leaps.  He was
no longer our tame, domestic, well acquainted Paddy.  He was a
strange, furtive animal--a "questing beast."

Presently the moon rose; but this only made matters worse.  The
shadows had been still before; now they moved and danced, as the
night wind tossed the boughs.  The old house, with its dreadful
secret, was white and clear against the dark background of
spruces.  We were woefully tired, but we could not sit down
because the grass was reeking with dew.

"The Family Ghost only appears in daylight," said the Story Girl.
"I wouldn't mind seeing a ghost in daylight.  But after dark is
another thing."

"There's no such thing as a ghost," I said contemptuously.  Oh,
how I wished I could believe it!

"Then what rung that bell?" said Peter.  "Bells don't ring of
themselves, I s'pose, specially when there ain't any in the house
to ring."

"Oh, will Uncle Roger never come home!" sobbed Felicity.  "I know
he'll laugh at us awful, but it's better to be laughed at than
scared like this."

Uncle Roger did not come until nearly ten.  Never was there a
more welcome sound than the rumble of his wheels in the lane.  We
ran to the orchard gate and swarmed across the yard, just as
Uncle Roger alighted at the front door.  He stared at us in the
moonlight.

"Have you tormented any one into eating more bad berries,
Felicity?" he demanded.

"Oh, Uncle Roger, don't go in," implored Felicity seriously.
"There's something dreadful in there--something that rings a
bell.  Peter heard it.  Don't go in."

"There's no use asking the meaning of this, I suppose," said
Uncle Roger with the calm of despair.  "I've gave up trying to
fathom you young ones.  Peter, where's the key?  What yarn have
you been telling?"

"I DID hear a bell ring," said Peter stubbornly.

Uncle Roger unlocked and flung open the front door.  As he did
so, clear and sweet, rang out ten bell-like chimes.

"That's what I heard," cried Peter.  "There's the bell!"

We had to wait until Uncle Roger stopped laughing before we heard
the explanation.  We thought he never WOULD stop.

"That's Grandfather King's old clock striking," he said, as soon
as he was able to speak.  "Sammy Prott came along after tea, when
you were away to the forge, Peter, and I gave him permission to
clean the old clock.  He had it going merrily in no time.  And
now it has almost frightened you poor little monkeys to death."

We heard Uncle Roger chuckling all the way to the barn.

"Uncle Roger can laugh," said Cecily, with a quiver in her voice,
"but it's no laughing matter to be so scared.  I just feel sick,
I was so frightened."

"I wouldn't mind if he'd laugh once and have it done with it,"
said Felicity bitterly.  "But he'll laugh at us for a year, and
tell the story to every soul that comes to the place."

"You can't blame him for that," said the Story Girl.  "I shall
tell it, too.  I don't care if the joke is as much on myself as
any one.  A story is a story, no matter who it's on.  But it IS
hateful to be laughed at--and grown-ups always do it.  I never
will when I'm grown up.  I'll remember better."

"It's all Peter's fault," said Felicity.  "I do think he might
have had more sense than to take a clock striking for a bell
ringing."

"I never heard that kind of a strike before," protested Peter.
"It don't sound a bit like other clocks.  And the door was shut
and the sound kind o' muffled.  It's all very fine to say you
would have known what it was, but I don't believe you would."

"I wouldn't have," said the Story Girl honestly.  "I thought it
WAS a bell when I heard it, and the door open, too.  Let us be
fair, Felicity."

"I'm dreadful tired," sighed Cecily.

We were all "dreadful tired," for this was the third night of
late hours and nerve racking strain.  But it was over two hours
since we had eaten the cookies, and Felicity suggested that a
saucerful apiece of raspberries and cream would not be hard to
take.  It was not, for any one but Cecily, who couldn't swallow a
mouthful.

"I'm glad father and mother will be back to-morrow night," she
said.  "It's too exciting when they're away.  That's my opinion."



CHAPTER XVII. THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING

Felicity was cumbered with many cares the next morning.  For one
thing, the whole house must be put in apple pie order; and for
another, an elaborate supper must be prepared for the expected
return of the travellers that night.  Felicity devoted her whole
attention to this, and left the secondary preparation of the
regular meals to Cecily and the Story Girl.  It was agreed that
the latter was to make a cornmeal pudding for dinner.

In spite of her disaster with the bread, the Story Girl had been
taking cooking lessons from Felicity all the week, and getting on
tolerably well, although, mindful of her former mistake, she
never ventured on anything without Felicity's approval.  But
Felicity had no time to oversee her this morning.

"You must attend to the pudding yourself," she said.  "The
recipe's so plain and simple even you can't go astray, and if
there's anything you don't understand you can ask me.  But don't
bother me if you can help it."

The Story Girl did not bother her once.  The pudding was
concocted and baked, as the Story Girl proudly informed us when
we came to the dinner-table, all on her own hook.  She was very
proud of it; and certainly as far as appearance went it justified
her triumph.  The slices were smooth and golden; and, smothered
in the luscious maple sugar sauce which Cecily had compounded,
were very fair to view.  Nevertheless, although none of us, not
even Uncle Roger or Felicity, said a word at the time, for fear
of hurting the Story Girl's feelings, the pudding did not taste
exactly as it should.  It was tough--decidedly tough--and lacked
the richness of flavour which was customary in Aunt Janet's
cornmeal puddings.  If it had not been for the abundant supply of
sauce it would have been very dry eating indeed.  Eaten it was,
however, to the last crumb.  If it were not just what a cornmeal
pudding might be, the rest of the bill of fare had been extra
good and our appetites matched it.

"I wish I was twins so's I could eat more," said Dan, when he
simply had to stop.

"What good would being twins do you?" asked Peter.  "People who
squint can't eat any more than people who don't squint, can
they?"

We could not see any connection between Peter's two questions.

"What has squinting got to do with twins?" asked Dan.

"Why, twins are just people that squint, aren't they?" said
Peter.

We thought he was trying to be funny, until we found out that he
was quite in earnest.  Then we laughed until Peter got sulky.

"I don't care," he said.  "How's a fellow to know?  Tommy and
Adam Cowan, over at Markdale, are twins; and they're both
cross-eyed.  So I s'posed that was what being twins meant.  It's
all very fine for you fellows to laugh.  I never went to school
half as much as you did; and you was brought up in Toronto, too.
If you'd worked out ever since you was seven, and just got to
school in the winter, there'd be lots of things you wouldn't
know, either."

"Never mind, Peter," said Cecily.  "You know lots of things they
don't."

But Peter was not to be conciliated, and took himself off in high
dudgeon.  To be laughed at before Felicity--to be laughed at BY
Felicity--was something he could not endure.  Let Cecily and the
Story Girl cackle all they wanted to, and let those stuck-up
Toronto boys grin like chessy-cats; but when Felicity laughed at
him the iron entered into Peter's soul.

If the Story Girl laughed at Peter the mills of the gods ground
out his revenge for him in mid-afternoon.  Felicity, having used
up all the available cooking materials in the house, had to stop
perforce; and she now determined to stuff two new pincushions she
had been making for her room.  We heard her rummaging in the
pantry as we sat on the cool, spruce-shadowed cellar door
outside, where Uncle Roger was showing us how to make elderberry
pop-guns.  Presently she came out, frowning.

"Cecily, do you know where mother put the sawdust she emptied out
of that old beaded pincushion of Grandmother King's, after she
had sifted the needles out of it?  I thought it was in the tin
box."

"So it is," said Cecily.

"It isn't.  There isn't a speck of sawdust in that box."

The Story Girl's face wore a quite indescribable expression,
compound of horror and shame.  She need not have confessed.  If
she had but held her tongue the mystery of the sawdust's
disappearance might have forever remained a mystery.  She WOULD
have held her tongue, as she afterwards confided to me, if it had
not been for a horrible fear which flashed into her mind that
possibly sawdust puddings were not healthy for people to
eat--especially if there might be needles in them--and that if
any mischief had been done in that direction it was her duty to
undo it if possible at any cost of ridicule to herself.

"Oh, Felicity," she said, her voice expressing a very anguish of
humiliation, "I--I--thought that stuff in the box was cornmeal
and used it to make the pudding."

Felicity and Cecily stared blankly at the Story Girl.  We boys
began to laugh, but were checked midway by Uncle Roger.  He was
rocking himself back and forth, with his hand pressed against his
stomach.

"Oh," he groaned, "I've been wondering what these sharp pains
I've been feeling ever since dinner meant.  I know now.  I must
have swallowed a needle--several needles, perhaps.  I'm done
for!"

The poor Story Girl went very white.

"Oh, Uncle Roger, could it be possible?  You COULDN'T have
swallowed a needle without knowing it.  It would have stuck in
your tongue or teeth."

"I didn't chew the pudding," groaned Uncle Roger.  "It was too
tough--I just swallowed the chunks whole."

He groaned and twisted and doubled himself up.  But he overdid
it.  He was not as good an actor as the Story Girl.  Felicity
looked scornfully at him.

"Uncle Roger, you are not one bit sick," she said deliberately.
"You are just putting on."

"Felicity, if I die from the effects of eating sawdust pudding,
flavoured with needles, you'll be sorry you ever said such a
thing to your poor old uncle," said Uncle Roger reproachfully.
"Even if there were no needles in it, sixty-year-old sawdust
can't be good for my tummy.  I daresay it wasn't even clean."

"Well, you know every one has to eat a peck of dirt in his life,"
giggled Felicity.

"But nobody has to eat it all at once," retorted Uncle Roger,
with another groan.  "Oh, Sara Stanley, it's a thankful man I am
that your Aunt Olivia is to be home to-night.  You'd have me kilt
entirely by another day.  I believe you did it on purpose to have
a story to tell."

Uncle Roger hobbled off to the barn, still holding on to his
stomach.

"Do you think he really feels sick?" asked the Story Girl
anxiously.

"No, I don't," said Felicity.  "You needn't worry over him.
There's nothing the matter with him.  I don't believe there were
any needles in that sawdust.  Mother sifted it very carefully."

"I know a story about a man whose son swallowed a mouse," said
the Story Girl, who would probably have known a story and tried
to tell it if she were being led to the stake.  "And he ran and
wakened up a very tired doctor just as he had got to sleep.

"'Oh, doctor, my son has swallowed a mouse,' he cried.  'What
shall I do?'

"'Tell him to swallow a cat,' roared the poor doctor, and slammed
his door.

"Now, if Uncle Roger has swallowed any needles, maybe it would
make it all right if he swallowed a pincushion."

We all laughed.  But Felicity soon grew sober.

"It seems awful to think of eating a sawdust pudding.  How on
earth did you make such a mistake?"

"It looked just like cornmeal," said the Story Girl, going from
white to red in her shame.  "Well, I'm going to give up trying to
cook, and stick to things I can do.  And if ever one of you
mentions sawdust pudding to me I'll never tell you another story
as long as I live."

The threat was effectual.  Never did we mention that unholy
pudding.  But the Story Girl could not so impose silence on the
grown-ups, especially Uncle Roger.  He tormented her for the rest
of the summer.  Never a breakfast did he sit down to, without
gravely inquiring if they were sure there was no sawdust in the
porridge.  Not a tweak of rheumatism did he feel but he vowed it
was due to a needle, travelling about his body.  And Aunt Olivia
was warned to label all the pincushions in the house.  "Contents,
sawdust; not intended for puddings."



CHAPTER XVIII. HOW KISSING WAS DISCOVERED

An August evening, calm, golden, dewless, can be very lovely.  At
sunset, Felicity, Cecily, and Sara Ray, Dan, Felix, and I were in
the orchard, sitting on the cool grasses at the base of the
Pulpit Stone.  In the west was a field of crocus sky over which
pale cloud blossoms were scattered.

Uncle Roger had gone to the station to meet the travellers, and
the dining-room table was spread with a feast of fat things.

"It's been a jolly week, take it all round," said Felix, "but I'm
glad the grown-ups are coming back to-night, especially Uncle
Alec."

"I wonder if they'll bring us anything," said Dan.

"I'm thinking long to hear all about the wedding," said Felicity,
who was braiding timothy stalks into a collar for Pat.

"You girls are always thinking about weddings and getting
married," said Dan contemptuously.

"We ain't," said Felicity indignantly.  "I am NEVER going to get
married.  I think it is just horrid, so there!"

"I guess you think it would be a good deal horrider not to be,"
said Dan.

"It depends on who you're married to," said Cecily gravely,
seeing that Felicity disdained reply.  "If you got a man like
father it would be all right.  But S'POSEN you got one like
Andrew Ward?  He's so mean and cross to his wife that she tells
him every day she wishes she'd never set eyes on him."

"Perhaps that's WHY he's mean and cross," said Felix.

"I tell you it isn't always the man's fault," said Dan darkly.
"When I get married I'll be good to my wife, but I mean to be
boss.  When I open my mouth my word will be law."

"If your word is as big as your mouth I guess it will be," said
Felicity cruelly.

"I pity the man who gets you, Felicity King, that's all" retorted
Dan.

"Now, don't fight," implored Cecily.

"Who's fighting?" demanded Dan.  "Felicity thinks she can say
anything she likes to me, but I'll show her different."

Probably, in spite of Cecily's efforts, a bitter spat would have
resulted between Dan and Felicity, had not a diversion been
effected at that moment by the Story Girl, who came slowly down
Uncle Stephen's Walk.

"Just look how the Story Girl has got herself up!" said Felicity.
"Why, she's no more than decent!"

The Story Girl was barefooted and barearmed, having rolled the
sleeves of her pink gingham up to her shoulders.  Around her
waist was twisted a girdle of the blood-red roses that bloomed in
Aunt Olivia's garden; on her sleek curls she wore a chaplet of
them; and her hands were full of them.

She paused under the outmost tree, in a golden-green gloom, and
laughed at us over a big branch.  Her wild, subtle, nameless
charm clothed her as with a garment.  We always remembered the
picture she made there; and in later days when we read Tennyson's
poems at a college desk, we knew exactly how an oread, peering
through the green leaves on some haunted knoll of many fountained
Ida, must look.

"Felicity," said the Story Girl reproachfully, "what have you
been doing to Peter?  He's up there sulking in the granary, and
he won't come down, and he says it's your fault.  You must have
hurt his feelings dreadfully."

"I don't know about his feelings," said Felicity, with an angry
toss of her shining head, "but I guess I made his ears tingle all
right.  I boxed them both good and hard."

"Oh, Felicity!  What for?"

"Well, he tried to kiss me, that's what for!" said Felicity,
turning very red.  "As if I would let a hired boy kiss me!  I
guess Master Peter won't try anything like that again in a
hurry."

The Story Girl came out of her shadows and sat down beside us on
the grass.

"Well, in that case," she said gravely, "I think you did right to
slap his ears--not because he is a hired boy, but because it
would be impertinent in ANY boy.  But talking of kissing makes me
think of a story I found in Aunt Olivia's scrapbook the other
day.  Wouldn't you like to hear it?  It is called, 'How Kissing
Was Discovered.'"

"Wasn't kissing always discovered?" asked Dan.

"Not according to this story.  It was just discovered
accidentally."

"Well, let's hear about it," said Felix, "although I think
kissing's awful silly, and it wouldn't have mattered much if it
hadn't ever been discovered."

The Story Girl scattered her roses around her on the grass, and
clasped her slim hands over her knees.  Gazing dreamily afar at
the tinted sky between the apple trees, as if she were looking
back to the merry days of the world's gay youth, she began, her
voice giving to the words and fancies of the old tale the
delicacy of hoar frost and the crystal sparkle of dew.

"It happened long, long ago in Greece--where so many other
beautiful things happened.  Before that, nobody had ever heard of
kissing.  And then it was just discovered in the twinkling of an
eye.  And a man wrote it down and the account has been preserved
ever since.

"There was a young shepherd named Glaucon--a very handsome young
shepherd--who lived in a little village called Thebes.  It became
a very great and famous city afterwards, but at this time it was
only a little village, very quiet and simple.  Too quiet for
Glaucon's liking.  He grew tired of it, and he thought he would
like to go away from home and see something of the world.  So he
took his knapsack and his shepherd's crook, and wandered away
until he came to Thessaly.  That is the land of the gods' hill,
you know.  The name of the hill was Olympus.  But it has nothing
to do with this story.  This happened on another mountain--Mount
Pelion.

"Glaucon hired himself to a wealthy man who had a great many
sheep.  And every day Glaucon had to lead the sheep up to pasture
on Mount Pelion, and watch them while they ate.  There was
nothing else to do, and he would have found the time very long,
if he had not been able to play on a flute.  So he played very
often and very beautifully, as he sat under the trees and watched
the wonderful blue sea afar off, and thought about Aglaia.

"Aglaia was his master's daughter.  She was so sweet and
beautiful that Glaucon fell in love with her the very moment he
first saw her; and when he was not playing his flute on the
mountain he was thinking about Aglaia, and dreaming that some day
he might have flocks of his own, and a dear little cottage down
in the valley where he and Aglaia might live.

"Aglaia had fallen in love with Glaucon just as he had with her.
But she never let him suspect it for ever so long.  He did not
know how often she would steal up the mountain and hide behind
the rocks near where the sheep pastured, to listen to Glaucon's
beautiful music.  It was very lovely music, because he was always
thinking of Aglaia while he played, though he little dreamed how
near him she often was.

"But after awhile Glaucon found out that Aglaia loved him, and
everything was well.  Nowadays I suppose a wealthy man like
Aglaia's father wouldn't be willing to let his daughter marry a
hired man; but this was in the Golden Age, you know, when nothing
like that mattered at all.

"After that, almost every day Aglaia would go up the mountain and
sit beside Glaucon, as he watched the flocks and played on his
flute.  But he did not play as much as he used to, because he
liked better to talk with Aglaia.  And in the evening they would
lead the sheep home together.

"One day Aglaia went up the mountain by a new way, and she came
to a little brook.  Something was sparkling very brightly among
its pebbles.  Aglaia picked it up, and it was the most beautiful
little stone that she had ever seen.  It was only as large as a
pea, but it glittered and flashed in the sunlight with every
colour of the rainbow.  Aglaia was so delighted with it that she
resolved to take it as a present to Glaucon.

"But all at once she heard a stamping of hoofs behind her, and
when she turned she almost died from fright.  For there was the
great god, Pan, and he was a very terrible object, looking quite
as much like a goat as a man.  The gods were not all beautiful,
you know.  And, beautiful or not, nobody ever wanted to meet them
face to face.

"'Give that stone to me,' said Pan, holding out his hand.

"But Aglaia, though she was frightened, would not give him the
stone.

"'I want it for Glaucon,' she said.

"'I want it for one of my wood nymphs,' said Pan, 'and I must
have it.'

"He advanced threateningly, but Aglaia ran as hard as she could
up the mountain.  If she could only reach Glaucon he would
protect her.  Pan followed her, clattering and bellowing
terribly, but in a few minutes she rushed into Glaucon's arms.

"The dreadful sight of Pan and the still more dreadful noise he
made, so frightened the sheep that they fled in all directions.
But Glaucon was not afraid at all, because Pan was the god of
shepherds, and was bound to grant any prayer a good shepherd, who
always did his duty, might make.  If Glaucon had NOT been a good
shepherd dear knows what would have happened to him and Aglaia.
But he was; and when he begged Pan to go away and not frighten
Aglaia any more, Pan had to go, grumbling a good deal--and Pan's
grumblings had a very ugly sound.  But still he WENT, and that
was the main thing.

"'Now, dearest, what is all this trouble about?' asked Glaucon;
and Aglaia told him the story.

"'But where is the beautiful stone?' he asked, when she had
finished.  'Didst thou drop it in thy alarm?'

"No, indeed!  Aglaia had done nothing of the sort.  When she
began to run, she had popped it into her mouth, and there it was
still, quite safe.  Now she poked it out between her red lips,
where it glittered in the sunlight.

"'Take it,' she whispered.

"The question was--how was he to take it?  Both of Aglaia's arms
were held fast to her sides by Glaucon's arms; and if he loosened
his clasp ever so little he was afraid she would fall, so weak
and trembling was she from her dreadful fright.  Then Glaucon had
a brilliant idea.  He would take the beautiful stone from
Aglaia's lips with his own lips.

"He bent over until his lips touched hers--and THEN, he forgot
all about the beautiful pebble and so did Aglaia.  Kissing was
discovered!

"What a yarn!" said Dan, drawing a long breath, when we had come
to ourselves and discovered that we were really sitting in a dewy
Prince Edward Island orchard instead of watching two lovers on a
mountain in Thessaly in the Golden Age.  "I don't believe a word
of it."

"Of course, we know it wasn't really true," said Felicity.

"Well, I don't know," said the Story Girl thoughtfully.  "I think
there are two kinds of true things--true things that ARE, and
true things that are NOT, but MIGHT be."

"I don't believe there's any but the one kind of trueness," said
Felicity.  "And anyway, this story couldn't be true.  You know
there was no such thing as a god Pan."

"How do you know what there might have been in the Golden Age?"
asked the Story Girl.

Which was, indeed, an unanswerable question for Felicity.

"I wonder what became of the beautiful stone?" said Cecily.

"Likely Aglaia swallowed it," said Felix practically.

"Did Glaucon and Aglaia ever get married?" asked Sara Ray.

"The story doesn't say.  It stops just there," said the Story
Girl.  "But of course they did.  I will tell you what I think.  I
don't think Aglaia swallowed the stone.  I think it just fell to
the ground; and after awhile they found it, and it turned out to
be of such value that Glaucon could buy all the flocks and herds
in the valley, and the sweetest cottage; and he and Aglaia were
married right away."

"But you only THINK that," said Sara Ray.  "I'd like to be really
sure that was what happened."

"Oh, bother, none of it happened," said Dan.  "I believed it
while the Story Girl was telling it, but I don't now.  Isn't that
wheels?"

Wheels it was.  Two wagons were driving up the lane.  We rushed
to the house--and there were Uncle Alec and Aunt Janet and Aunt
Olivia!  The excitement was quite tremendous.  Every body talked
and laughed at once, and it was not until we were all seated
around the supper table that conversation grew coherent.  What
laughter and questioning and telling of tales followed, what
smiles and bright eyes and glad voices.  And through it all, the
blissful purrs of Paddy, who sat on the window sill behind the
Story Girl, resounded through the din like Andrew McPherson's
bass--"just a bur-r-r-r the hale time."

"Well, I'm thankful to be home again" said Aunt Janet, beaming on
us.  "We had a real nice time, and Edward's folks were as kind as
could be.  But give me home for a steady thing.  How has
everything gone?  How did the children behave, Roger?"

"Like models," said Uncle Roger.  "They were as good as gold most
of the days."

There were times when one couldn't help liking Uncle Roger.



CHAPTER XIX. A DREAD PROPHECY

"I've got to go and begin stumping out the elderberry pasture
this afternoon," said Peter dolefully.  "I tell you it's a tough
job.  Mr. Roger might wait for cool weather before he sets people
to stumping out elderberries, and that's a fact."

"Why don't you tell him so?" asked Dan.

"It ain't my business to tell him things," retorted Peter.  "I'm
hired to do what I'm told, and I do it.  But I can have my own
opinion all the same.  It's going to be a broiling hot day."

We were all in the orchard, except Felix, who had gone to the
post-office.  It was the forenoon of an August Saturday.  Cecily
and Sara Ray, who had come up to spend the day with us--her
mother having gone to town--were eating timothy roots.  Bertha
Lawrence, a Charlottetown girl, who had visited Kitty Marr in
June, and had gone to school one day with her, had eaten timothy
roots, affecting to consider them great delicacies.  The fad was
at once taken up by the Carlisle schoolgirls.  Timothy roots
quite ousted "sours" and young raspberry sprouts, both of which
had the real merit of being quite toothsome, while timothy roots
were tough and tasteless.  But timothy roots were fashionable,
therefore timothy roots must be eaten.  Pecks of them must have
been devoured in Carlisle that summer.

Pat was there also, padding about from one to the other on his
black paws, giving us friendly pokes and rubs.  We all made much
of him except Felicity, who would not take any notice of him
because he was the Story Girl's cat.

We boys were sprawling on the grass.  Our morning chores were
done and the day was before us.  We should have been feeling very
comfortable and happy, but, as a matter of fact, we were not
particularly so.

The Story Girl was sitting on the mint beside the well-house,
weaving herself a wreath of buttercups.  Felicity was sipping
from the cup of clouded blue with an overdone air of unconcern.
Each was acutely and miserably conscious of the other's presence,
and each was desirous of convincing the rest of us that the other
was less than nothing to her.  Felicity could not succeed.  The
Story Girl managed it better.  If it had not been for the fact
that in all our foregatherings she was careful to sit as far from
Felicity as possible, we might have been deceived.

We had not passed a very pleasant week.  Felicity and the Story
Girl had not been "speaking" to each other, and consequently
there had been something rotten in the state of Denmark.  An air
of restraint was over all our games and conversations.

On the preceding Monday Felicity and the Story Girl had
quarrelled over something.  What the cause of the quarrel was I
cannot tell because I never knew.  It remained a "dead secret"
between the parties of the first and second part forever.  But it
was more bitter than the general run of their tiffs, and the
consequences were apparent to all.  They had not spoken to each
other since.

This was not because the rancour of either lasted so long.  On
the contrary it passed speedily away, not even one low descending
sun going down on their wrath.  But dignity remained to be
considered.  Neither would "speak first," and each obstinately
declared that she would not speak first, no, not in a hundred
years.  Neither argument, entreaty, nor expostulation had any
effect on those two stubborn girls, nor yet the tears of sweet
Cecily, who cried every night about it, and mingled in her pure
little prayers fervent petitions that Felicity and the Story Girl
might make up.

"I don't know where you expect to go when you die, Felicity," she
said tearfully, "if you don't forgive people."

"I have forgiven her," was Felicity's answer, "but I am not going
to speak first for all that."

"It's very wrong, and, more than that, it's so uncomfortable,"
complained Cecily.  "It spoils everything."

"Were they ever like this before?" I asked Cecily, as we talked
the matter over privately in Uncle Stephen's Walk.

"Never for so long," said Cecily.  "They had a spell like this
last summer, and one the summer before, but they only lasted a
couple of days."

"And who spoke first?"

"Oh, the Story Girl.  She got excited about something and spoke
to Felicity before she thought, and then it was all right.  But
I'm afraid it isn't going to be like that this time.  Don't you
notice how careful the Story Girl is not to get excited?  That is
such a bad sign."

"We've just got to think up something that will excite her,
that's all," I said.

"I'm--I'm praying about it," said Cecily in a low voice, her
tear-wet lashes trembling against her pale, round cheeks.  "Do
you suppose it will do any good, Bev?"

"Very likely," I assured her.  "Remember Sara Ray and the money.
That came from praying."

"I'm glad you think so," said Cecily tremulously.  "Dan said it
was no use for me to bother praying about it.  He said if they
COULDN'T speak God might do something, but when they just
WOULDN'T it wasn't likely He would interfere.  Dan does say such
queer things.  I'm so afraid he's going to grow up just like
Uncle Robert Ward, who never goes to church, and doesn't believe
more than half the Bible is true."

"Which half does he believe is true?" I inquired with unholy
curiosity.

"Oh, just the nice parts.  He says there's a heaven all right,
but no--no--HELL.  I don't want Dan to grow up like that.  It
isn't respectable.  And you wouldn't want all kinds of people
crowding heaven, now, would you?"

"Well, no, I suppose not," I agreed, thinking of Billy Robinson.

"Of course, I can't help feeling sorry for those who have to go
to THE OTHER PLACE," said Cecily compassionately.  "But I suppose
they wouldn't be very comfortable in heaven either.  They
wouldn't feel at home.  Andrew Marr said a simply dreadful thing
about THE OTHER PLACE one night last fall, when Felicity and I
were down to see Kitty, and they were burning the potato stalks.
He said he believed THE OTHER PLACE must be lots more interesting
than heaven because fires were such jolly things.  Now, did you
ever hear the like?"

"I guess it depends a good deal on whether you're inside or
outside the fires," I said.

"Oh, Andrew didn't really mean it, of course.  He just said it to
sound smart and make us stare.  The Marrs are all like that.  But
anyhow, I'm going to keep on praying that something will happen
to excite the Story Girl.  I don't believe there is any use in
praying that Felicity will speak first, because I am sure she
won't."

"But don't you suppose God could make her?" I said, feeling that
it wasn't quite fair that the Story Girl should always have to
speak first.  If she had spoken first the other times it was
surely Felicity's turn this time.

"Well, I believe it would puzzle Him," said Cecily, out of the
depths of her experience with Felicity.

Peter, as was to be expected, took Felicity's part, and said the
Story Girl ought to speak first because she was the oldest.
That, he said, had always been his Aunt Jane's rule.

Sara Ray thought Felicity should speak first, because the Story
Girl was half an orphan.

Felix tried to make peace between them, and met the usual fate of
all peacemakers.  The Story Girl loftily told him that he was too
young to understand, and Felicity said that fat boys should mind
their own business.  After that, Felix declared it would serve
Felicity right if the Story Girl never spoke to her again.

Dan had no patience with either of the girls, especially
Felicity.

"What they both want is a right good spanking," he said.

If only a spanking would mend the matter it was not likely it
would ever be mended.  Both Felicity and the Story Girl were
rather too old to be spanked, and, if they had not been, none of
the grown-ups would have thought it worth while to administer so
desperate a remedy for what they considered so insignificant a
trouble.  With the usual levity of grown-ups, they regarded the
coldness between the girls as a subject of mirth and jest, and
recked not that it was freezing the genial current of our
youthful souls, and blighting hours that should have been fair
pages in our book of days.

The Story Girl finished her wreath and put it on.  The buttercups
drooped over her high, white brow and played peep with her
glowing eyes.  A dreamy smile hovered around her poppy-red
mouth--a significant smile which, to those of us skilled in its
interpretation, betokened the sentence which soon came.

"I know a story about a man who always had his own opinion--"

The Story Girl got no further.  We never heard the story of the
man who always had his own opinion.  Felix came tearing up the
lane, with a newspaper in his hand.  When a boy as fat as Felix
runs at full speed on a broiling August forenoon, he has
something to run for--as Felicity remarked.

"He must have got some bad news at the office," said Sara Ray.

"Oh, I hope nothing has happened to father," I exclaimed,
springing anxiously to my feet, a sick, horrible feeling of fear
running over me like a cool, rippling wave.

"It's just as likely to be good news he is running for as bad,"
said the Story Girl, who was no believer in meeting trouble half
way.

"He wouldn't be running so fast for good news," said Dan
cynically.

We were not left long in doubt.  The orchard gate flew open and
Felix was among us.  One glimpse of his face told us that he was
no bearer of glad tidings.  He had been running hard and should
have been rubicund.  Instead, he was "as pale as are the dead."
I could not have asked him what was the matter had my life
depended on it.  It was Felicity who demanded impatiently of my
shaking, voiceless brother:

"Felix King, what has scared you?"

Felix held out the newspaper--it was the Charlottetown _Daily
Enterprise_.

"It's there," he gasped.  "Look--read--oh, do you--think
it's--true?  The--end of--the world--is coming to-morrow--at
two--o'clock--in the afternoon!"

Crash!  Felicity had dropped the cup of clouded blue, which had
passed unscathed through so many changing years, and now at last
lay shattered on the stone of the well curb.  At any other time
we should all have been aghast over such a catastrophe, but it
passed unnoticed now.  What mattered it that all the cups in the
world be broken to-day if the crack o' doom must sound to-morrow?

"Oh, Sara Stanley, do you believe it?  DO you?" gasped Felicity,
clutching the Story Girl's hand.  Cecily's prayer had been
answered.  Excitement had come with a vengeance, and under its
stress Felicity had spoken first.  But this, like the breaking of
the cup, had no significance for us at the moment.

The Story Girl snatched the paper and read the announcement to a
group on which sudden, tense silence had fallen.  Under a
sensational headline, "The Last Trump will sound at Two O'clock
To-morrow," was a paragraph to the effect that the leader of a
certain noted sect in the United States had predicted that August
twelfth would be the Judgment Day, and that all his numerous
followers were preparing for the dread event by prayer, fasting,
and the making of appropriate white garments for ascension robes.

I laugh at the remembrance now--until I recall the real horror of
fear that enwrapped us in that sunny orchard that August morning
of long ago; and then I laugh no more.  We were only children, be
it remembered, with a very firm and simple faith that grown
people knew much more than we did, and a rooted conviction that
whatever you read in a newspaper must be true.  If the _Daily
Enterprise_ said that August twelfth was to be the Judgment Day
how were you going to get around it?

"Do you believe it, Sara Stanley?" persisted Felicity.  "DO you?"

"No--no, I don't believe a word of it," said the Story Girl.

But for once her voice failed to carry conviction--or, rather, it
carried conviction of the very opposite kind.  It was borne in
upon our miserable minds that if the Story Girl did not
altogether believe it was true she believed it might be true; and
the possibility was almost as dreadful as the certainty.

"It CAN'T be true," said Sara Ray, seeking refuge, as usual, in
tears.  "Why, everything looks just the same.  Things COULDN'T
look the same if the Judgment Day was going to be to-morrow."

"But that's just the way it's to come," I said uncomfortably.
"It tells you in the Bible.  It's to come just like a thief in
the night."

"But it tells you another thing in the Bible, too," said Cecily
eagerly.  "It says nobody knows when the Judgment Day is to
come--not even the angels in heaven.  Now, if the angels in
heaven don't know it, do you suppose the editor of the
_Enterprise_ can know it--and him a Grit, too?"

"I guess he knows as much about it as a Tory would," retorted the
Story Girl.  Uncle Roger was a Liberal and Uncle Alec a
Conservative, and the girls held fast to the political traditions
of their respective households.  "But it isn't really the
_Enterprise_ editor at all who is saying it--it's a man in the
States who claims to be a prophet.  If he IS a prophet perhaps he
has found out somehow."

"And it's in the paper, too, and that's printed as well as the
Bible," said Dan.

"Well, I'm going to depend on the Bible," said Cecily.  "I don't
believe it's the Judgment Day to-morrow--but I'm scared, for all
that," she added piteously.

That was exactly the position of us all.  As in the case of the
bell-ringing ghost, we did not believe but we trembled.

"Nobody might have known when the Bible was written," said Dan,
"but maybe somebody knows now.  Why, the Bible was written
thousands of years ago, and that paper was printed this very
morning.  There's been time to find out ever so much more."

"I want to do so many things," said the Story Girl, plucking off
her crown of buttercup gold with a tragic gesture, "but if it's
the Judgment Day to-morrow I won't have time to do any of them."

"It can't be much worse than dying, I s'pose," said Felix,
grasping at any straw of comfort.

"I'm awful glad I've got into the habit of going to church and
Sunday School this summer," said Peter very soberly.  "I wish I'd
made up my mind before this whether to be a Presbyterian or a
Methodist.  Do you s'pose it's too late now?"

"Oh, that doesn't matter," said Cecily earnestly.  "If--if you're
a Christian, Peter, that is all that's necessary."

"But it's too late for that," said Peter miserably.  "I can't
turn into a Christian between this and two o'clock to-morrow.
I'll just have to be satisfied with making up my mind to be a
Presbyterian or a Methodist.  I wanted to wait till I got old
enough to make out what was the difference between them, but I'll
have to chance it now.  I guess I'll be a Presbyterian, 'cause I
want to be like the rest of you.  Yes, I'll be a Presbyterian."

"I know a story about Judy Pineau and the word Presbyterian,"
said the Story Girl, "but I can't tell it now.  If to-morrow
isn't the Judgment Day I'll tell it Monday."

"If I had known that to-morrow might be the Judgment Day I
wouldn't have quarrelled with you last Monday, Sara Stanley, or
been so horrid and sulky all the week.  Indeed I wouldn't," said
Felicity, with very unusual humility.

Ah, Felicity!  We were all, in the depths of our pitiful little
souls, reviewing the innumerable things we would or would not
have done "if we had known."  What a black and endless list they
made--those sins of omission and commission that rushed
accusingly across our young memories!  For us the leaves of the
Book of Judgment were already opened; and we stood at the bar of
our own consciences, than which for youth or eld, there can be no
more dread tribunal.  I thought of all the evil deeds of my short
life--of pinching Felix to make him cry out at family prayers, of
playing truant from Sunday School and going fishing one day, of a
certain fib--no, no away from this awful hour with all such
euphonious evasions--of a LIE I had once told, of many a selfish
and unkind word and thought and action.  And to-morrow might be
the great and terrible day of the last accounting!  Oh, if I had
only been a better boy!

"The quarrel was as much my fault as yours, Felicity," said the
Story Girl, putting her arm around Felicity.  "We can't undo it
now.  But if to-morrow isn't the Judgment Day we must be careful
never to quarrel again.  Oh, I wish father was here."

"He will be," said Cecily.  "If it's the Judgment Day for Prince
Edward Island it will be for Europe, too."

"I wish we could just KNOW whether what the paper says is true or
not," said Felix desperately.  "It seems to me I could brace up
if I just KNEW."

But to whom could we appeal?  Uncle Alec was away and would not
be back until late that night.  Neither Aunt Janet nor Uncle
Roger were people to whom we cared to apply in such a crisis.  We
were afraid of the Judgment Day; but we were almost equally
afraid of being laughed at.  How about Aunt Olivia?

"No, Aunt Olivia has gone to bed with a sick headache and mustn't
be disturbed," said the Story Girl.  "She said I must get dinner
ready, because there was plenty of cold meat, and nothing to do
but boil the potatoes and peas, and set the table.  I don't know
how I can put my thoughts into it when the Judgment Day may be
to-morrow.  Besides, what is the good of asking the grown-ups?
They don't know anything more about this than we do."

"But if they'd just SAY they didn't believe it, it would be a
sort of comfort," said Cecily.

"I suppose the minister would know, but he's away on his
vacation" said Felicity.  "Anyhow, I'll go and ask mother what
she thinks of it."

Felicity picked up the _Enterprise_ and betook herself to the
house.  We awaited her return in dire suspense.

"Well, what does she say?" asked Cecily tremulously.

"She said, 'Run away and don't bother me.  I haven't any time for
your nonsense.'" responded Felicity in an injured tone.  "And I
said, 'But, ma, the paper SAYS to-morrow is the Judgment Day,'
and ma just said 'Judgment Fiddlesticks!'"

"Well, that's kind of comforting," said Peter.  "She can't put
any faith in it, or she'd be more worked up."

"If it only wasn't PRINTED!" said Dan gloomily.

"Let's all go over and ask Uncle Roger," said Felix desperately.

That we should make Uncle Roger a court of last resort indicated
all too clearly the state of our minds.  But we went.  Uncle
Roger was in his barn-yard, hitching his black mare into the
buggy.  His copy of the _Enterprise_ was sticking out of his
pocket.  He looked, as we saw with sinking hearts, unusually
grave and preoccupied.  There was not a glimmer of a smile about
his face.

"You ask him," said Felicity, nudging the Story Girl.

"Uncle Roger," said the Story Girl, the golden notes of her voice
threaded with fear and appeal.  "the _Enterprise_ says that
to-morrow is the Judgment Day?  IS it?  Do YOU think it is?"

"I'm afraid so," said Uncle Roger gravely.  "The _Enterprise_ is
always very careful to print only reliable news."

"But mother doesn't believe it," cried Felicity.

Uncle Roger shook his head.

"That is just the trouble," he said.  "People won't believe it
till it's too late.  I'm going straight to Markdale to pay a man
there some money I owe him, and after dinner I'm going to
Summerside to buy me a new suit.  My old one is too shabby for
the Judgment Day."

He got into his buggy and drove away, leaving eight distracted
mortals behind him.

"Well, I suppose that settles it," said Peter, in despairing
tone.

"Is there anything we can do to PREPARE?" asked Cecily.

"I wish I had a white dress like you girls," sobbed Sara Ray.
"But I haven't, and it's too late to get one.  Oh, I wish I had
minded what ma said better.  I wouldn't have disobeyed her so
often if I'd thought the Judgment Day was so near.  When I go
home I'm going to tell her about going to the magic lantern
show."

"I'm not sure that Uncle Roger meant what he said," remarked the
Story Girl.  "I couldn't get a look into his eyes.  If he was
trying to hoax us there would have been a twinkle in them.  He
can never help that.  You know he would think it a great joke to
frighten us like this.  It's really dreadful to have no grown-ups
you can depend on."

"We could depend on father if he was here," said Dan stoutly.
"HE'D tell us the truth."

"He would tell us what he THOUGHT was true, Dan, but he couldn't
KNOW.  He's not such a well-educated man as the editor of the
_Enterprise_.  No, there's nothing to do but wait and see."

"Let us go into the house and read just what the Bible does say
about it," suggested Cecily.

We crept in carefully, lest we disturb Aunt Olivia, and Cecily
found and read the significant portion of Holy Writ.  There was
little comfort for us in that vivid and terrible picture.

"Well," said the Story Girl finally.  "I must go and get the
potatoes ready.  I suppose they must be boiled even if it is the
Judgment Day to-morrow.  But I don't believe it is."

"And I've got to go and stump elderberries," said Peter.  "I
don't see how I can do it--go away back there alone.  I'll feel
scared to death the whole time."

"Tell Uncle Roger that, and say if to-morrow is the end of the
world that there is no good in stumping any more fields," I
suggested.

"Yes, and if he lets you off then we'll know he was in earnest,"
chimed in Cecily.  "But if he still says you must go that'll be a
sign he doesn't believe it."

Leaving the Story Girl and Peter to peel their potatoes, the rest
of us went home, where Aunt Janet, who had gone to the well and
found the fragments of the old blue cup, gave poor Felicity a
bitter scolding about it.  But Felicity bore it very
patiently--nay, more, she seemed to delight in it.

"Ma can't believe to-morrow is the last day, or she wouldn't
scold like that," she told us; and this comforted us until after
dinner, when the Story Girl and Peter came over and told us that
Uncle Roger had really gone to Summerside.  Then we plunged down
into fear and wretchedness again.

"But he said I must go and stump elderberries just the same" said
Peter.  "He said it might NOT be the Judgment Day to-morrow,
though he believed it was, and it would keep me out of mischief.
But I just can't stand it back there alone.  Some of you fellows
must come with me.  I don't want you to work, but just for
company."

It was finally decided that Dan and Felix should go.  I wanted to
go also, but the girls protested.

"YOU must stay and keep us cheered up," implored Felicity.  "I
just don't know how I'm ever going to put in the afternoon.  I
promised Kitty Marr that I'd go down and spend it with her, but I
can't now.  And I can't knit any at my lace.  I'd just keep
thinking, 'What is the use?  Perhaps it'll all be burned up
to-morrow.'"

So I stayed with the girls, and a miserable afternoon we had of
it.  The Story Girl again and again declared that she "didn't
believe it," but when we asked her to tell a story, she evaded it
with a flimsy excuse.  Cecily pestered at Aunt Janet's life out,
asking repeatedly, "Ma, will you be washing Monday?" "Ma, will
you be going to prayer meeting Tuesday night?" "Ma, will you be
preserving raspberries next week?" and various similar questions.
It was a huge comfort to her that Aunt Janet always said, "Yes,"
or "Of course," as if there could be no question about it.

Sara Ray cried until I wondered how one small head could contain
all the tears she shed.  But I do not believe she was half as
much frightened as disappointed that she had no white dress.  In
mid-afternoon Cecily came downstairs with her forget-me-not jug
in her hand--a dainty bit of china, wreathed with dark blue
forget-me-nots, which Cecily prized highly, and in which she
always kept her toothbrush.

"Sara, I am going to give you this jug," she said solemnly.

Now, Sara had always coveted this particular jug.  She stopped
crying long enough to clutch it delightedly.

"Oh, Cecily, thank you.  But are you sure you won't want it back
if to-morrow isn't the Judgment Day?"

"No, it's yours for good," said Cecily, with the high, remote air
of one to whom forget-me-not jugs and all such pomps and vanities
of the world were as a tale that is told.

"Are you going to give any one your cherry vase?" asked Felicity,
trying to speak indifferently.  Felicity had never admired the
forget-me-not jug, but she had always hankered after the cherry
vase--an affair of white glass, with a cluster of red glass
cherries and golden-green glass leaves on its side, which Aunt
Olivia had given Cecily one Christmas.

"No, I'm not," answered Cecily, with a change of tone.

"Oh, well, I don't care," said Felicity quickly.  "Only, if
to-morrow is the last day, the cherry vase won't be much use to
you."

"I guess it will be as much use to me as to any one else," said
Cecily indignantly.  She had sacrificed her dear forget-me-not
jug to satisfy some pang of conscience, or propitiate some
threatening fate, but surrender her precious cherry vase she
could not and would not.  Felicity needn't be giving any hints!

With the gathering shades of night our plight became pitiful.  In
the daylight, surrounded by homely, familiar sights and sounds,
it was not so difficult to fortify our souls with a cheering
incredulity.  But now, in this time of shadows, dread belief
clutched us and wrung us with terror.  If there had been one wise
older friend to tell us, in serious fashion, that we need not be
afraid, that the _Enterprise_ paragraph was naught save the idle
report of a deluded fanatic, it would have been well for us.  But
there was not.  Our grown-ups, instead, considered our terror an
exquisite jest.  At that very moment, Aunt Olivia, who had
recovered from her headache, and Aunt Janet were laughing in the
kitchen over the state the children were in because they were
afraid the end of the world was close at hand.  Aunt Janet's
throaty gurgle and Aunt Olivia's trilling mirth floated out
through the open window.

"Perhaps they'll laugh on the other side of their faces
to-morrow," said Dan, with gloomy satisfaction.

We were sitting on the cellar hatch, watching what might be our
last sunset o'er the dark hills of time.  Peter was with us.  It
was his last Sunday to go home, but he had elected to remain.

"If to-morrow is the Judgment Day I want to be with you fellows,"
he said.

Sara Ray had also yearned to stay, but could not because her
mother had told her she must be home before dark.

"Never mind, Sara," comforted Cecily.  "It's not to be till two
o'clock to-morrow, so you'll have plenty of time to get up here
before anything happens."

"But there might be a mistake," sobbed Sara.  "It might be two
o'clock to-night instead of to-morrow."

It might, indeed.  This was a new horror, which had not occurred
to us.

"I'm sure I won't sleep a wink to-night," said Felix.

"The paper SAYS two o'clock to-morrow," said Dan.  "You needn't
worry, Sara."

But Sara departed, weeping.  She did not, however, forget to
carry the forget-me-not jug with her.  All things considered, her
departure was a relief.  Such a constantly tearful damsel was not
a pleasant companion.  Cecily and Felicity and the Story Girl did
not cry.  They were made of finer, firmer stuff.  Dry-eyed, with
such courage as they might, they faced whatever might be in store
for them.

"I wonder where we'll all be this time to-morrow night," said
Felix mournfully, as we watched the sunset between the dark fir
boughs.  It was an ominous sunset.  The sun dropped down amid
dark, livid clouds, that turned sullen shades of purple and fiery
red behind him.

"I hope we'll be all together, wherever we are," said Cecily
gently.  "Nothing can be so very bad then."

"I'm going to read the Bible all to-morrow forenoon," said Peter.

When Aunt Olivia came out to go home the Story Girl asked her
permission to stay all night with Felicity and Cecily.  Aunt
Olivia assented lightly, swinging her hat on her arm and
including us all in a friendly smile.  She looked very pretty,
with her big blue eyes and warm-hued golden hair.  We loved Aunt
Olivia; but just now we resented her having laughed at us with
Aunt Janet, and we refused to smile back.

"What a sulky, sulky lot of little people," said Aunt Olivia,
going away across the yard, holding her pretty dress up from the
dewy grass.

Peter resolved to stay all night with us, too, not troubling
himself about anybody's permission.  When we went to bed it was
settling down for a stormy night, and the rain was streaming
wetly on the roof, as if the world, like Sara Ray, were weeping
because its end was so near.  Nobody forgot or hurried over his
prayers that night.  We would dearly have loved to leave the
candle burning, but Aunt Janet's decree regarding this was as
inexorable as any of Mede and Persia.  Out the candle must go;
and we lay there, quaking, with the wild rain streaming down on
the roof above us, and the voices of the storm wailing through
the writhing spruce trees.



CHAPTER XX. THE JUDGMENT SUNDAY

Sunday morning broke, dull and gray.  The rain had ceased, but
the clouds hung dark and brooding above a world which, in its
windless calm, following the spent storm-throe, seemed to us to
be waiting "till judgment spoke the doom of fate."  We were all up
early.  None of us, it appeared, had slept well, and some of us
not at all.  The Story Girl had been among the latter, and she
looked very pale and wan, with black shadows under her deep-set
eyes.  Peter, however, had slept soundly enough after twelve
o'clock.

"When you've been stumping out elderberries all the afternoon
it'll take more than the Judgment Day to keep you awake all
night," he said.  "But when I woke up this morning it was just
awful.  I'd forgot it for a moment, and then it all came back
with a rush, and I was worse scared than before."

Cecily was pale but brave.  For the first time in years she had
not put her hair up in curlers on Saturday night.  It was brushed
and braided with Puritan simplicity.

"If it's the Judgment Day I don't care whether my hair is curly
or not," she said.

"Well," said Aunt Janet, when we all descended to the kitchen,
"this is the first time you young ones have ever all got up
without being called, and that's a fact."

At breakfast our appetites were poor.  How could the grown-ups
eat as they did?  After breakfast and the necessary chores there
was the forenoon to be lived through.  Peter, true to his word,
got out his Bible and began to read from the first chapter in
Genesis.

"I won't have time to read it all through, I s'pose," he said,
"but I'll get along as far as I can."

There was no preaching in Carlisle that day, and Sunday School
was not till the evening.  Cecily got out her Lesson Slip and
studied the lesson conscientiously.  The rest of us did not see
how she could do it.  We could not, that was very certain.

"If it isn't the Judgment Day, I want to have the lesson
learned," she said, "and if it is I'll feel I've done what was
right.  But I never found it so hard to remember the Golden Text
before."

The long dragging hours were hard to endure.  We roamed
restlessly about, and went to and fro--all save Peter, who still
steadily read away at his Bible.  He was through Genesis by
eleven and beginning on Exodus.

"There's a good deal of it I don't understand," he said, "but I
read every word, and that's the main thing.  That story about
Joseph and his brother was so int'resting I almost forgot about
the Judgment Day."

But the long drawn out dread was beginning to get on Dan's
nerves.

"If it is the Judgment Day," he growled, as we went in to dinner,
"I wish it'd hurry up and have it over."

"Oh, Dan!" cried Felicity and Cecily together, in a chorus of
horror.  But the Story Girl looked as if she rather sympathized
with Dan.

If we had eaten little at breakfast we could eat still less at
dinner.  After dinner the clouds rolled away, and the sun came
joyously and gloriously out.  This, we thought, was a good omen.
Felicity opined that it wouldn't have cleared up if it was the
Judgment Day.  Nevertheless, we dressed ourselves carefully, and
the girls put on their white dresses.

Sara Ray came up, still crying, of course.  She increased our
uneasiness by saying that her mother believed the _Enterprise_
paragraph, and was afraid that the end of the world was really at
hand.

"That's why she let me come up," she sobbed.  "If she hadn't been
afraid I don't believe she would have let me come up.  But I'd
have died if I couldn't have come.  And she wasn't a bit cross
when I told her I had gone to the magic lantern show.  That's an
awful bad sign.  I hadn't a white dress, but I put on my white
muslin apron with the frills."

"That seems kind of queer," said Felicity doubtfully.  "You
wouldn't put on an apron to go to church, and so it doesn't seems
as if it was proper to put it on for Judgment Day either."

"Well, it's the best I could do," said Sara disconsolately.  "I
wanted to have something white on.  It's just like a dress only
it hasn't sleeves."

"Let's go into the orchard and wait," said the Story Girl.  "It's
one o'clock now, so in another hour we'll know the worst.  We'll
leave the front door open, and we'll hear the big clock when it
strikes two."

No better plan being suggested, we betook ourselves to the
orchard, and sat on the boughs of Uncle Alec's tree because the
grass was wet.  The world was beautiful and peaceful and green.
Overhead was a dazzling blue sky, spotted with heaps of white
cloud.

"Pshaw, I don't believe there's any fear of it being the last
day," said Dan, beginning a whistle out of sheer bravado.

"Well, don't whistle on Sunday anyhow," said Felicity severely.

"I don't see a thing about Methodists or Presbyterians, as far as
I've gone, and I'm most through Exodus," said Peter suddenly.
"When does it begin to tell about them?"

"There's nothing about Methodists or Presbyterians in the Bible,"
said Felicity scornfully.

Peter looked amazed.

"Well, how did they happen then?" he asked.  "When did they begin
to be?"

"I've often thought it such a strange thing that there isn't a
word about either of them in the Bible," said Cecily.
"Especially when it mentions Baptists--or at least one Baptist."

"Well, anyhow," said Peter, "even if it isn't the Judgment Day
I'm going to keep on reading the Bible until I've got clean
through.  I never thought it was such an int'resting book."

"It sounds simply dreadful to hear you call the Bible an
interesting book," said Felicity, with a shudder at the
sacrilege.  "Why, you might be talking about ANY common book."

"I didn't mean any harm," said Peter, crestfallen.

"The Bible IS an interesting book," said the Story Girl, coming
to Peter's rescue.  "And there are magnificent stories in
it--yes, Felicity, MAGNIFICENT.  If the world doesn't come to an
end I'll tell you the story of Ruth next Sunday--or look here!
I'll tell it anyhow.  That's a promise.  Wherever we are next
Sunday I'll tell you about Ruth."

"Why, you wouldn't tell stories in heaven," said Cecily, in a
very timid voice.

"Why not?" said the Story Girl, with a flash of her eyes.
"Indeed I shall.  I'll tell stories as long as I've a tongue to
talk with, or any one to listen."

Ay, doubtless.  That dauntless spirit would soar triumphantly
above the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds, taking with it
all its own wild sweetness and daring.  Even the young-eyed
cherubim, choiring on meadows of asphodel, might cease their
harping for a time to listen to a tale of the vanished earth,
told by that golden tongue.  Some vague thought of this was in
our minds as we looked at her; and somehow it comforted us.  Not
even the Judgment was so greatly to be feared if after it we were
the SAME, our own precious little identities unchanged.

"It must be getting handy two," said Cecily.  "It seems as if
we'd been waiting here for ever so much longer than an hour."

Conversation languished.  We watched and waited nervously.  The
moments dragged by, each seeming an hour.  Would two o'clock
never come and end the suspense?  We all became very tense.  Even
Peter had to stop reading.  Any unaccustomed sound or sight in
the world about us struck on our taut senses like the trump of
doom.  A cloud passed over the sun and as the sudden shadow swept
across the orchard we turned pale and trembled.  A wagon rumbling
over a plank bridge in the hollow made Sara Ray start up with a
shriek.  The slamming of a barn door over at Uncle Roger's caused
the cold perspiration to break out on our faces.

"I don't believe it's the Judgment Day," said Felix, "and I never
have believed it.  But oh, I wish that clock would strike two."

"Can't you tell us a story to pass the time?" I entreated the
Story Girl.

She shook her head.

"No, it would be no use to try.  But if this isn't the Judgment
Day I'll have a great one to tell of us being so scared."

Pat presently came galloping up the orchard, carrying in his
mouth a big field mouse, which, sitting down before us, he
proceeded to devour, body and bones, afterwards licking his chops
with great satisfaction.

"It can't be the Judgment Day," said Sara Ray, brightening up.
"Paddy would never be eating mice if it was."

"If that clock doesn't soon strike two I shall go out of my seven
senses," declared Cecily with unusual vehemence.

"Time always seems long when you're waiting," said the Story
Girl.  "But it does seem as if we had been here more than an
hour."

"Maybe the clock struck and we didn't hear it," suggested Dan.
"Somebody'd better go and see."

"I'll go," said Cecily.  "I suppose, even if anything happens,
I'll have time to get back to you."

We watched her white-clad figure pass through the gate and enter
the front door.  A few minutes passed--or a few years--we could
not have told which.  Then Cecily came running at full speed back
to us.  But when she reached us she trembled so much that at
first she could not speak.

"What is it?  Is it past two?" implored the Story Girl.

"It's--it's four," said Cecily with a gasp.  "The old clock isn't
going.  Mother forgot to wind it up last night and it stopped.
But it's four by the kitchen clock--so it isn't the Judgment
Day--and tea is ready--and mother says to come in."

We looked at each other, realizing what our dread had been, now
that it was lifted.  It was not the Judgment Day.  The world and
life were still before us, with all their potent lure of years
unknown.

"I'll never believe anything I read in the papers again," said
Dan, rushing to the opposite extreme.

"I told you the Bible was more to be depended on than the
newspapers," said Cecily triumphantly.

Sara Ray and Peter and the Story Girl went home, and we went in
to tea with royal appetites.  Afterwards, as we dressed for
Sunday School upstairs, our spirits carried us away to such an
extent that Aunt Janet had to come twice to the foot of the
stairs and inquire severely, "Children, have you forgotten what
day this is?"

"Isn't it nice that we're going to live a spell longer in this
nice world?" said Felix, as we walked down the hill.

"Yes, and Felicity and the Story Girl are speaking again," said
Cecily happily.

"And Felicity DID speak first," I said.

"Yes, but it took the Judgment Day to make her.  I wish," added
Cecily with a sigh, "that I hadn't been in quite such a hurry
giving away my forget-me-not jug."

"And I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry deciding I'd be a
Presbyterian," said Peter.

"Well, it's not too late for that," said Dan.  "You can change
your mind now."

"No, sir," said Peter with a flash of spirit, "I ain't one of the
kind that says they'll be something just because they're scared,
and when the scare is over go back on it.  I said I'd be
Presbyterian and I mean to stick to it."

"You said you knew a story that had something to do with
Presbyterians," I said to the Story Girl.  "Tell us it now."

"Oh, no, it isn't the right kind of story to tell on Sunday," she
replied.  "But I'll tell it to-morrow morning."

Accordingly, we heard it the next morning in the orchard.

"Long ago, when Judy Pineau was young," said the Story Girl, "she
was hired with Mrs. Elder Frewen--the first Mrs. Elder Frewen.
Mrs. Frewen had been a school-teacher, and she was very
particular as to how people talked, and the grammar they used.
And she didn't like anything but refined words.  One very hot day
she heard Judy Pineau say she was 'all in a sweat.'  Mrs. Frewen
was greatly shocked, and said, 'Judy, you shouldn't say that.
It's horses that sweat.  You should say you are in a
perspiration.' Well, Judy promised she'd remember, because she
liked Mrs. Frewen and was anxious to please her.  Not long
afterwards Judy was scrubbing the kitchen floor one morning, and
when Mrs. Frewen came in Judy looked up and said, quite proud
over using the right word, 'Oh, Mees Frewen, ain't it awful hot?
I declare I'm all in a Presbyterian.'"



CHAPTER XXI. DREAMERS OF DREAMS

August went out and September came in.  Harvest was ended; and
though summer was not yet gone, her face was turned westering.
The asters lettered her retreating footsteps in a purple script,
and over the hills and valleys hung a faint blue smoke, as if
Nature were worshipping at her woodland altar.  The apples began
to burn red on the bending boughs; crickets sang day and night;
squirrels chattered secrets of Polichinelle in the spruces; the
sunshine was as thick and yellow as molten gold; school opened,
and we small denizens of the hill farms lived happy days of
harmless work and necessary play, closing in nights of peaceful,
undisturbed slumber under a roof watched over by autumnal stars.

At least, our slumbers were peaceful and undisturbed until our
orgy of dreaming began.

"I would really like to know what especial kind of deviltry you
young fry are up to this time," said Uncle Roger one evening, as
he passed through the orchard with his gun on his shoulder, bound
for the swamp.

We were sitting in a circle before the Pulpit Stone, each writing
diligently in an exercise book, and eating the Rev.  Mr. Scott's
plums, which always reached their prime of juicy, golden-green
flesh and bloomy blue skin in September.  The Rev.  Mr. Scott was
dead and gone, but those plums certainly kept his memory green,
as his forgotten sermons could never have done.

"Oh," said Felicity in a shocked tone, when Uncle Roger had
passed by, "Uncle Roger SWORE."

"Oh, no, he didn't," said the Story Girl quickly.  "'Deviltry'
isn't swearing at all.  It only means extra bad mischief."

"Well, it's not a very nice word, anyhow," said Felicity.

"No, it isn't," agreed the Story Girl with a regretful sigh.
"It's very expressive, but it isn't nice.  That is the way with
so many words.  They're expressive, but they're not nice, and so
a girl can't use them"

The Story Girl sighed again.  She loved expressive words, and
treasured them as some girls might have treasured jewels.  To
her, they were as lustrous pearls, threaded on the crimson cord
of a vivid fancy.  When she met with a new one she uttered it
over and over to herself in solitude, weighing it, caressing it,
infusing it with the radiance of her voice, making it her own in
all its possibilities for ever.

"Well, anyhow, it isn't a suitable word in this case," insisted
Felicity.  "We are not up to any dev--any extra bad mischief.
Writing down one's dreams isn't mischief at all."

Certainly it wasn't.  Surely not even the straitest sect of the
grown-ups could call it so.  If writing down your dreams, with
agonizing care as to composition and spelling--for who knew that
the eyes of generations unborn might not read the record?--were
not a harmless amusement, could anything be called so?  I trow
not.

We had been at it for a fortnight, and during that time we only
lived to have dreams and write them down.  The Story Girl had
originated the idea one evening in the rustling, rain-wet ways of
the spruce wood, where we were picking gum after a day of
showers.  When we had picked enough, we sat down on the
moss-grown stones at the end of a long arcade, where it opened
out on the harvest-golden valley below us, our jaws exercising
themselves vigorously on the spoil of our climbings.  We were
never allowed to chew gum in school or in company, but in wood
and field, orchard and hayloft, such rules were in abeyance.

"My Aunt Jane used to say it wasn't polite to chew gum anywhere,"
said Peter rather ruefully.

"I don't suppose your Aunt Jane knew all the rules of etiquette,"
said Felicity, designing to crush Peter with a big word, borrowed
from the _Family Guide_.  But Peter was not to be so crushed.  He
had in him a certain toughness of fibre, that would have been
proof against a whole dictionary.

"She did, too," he retorted.  "My Aunt Jane was a real lady, even
if she was only a Craig.  She knew all those rules and she kept
them when there was nobody round to see her, just the same as
when any one was.  And she was smart.  If father had had half her
git-up-and-git I wouldn't be a hired boy to-day."

"Have you any idea where your father is?" asked Dan.

"No," said Peter indifferently.  "The last we heard of him he was
in the Maine lumber woods.  But that was three years ago.  I
don't know where he is now, and," added Peter deliberately,
taking his gum from his mouth to make his statement more
impressive, "I don't care."

"Oh, Peter, that sounds dreadful," said Cecily.  "Your own
father!"

"Well," said Peter defiantly, "if your own father had run away
when you was a baby, and left your mother to earn her living by
washing and working out, I guess you wouldn't care much about him
either."

"Perhaps your father may come home some of these days with a huge
fortune," suggested the Story Girl.

"Perhaps pigs may whistle, but they've poor mouths for it," was
all the answer Peter deigned to this charming suggestion.

"There goes Mr. Campbell down the road," said Dan.  "That's his
new mare.  Isn't she a dandy?  She's got a skin like black satin.
He calls her Betty Sherman."

"I don't think it's very nice to call a horse after your own
grandmother," said Felicity.

"Betty Sherman would have thought it a compliment," said the
Story Girl.

"Maybe she would.  She couldn't have been very nice herself, or
she would never have gone and asked a man to marry her," said
Felicity.

"Why not?"

"Goodness me, it was dreadful!  Would YOU do such a thing
yourself?"

"Well, I don't know," said the Story Girl, her eyes gleaming with
impish laughter.  "If I wanted him DREADFULLY, and HE wouldn't do
the asking, perhaps I would."

"I'd rather die an old maid forty times over," exclaimed
Felicity.

"Nobody as pretty as you will ever be an old maid, Felicity,"
said Peter, who never put too fine an edge on his compliments.

Felicity tossed her golden tressed head and tried to look angry,
but made a dismal failure of it.

"It wouldn't be ladylike to ask any one to marry you, you know,"
argued Cecily.

"I don't suppose the _Family Guide_ would think so," agreed the
Story Girl lazily, with some sarcasm in her voice.  The Story
Girl never held the _Family Guide_ in such reverence as did
Felicity and Cecily.  They pored over the "etiquette column"
every week, and could have told you on demand, just exactly what
kind of gloves should be worn at a wedding, what you should say
when introducing or being introduced, and how you ought to look
when your best young man came to see you.

"They say Mrs. Richard Cook asked HER husband to marry her," said
Dan.

"Uncle Roger says she didn't exactly ask him, but she helped the
lame dog over the stile so slick that Richard was engaged to her
before he knew what had happened to him," said the Story Girl.
"I know a story about Mrs. Richard Cook's grandmother.  She was
one of those women who are always saying 'I told you so--'"

"Take notice, Felicity," said Dan aside.

"--And she was very stubborn.  Soon after she was married she and
her husband quarrelled about an apple tree they had planted in
their orchard.  The label was lost.  He said it was a Fameuse and
she declared it was a Yellow Transparent.  They fought over it
till the neighbours came out to listen.  Finally he got so angry
that he told her to shut up.  They didn't have any _Family Guide_
in those days, so he didn't know it wasn't polite to say shut up
to your wife.  I suppose she thought she would teach him manners,
for would you believe it?  That woman did shut up, and never
spoke one single word to her husband for five years.  And then,
in five years' time, the tree bore apples, and they WERE Yellow
Transparents.  And then she spoke at last.  She said, 'I told you
so.'"

"And did she talk to him after that as usual?" asked Sara Ray.

"Oh, yes, she was just the same as she used to be," said the
Story Girl wearily.  "But that doesn't belong to the story.  It
stops when she spoke at last.  You're never satisfied to leave a
story where it should stop, Sara Ray."

"Well, I always like to know what happens afterwards," said Sara
Ray.

"Uncle Roger says he wouldn't want a wife he could never quarrel
with," remarked Dan.  "He says it would be too tame a life for
him."

"I wonder if Uncle Roger will always stay a bachelor," said
Cecily.

"He seems real happy," observed Peter.

"Ma says that it's all right as long as he is a bachelor because
he won't take any one," said Felicity, "but if he wakes up some
day and finds he is an old bachelor because he can't get any one
it'll have a very different flavour."

"If your Aunt Olivia was to up and get married what would your
Uncle Roger do for a housekeeper?" asked Peter.

"Oh, but Aunt Olivia will never be married now," said Felicity.
"Why, she'll be twenty-nine next January."

"Well, o' course, that's pretty old," admitted Peter, "but she
might find some one who wouldn't mind that, seeing she's so
pretty."

"It would be awful splendid and exciting to have a wedding in the
family, wouldn't it?" said Cecily.  "I've never seen any one
married, and I'd just love to.  I've been to four funerals, but
not to one single wedding."

"I've never even got to a funeral," said Sara Ray gloomily.

"There's the wedding veil of the proud princess," said Cecily,
pointing to a long drift of filmy vapour in the southwestern sky.

"And look at that sweet pink cloud below it," added Felicity.

"Maybe that little pink cloud is a dream, getting all ready to
float down into somebody's sleep," suggested the Story Girl.

"I had a perfectly awful dream last night," said Cecily, with a
shudder of remembrance.  "I dreamed I was on a desert island
inhabited by tigers and natives with two heads."

"Oh!" the Story Girl looked at Cecily half reproachfully.  "Why
couldn't you tell it better than that?  If I had such a dream I
could tell it so that everybody else would feel as if they had
dreamed it, too."

"Well, I'm not you," countered Cecily, "and I wouldn't want to
frighten any one as I was frightened.  It was an awful dream--but
it was kind of interesting, too."

"I've had some real int'resting dreams," said Peter, "but I can't
remember them long.  I wish I could."

"Why don't you write them down?" suggested the Story Girl.
"Oh--" she turned upon us a face illuminated with a sudden
inspiration.  "I've an idea.  Let us each get an exercise book
and write down all our dreams, just as we dream them.  We'll see
who'll have the most interesting collection.  And we'll have them
to read and laugh over when we're old and gray."

Instantly we all saw ourselves and each other by inner vision,
old and gray--all but the Story Girl.  We could not picture her
as old.  Always, as long as she lived, so it seemed to us, must
she have sleek brown curls, a voice like the sound of a
harpstring in the wind, and eyes that were stars of eternal
youth.



CHAPTER XXII. THE DREAM BOOKS

The next day the Story Girl coaxed Uncle Roger to take her to
Markdale, and there she bought our dream books.  They were ten
cents apiece, with ruled pages and mottled green covers.  My own
lies open beside me as I write, its yellowed pages inscribed with
the visions that haunted my childish slumbers on those nights of
long ago.

On the cover is pasted a lady's visiting card, on which is
written, "The Dream Book of Beverley King."  Cecily had a packet
of visiting cards which she was hoarding against the day when she
would be grown up and could put the calling etiquette of the
_Family Guide_ into practice; but she generously gave us all one
apiece for the covers of our dream books.

As I turn the pages and glance over the na&iuml;ve records, each
one beginning, "Last night I dreamed," the past comes very
vividly back to me.  I see that bowery orchard, shining in memory
with a soft glow of beauty--"the light that never was on land or
sea,"--where we sat on those September evenings and wrote down
our dreams, when the cares of the day were over and there was
nothing to interfere with the pleasing throes of composition.
Peter--Dan--Felix--Cecily--Felicity--Sara Ray--the Story
Girl--they are all around me once more, in the sweet-scented,
fading grasses, each with open dream books and pencil in hand,
now writing busily, now staring fixedly into space in search of
some elusive word or phrase which might best describe the
indescribable.  I hear their laughing voices, I see their bright,
unclouded eyes.  In this little, old book, filled with cramped,
boyish writing, there is a spell of white magic that sets the
years at naught.  Beverley King is a boy once more, writing down
his dreams in the old King orchard on the homestead hill, blown
over by musky winds.

Opposite to him sits the Story Girl, with her scarlet rosetted
head, her beautiful bare feet crossed before her, one slender
hand propping her high, white brow, on either side of which fall
her glossy curls.

There, to the right, is sweet Cecily of the dear, brown eyes,
with a little bloated dictionary beside her--for you dream of so
many things you can't spell, or be expected to spell, when you
are only eleven.  Next to her sits Felicity, beautiful, and
conscious that she is beautiful, with hair of spun sunshine, and
sea-blue eyes, and all the roses of that vanished summer abloom
in her cheeks.

Peter is beside her, of course, sprawled flat on his stomach
among the grasses, one hand clutching his black curls, with his
dream book on a small, round stone before him--for only so can
Peter compose at all, and even then he finds it hard work.  He
can handle a hoe more deftly than a pencil, and his spelling,
even with all his frequent appeals to Cecily, is a fearful and
wonderful thing.  As for punctuation, he never attempts it,
beyond an occasion period, jotted down whenever he happens to
think of it, whether in the right place or not.  The Story Girl
goes over his dreams after he has written them out, and puts in
the commas and semicolons, and straightens out the sentences.

Felix sits on the right of the Story Girl, fat and stodgy, grimly
in earnest even over dreams.  He writes with his knees stuck up
to form a writing-desk, and he always frowns fiercely the whole
time.

Dan, like Peter, writes lying down flat, but with his back
towards us; and he has a dismal habit of groaning aloud, writhing
his whole body, and digging his toes into the grass, when he
cannot turn a sentence to suit him.

Sara Ray is at his left.  There is seldom anything to be said of
Sara except to tell where she is.  Like Tennyson's Maud, in one
respect at least, Sara is splendidly null.

Well, there we sit and write in our dream books, and Uncle Roger
passes by and accuses us of being up to dev--to very bad
mischief.

Each of us was very anxious to possess the most exciting record;
but we were an honourable little crew, and I do not think
anything was ever written down in those dream books which had not
really been dreamed.  We had expected that the Story Girl would
eclipse us all in the matter of dreams; but, at least in the
beginning, her dreams were no more remarkable than those of the
rest of us.  In dreamland we were all equal.  Cecily, indeed,
seemed to have the most decided talent for dramatic dreams.  That
meekest and mildest of girls was in the habit of dreaming truly
terrible things.  Almost every night battle, murder, or sudden
death played some part in her visions.  On the other hand, Dan,
who was a somewhat truculent fellow, addicted to the perusal of
lurid dime novels which he borrowed from the other boys in
school, dreamed dreams of such a peaceful and pastoral character
that he was quite disgusted with the resulting tame pages of his
dream book.

But if the Story Girl could not dream anything more wonderful
than the rest of us, she scored when it came to the telling.  To
hear her tell a dream was as good--or as bad--as dreaming it
yourself.

As far as writing them down was concerned, I believe that I,
Beverley King, carried off the palm.  I was considered to possess
a pretty knack of composition.  But the Story Girl went me one
better even there, because, having inherited something of her
father's talent for drawing, she illustrated her dreams with
sketches that certainly caught the spirit of them, whatever might
be said of their technical excellence.  She had an especial knack
for drawing monstrosities; and I vividly recall the picture of an
enormous and hideous lizard, looking like a reptile of the
pterodactyl period, which she had dreamed of seeing crawl across
the roof of the house.  On another occasion she had a frightful
dream--at least, it seemed frightful while she told us and
described the dreadful feeling it had given her--of being chased
around the parlour by the ottoman, which made faces at her.  She
drew a picture of the grimacing ottoman on the margin of her
dream book which so scared Sara Ray when she beheld it that she
cried all the way home, and insisted on sleeping that night with
Judy Pineau lest the furniture take to pursuing her also.

Sara Ray's own dreams never amounted to much.  She was always in
trouble of some sort--couldn't get her hair braided, or her shoes
on the right feet.  Consequently, her dream book was very
monotonous.  The only thing worth mentioning in the way of dreams
that Sara Ray ever achieved was when she dreamed that she went up
in a balloon and fell out.

"I expected to come down with an awful thud," she said
shuddering, "but I lit as light as a feather and woke right up."

"If you hadn't woke up you'd have died," said Peter with a dark
significance.  "If you dream of falling and DON'T wake you DO
land with a thud and it kills you.  That's what happens to people
who die in their sleep."

"How do you know?" asked Dan skeptically.  "Nobody who died in
his sleep could ever tell it."

"My Aunt Jane told me so," said Peter.

"I suppose that settles it," said Felicity disagreeably.

"You always say something nasty when I mention my Aunt Jane,"
said Peter reproachfully.

"What did I say that was nasty?" cried Felicity.  "I didn't say a
single thing."

"Well, it sounded nasty," said Peter, who knew that it is the
tone that makes the music.

"What did your Aunt Jane look like?" asked Cecily
sympathetically.  "Was she pretty?"

"No," conceded Peter reluctantly, "she wasn't pretty--but she
looked like the woman in that picture the Story Girl's father
sent her last week--the one with the shiny ring round her head
and the baby in her lap.  I've seen Aunt Jane look at me just
like that woman looks at her baby.  Ma never looks so.  Poor ma
is too busy washing.  I wish I could dream of my Aunt Jane.  I
never do."

"'Dream of the dead, you'll hear of the living,'" quoted Felix
oracularly.

"I dreamed last night that I threw a lighted match into that keg
of gunpowder in Mr. Cook's store at Markdale," said Peter.  "It
blew up--and everything blew up--and they fished me out of the
mess--but I woke up before I'd time to find out if I was killed
or not."

"One is so apt to wake up just as things get interesting,"
remarked the Story Girl discontentedly.

"I dreamed last night that I had really truly curly hair," said
Cecily mournfully.  "And oh, I was so happy!  It was dreadful to
wake up and find it as straight as ever."

Felix, that sober, solid fellow, dreamed constantly of flying
through the air.  His descriptions of his aerial flights over the
tree-tops of dreamland always filled us with envy.  None of the
rest of us could ever compass such a dream, not even the Story
Girl, who might have been expected to dream of flying if anybody
did.  Felix had a knack of dreaming anyhow, and his dream book,
while suffering somewhat in comparison of literary style, was
about the best of the lot when it came to subject matter.
Cecily's might be more dramatic, but Felix's was more amusing.
The dream which we all counted his masterpiece was the one in
which a menagerie had camped in the orchard and the rhinoceros
chased Aunt Janet around and around the Pulpit Stone, but turned
into an inoffensive pig when it was on the point of catching her.

Felix had a sick spell soon after we began our dream books, and
Aunt Janet essayed to cure him by administering a dose of liver
pills which Elder Frewen had assured her were a cure-all for
every disease the flesh is heir to.  But Felix flatly refused to
take liver pills; Mexican Tea he would drink, but liver pills he
would not take, in spite of his own suffering and Aunt Janet's
commands and entreaties.  I could not understand his antipathy to
the insignificant little white pellets, which were so easy to
swallow; but he explained the matter to us in the orchard when he
had recovered his usual health and spirits.

"I was afraid to take the liver pills for fear they'd prevent me
from dreaming," he said.  "Don't you remember old Miss Baxter in
Toronto, Bev?  And how she told Mrs. McLaren that she was
subject to terrible dreams, and finally she took two liver pills
and never had any more dreams after that.  I'd rather have died
than risk it," concluded Felix solemnly.

"I'd an exciting dream last night for once," said Dan
triumphantly.  "I dreamt old Peg Bowen chased me.  I thought I
was up to her house and she took after me.  You bet I scooted.
And she caught me--yes, sir!  I felt her skinny hand reach out
and clutch my shoulder.  I let out a screech--and woke up."

"I should think you did screech," said Felicity.  "We heard you
clean over into our room."

"I hate to dream of being chased because I can never run," said
Sara Ray with a shiver.  "I just stand rooted to the ground--and
see it coming--and can't stir.  It don't sound much written out,
but it's awful to go through.  I'm sure I hope I'll never dream
Peg Bowen chases me.  I'll die if I do."

"I wonder what Peg Bowen would really do to a fellow if she
caught him," speculated Dan.

"Peg Bowen doesn't need to catch you to do things to you," said
Peter ominously.  "She can put ill-luck on you just by looking at
you--and she will if you offend her."

"I don't believe that," said the Story Girl airily.

"Don't you?  All right, then!  Last summer she called at Lem
Hill's in Markdale, and he told her to clear out or he'd set the
dog on her.  Peg cleared out, and she went across his pasture,
muttering to herself and throwing her arms round.  And next day
his very best cow took sick and died.  How do you account for
that?"

"It might have happened anyhow," said the Story Girl--somewhat
less assuredly, though.

"It might.  But I'd just as soon Peg Bowen didn't look at MY
cows," said Peter.

"As if you had any cows!" giggled Felicity.

"I'm going to have cows some day," said Peter, flushing.  "I
don't mean to be a hired boy all my life.  I'll have a farm of my
own and cows and everything.  You'll see if I won't."

"I dreamed last night that we opened the blue chest," said the
Story Girl, "and all the things were there--the blue china
candlestick--only it was brass in the dream--and the fruit basket
with the apple on it, and the wedding dress, and the embroidered
petticoat.  And we were laughing, and trying the things on, and
having such fun.  And Rachel Ward herself came and looked at
us--so sad and reproachful--and we all felt ashamed, and I began
to cry, and woke up crying."

"I dreamed last night that Felix was thin," said Peter, laughing.
"He did look so queer.  His clothes just hung loose, and he was
going round trying to hold them on."

Everybody thought this was funny, except Felix.  He would not
speak to Peter for two days because of it.  Felicity also got
into trouble because of her dreams.  One night she woke up,
having just had a very exciting dream; but she went to sleep
again, and in the morning she could not remember the dream at
all.  Felicity determined she would never let another dream get
away from her in such a fashion; and the next time she wakened in
the night--having dreamed that she was dead and buried--she
promptly arose, lighted a candle, and proceeded to write the
dream down then and there.  While so employed she contrived to
upset the candle and set fire to her nightgown--a brand-new one,
trimmed with any quantity of crocheted lace.  A huge hole was
burned in it, and when Aunt Janet discovered it she lifted up her
voice with no uncertain sound.  Felicity had never received a
sharper scolding.  But she took it very philosophically.  She was
used to her mother's bitter tongue, and she was not unduly
sensitive.

"Anyhow, I saved my dream," she said placidly.

And that, of course, was all that really mattered.  Grown people
were so strangely oblivious to the truly important things of
life.  Material for new garments, of night or day, could be
bought in any shop for a trifling sum and made up out of hand.
But if a dream escape you, in what market-place the wide world
over can you hope to regain it?  What coin of earthly minting
will ever buy back for you that lost and lovely vision?



CHAPTER XXIII. SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON

Peter took Dan and me aside one evening, as we were on our way to
the orchard with our dream books, saying significantly that he
wanted our advice.  Accordingly, we went round to the spruce
wood, where the girls would not see us to the rousing of their
curiosity, and then Peter told us of his dilemma.

"Last night I dreamed I was in church," he said.  "I thought it
was full of people, and I walked up the aisle to your pew and set
down, as unconcerned as a pig on ice.  And then I found that I
hadn't a stitch of clothes on--NOT ONE BLESSED STITCH.  Now"--
Peter dropped his voice--"what is bothering me is this--would it
be proper to tell a dream like that before the girls?"

I was of the opinion that it would be rather questionable; but
Dan vowed he didn't see why.  HE'D tell it quick as any other
dream.  There was nothing bad in it.

"But they're your own relations," said Peter.  "They're no
relation to me, and that makes a difference.  Besides, they're
all such ladylike girls.  I guess I'd better not risk it.  I'm
pretty sure Aunt Jane wouldn't think it was proper to tell such a
dream.  And I don't want to offend Fel--any of them."

So Peter never told that dream, nor did he write it down.
Instead, I remember seeing in his dream book, under the date of
September fifteenth, an entry to this effect:--

"Last nite i dremed a drem.  it wasent a polit drem so i won't
rite it down."

The girls saw this entry but, to their credit be it told, they
never tried to find out what the "drem" was.  As Peter said, they
were "ladies" in the best and truest sense of that much abused
appellation.  Full of fun and frolic and mischief they were, with
all the defects of their qualities and all the wayward faults of
youth.  But no indelicate thought or vulgar word could have been
shaped or uttered in their presence.  Had any of us boys ever
been guilty of such, Cecily's pale face would have coloured with
the blush of outraged purity, Felicity's golden head would have
lifted itself in the haughty indignation of insulted womanhood,
and the Story Girl's splendid eyes would have flashed with such
anger and scorn as would have shrivelled the very soul of the
wretched culprit.

Dan was once guilty of swearing.  Uncle Alec whipped him for
it--the only time he ever so punished any of his children.  But
it was because Cecily cried all night that Dan was filled with
saving remorse and repentance.  He vowed next day to Cecily that
he would never swear again, and he kept his word.

All at once the Story Girl and Peter began to forge ahead in the
matter of dreaming.  Their dreams suddenly became so lurid and
dreadful and picturesque that it was hard for the rest of us to
believe that they were not painting the lily rather freely in
their accounts of them.  But the Story Girl was the soul of
honour; and Peter, early in life, had had his feet set in the
path of truthfulness by his Aunt Jane and had never been known to
stray from it.  When they assured us solemnly that their dreams
all happened exactly as they described them we were compelled to
believe them.  But there was something up, we felt sure of that.
Peter and the Story Girl certainly had a secret between them,
which they kept for a whole fortnight.  There was no finding it
out from the Story Girl.  She had a knack of keeping secrets,
anyhow; and, moreover, all that fortnight she was strangely
cranky and petulant, and we found it was not wise to tease her.
She was not well, so Aunt Olivia told Aunt Janet.

"I don't know what is the matter with the child," said the former
anxiously.  "She hasn't seemed like herself the past two weeks.
She complains of headache, and she has no appetite, and she is a
dreadful colour.  I'll have to see a doctor about her if she
doesn't get better soon."

"Give her a good dose of Mexican Tea and try that first," said
Aunt Janet.  "I've saved many a doctor's bill in my family by
using Mexican Tea."

The Mexican Tea was duly administered, but produced no
improvement in the condition of the Story Girl, who, however,
went on dreaming after a fashion which soon made her dream book a
veritable curiosity of literature.

"If we can't soon find out what makes Peter and the Story Girl
dream like that, the rest of us might as well give up trying to
write dream books," said Felix discontentedly.

Finally, we did find out.  Felicity wormed the secret out of
Peter by the employment of Delilah wiles, such as have been the
undoing of many a miserable male creature since Samson's day.
She first threatened that she would never speak to him again if
he didn't tell her; and then she promised him that, if he did,
she would let him walk beside her to and from Sunday School all
the rest of the summer, and carry her books for her.  Peter was
not proof against this double attack.  He yielded and told the
secret.

I expected the Story Girl would overwhelm him with scorn and
indignation.  But she took it very coolly.

"I knew Felicity would get it out of him sometime," she said.  "I
think he has done well to hold out this long."

Peter and the Story Girl, so it appeared, had wooed wild dreams
to their pillows by the simple device of eating rich,
indigestible things before they went to bed.  Aunt Olivia knew
nothing about it, of course.  She permitted them only a plain,
wholesome lunch at bed-time.  But during the day the Story Girl
would smuggle upstairs various tidbits from the pantry, putting
half in Peter's room and half in her own; and the result was
these visions which had been our despair.

"Last night I ate a piece of mince pie," she said, "and a lot of
pickles, and two grape jelly tarts.  But I guess I overdid it,
because I got real sick and couldn't sleep at all, so of course I
didn't have any dreams.  I should have stopped with the pie and
pickles and left the tarts alone.  Peter did, and he had an
elegant dream that Peg Bowen caught him and put him on to boil
alive in that big black pot that hangs outside her door.  He woke
up before the water got hot, though.  Well, Miss Felicity, you're
pretty smart.  But how will you like to walk to Sunday School
with a boy who wears patched trousers?"

"I won't have to," said Felicity triumphantly.  "Peter is having
a new suit made.  It's to be ready by Saturday.  I knew that
before I promised."

Having discovered how to produce exciting dreams, we all promptly
followed the example of Peter and the Story Girl.

"There is no chance for me to have any horrid dreams," lamented
Sara Ray, "because ma won't let me having anything at all to eat
before I go to bed.  I don't think it's fair."

"Can't you hide something away through the day as we do?" asked
Felicity.

"No."  Sara shook her fawn-coloured head mournfully.  "Ma always
keeps the pantry locked, for fear Judy Pineau will treat her
friends."

For a week we ate unlawful lunches and dreamed dreams after our
own hearts--and, I regret to say, bickered and squabbled
incessantly throughout the daytime, for our digestions went out
of order and our tempers followed suit.  Even the Story Girl and
I had a fight--something that had never happened before.  Peter
was the only one who kept his normal poise.  Nothing could upset
that boy's stomach.

One night Cecily came into the pantry with a large cucumber, and
proceeded to devour the greater part of it.  The grown-ups were
away that evening, attending a lecture at Markdale, so we ate our
snacks openly, without any recourse to ways that were dark.  I
remember I supped that night off a solid hunk of fat pork, topped
off with a slab of cold plum pudding.

"I thought you didn't like cucumber, Cecily," Dan remarked.

"Neither I do," said Cecily with a grimace.  "But Peter says
they're splendid for dreaming.  He et one that night he had the
dream about being caught by cannibals.  I'd eat three cucumbers
if I could have a dream like that."

Cecily finished her cucumber, and then drank a glass of milk,
just as we heard the wheels of Uncle Alec's buggy rambling over
the bridge in the hollow.  Felicity quickly restored pork and
pudding to their own places, and by the time Aunt Janet came in
we were all in our respective beds.  Soon the house was dark and
silent.  I was just dropping into an uneasy slumber when I heard
a commotion in the girls' room across the hall.

Their door opened and through our own open door I saw Felicity's
white-clad figure flit down the stairs to Aunt Janet's room.
From the room she had left came moans and cries.

"Cecily's sick," said Dan, springing out of bed.  "That cucumber
must have disagreed with her."

In a few minutes the whole house was astir.  Cecily was
sick--very, very sick, there was no doubt of that.  She was even
worse than Dan had been when he had eaten the bad berries.  Uncle
Alec, tired as he was from his hard day's work and evening
outing, was despatched for the doctor.  Aunt Janet and Felicity
administered all the homely remedies they could think of, but to
no effect.  Felicity told Aunt Janet of the cucumber, but Aunt
Janet did not think the cucumber alone could be responsible for
Cecily's alarming condition.

"Cucumbers are indigestible, but I never knew of them making any
one as sick as this," she said anxiously.  "What made the child
eat a cucumber before going to bed?  I didn't think she liked
them."

"It was that wretched Peter," sobbed Felicity indignantly.  "He
told her it would make her dream something extra."

"What on earth did she want to dream for?" demanded Aunt Janet in
bewilderment.

"Oh, to have something worth while to write in her dream book,
ma.  We all have dream books, you know, and every one wants their
own to be the most exciting--and we've been eating rich things to
make us dream--and it does--but if Cecily--oh, I'll never forgive
myself," said Felicity, incoherently, letting all kinds of cats
out of the bag in her excitement and alarm.

"Well, I wonder what on earth you young ones will do next," said
Aunt Janet in the helpless tone of a woman who gives it up.

Cecily was no better when the doctor came.  Like Aunt Janet, he
declared that cucumbers alone would not have made her so ill; but
when he found out that she had drunk a glass of milk also the
mystery was solved.

"Why, milk and cucumbers together make a rank poison," he said.
"No wonder the child is sick.  There--there now--" seeing the
alarmed faces around him, "don't be frightened.  As old Mrs.
Fraser says, 'It's no deidly.'  It won't kill her, but she'll
probably be a pretty miserable girl for two or three days."

She was.  And we were all miserable in company.  Aunt Janet
investigated the whole affair and the matter of our dream books
was aired in family conclave.  I do not know which hurt our
feelings most--the scolding we got from Aunt Janet, or the
ridicule which the other grown-ups, especially Uncle Roger,
showered on us.  Peter received an extra "setting down," which he
considered rank injustice.

"I didn't tell Cecily to drink the milk, and the cucumber alone
wouldn't have hurt her,"  he grumbled.  Cecily was able to be out
with us again that day, so Peter felt that he might venture on a
grumble.  "'Sides, she coaxed me to tell her what would be good
for dreams.  I just told her as a favour.  And now your Aunt
Janet blames me for the whole trouble."

"And Aunt Janet says we are never to have anything to eat before
we go to bed after this except plain bread and milk," said Felix
sadly.

"They'd like to stop us from dreaming altogether if they could,"
said the Story Girl wrathfully.

"Well, anyway, they can't prevent us from growing up," consoled
Dan.

"We needn't worry about the bread and milk rule," added Felicity.
"Ma made a rule like that once before, and kept it for a week,
and then we just slipped back to the old way.  That will be what
will happen this time, too.  But of course we won't be able to
get any more rich things for supper, and our dreams will be
pretty flat after this."

"Well, let's go down to the Pulpit Stone and I'll tell you a
story I know," said the Story Girl.

We went--and straightway drank of the waters of forgetfulness.
In a brief space we were laughing right merrily, no longer
remembering our wrongs at the hands of those cruel grown-ups.
Our laughter echoed back from the barns and the spruce grove, as
if elfin denizens of upper air were sharing in our mirth.

Presently, also, the laughter of the grown-ups mingled with ours.
Aunt Olivia and Uncle Roger, Aunt Janet and Uncle Alec, came
strolling through the orchard and joined our circle, as they
sometimes did when the toil of the day was over, and the magic
time 'twixt light and dark brought truce of care and labour.
'Twas then we liked our grown-ups best, for then they seemed half
children again.  Uncle Roger and Uncle Alec lolled in the grass
like boys; Aunt Olivia, looking more like a pansy than ever in
the prettiest dress of pale purple print, with a knot of yellow
ribbon at her throat, sat with her arm about Cecily and smiled on
us all; and Aunt Janet's motherly face lost its every-day look of
anxious care.

The Story Girl was in great fettle that night.  Never had her
tales sparkled with such wit and archness.

"Sara Stanley," said Aunt Olivia, shaking her finger at her after
a side-splitting yarn, "if you don't watch out you'll be famous
some day."

"These funny stories are all right," said Uncle Roger, "but for
real enjoyment give me something with a creep in it.  Sara, tell
us that story of the Serpent Woman I heard you tell one day last
summer."

The Story Girl began it glibly.  But before she had gone far with
it, I, who was sitting beside her, felt an unaccountable
repulsion creeping over me.  For the first time since I had known
her I wanted to draw away from the Story Girl.  Looking around on
the faces of the group, I saw that they all shared my feeling.
Cecily had put her hands over her eyes.  Peter was staring at the
Story Girl with a fascinated, horror-strickened gaze.  Aunt
Olivia was pale and troubled.  All looked as if they were held
prisoners in the bonds of a fearsome spell which they would
gladly break but could not.

It was not our Story Girl who sat there, telling that weird tale
in a sibilant, curdling voice.  She had put on a new personality
like a garment, and that personality was a venomous, evil,
loathly thing.  I would rather have died than have touched the
slim, brown wrist on which she supported herself.  The light in
her narrowed orbs was the cold, merciless gleam of the serpent's
eye.  I felt frightened of this unholy creature who had suddenly
come in our dear Story Girl's place.

When the tale ended there was a brief silence.  Then Aunt Janet
said severely, but with a sigh of relief,

"Little girls shouldn't tell such horrible stories."

This truly Aunt Janetian remark broke the spell.  The grown-ups
laughed, rather shakily, and the Story Girl--our own dear Story
Girl once more, and no Serpent Woman--said protestingly,

"Well, Uncle Roger asked me to tell it.  I don't like telling
such stories either.  They make me feel dreadful.  Do you know,
for just a little while, I felt exactly like a snake."

"You looked like one," said Uncle Roger.  "How on earth do you do
it?"

"I can't explain how I do it," said the Story Girl perplexedly.
"It just does itself."

Genius can never explain how it does it.  It would not be genius
if it could.  And the Story Girl had genius.

As we left the orchard I walked along behind Uncle Roger and Aunt
Olivia.

"That was an uncanny exhibition for a girl of fourteen, you know,
Roger," said Aunt Olivia musingly.  "What is in store for that
child?"

"Fame," said Uncle Roger.  "If she ever has a chance, that is,
and I suppose her father will see to that.  At least, I hope he
will.  You and I, Olivia, never had our chance.  I hope Sara will
have hers."

This was my first inkling of what I was to understand more fully
in later years.  Uncle Roger and Aunt Olivia had both cherished
certain dreams and ambitions in youth, but circumstances had
denied them their "chance" and those dreams had never been
fulfilled.

"Some day, Olivia," went on Uncle Roger, "you and I may find
ourselves the aunt and uncle of the foremost actress of her day.
If a girl of fourteen can make a couple of practical farmers and
a pair of matter-of-fact housewives half believe for ten minutes
that she really is a snake, what won't she be able to do when she
is thirty?  Here, you," added Uncle Roger, perceiving me, "cut
along and get off to your bed.  And mind you don't eat cucumbers
and milk before you go."



CHAPTER XXIV. THE BEWITCHMENT OF PAT

We were all in the doleful dumps--at least, all we "young fry"
were, and even the grown-ups were sorry and condescended to take
an interest in our troubles.  Pat, our own, dear, frolicsome
Paddy, was sick again--very, very sick.

On Friday he moped and refused his saucer of new milk at milking
time.  The next morning he stretched himself down on the platform
by Uncle Roger's back door, laid his head on his black paws, and
refused to take any notice of anything or anybody.  In vain we
stroked and entreated and brought him tidbits.  Only when the
Story Girl caressed him did he give one plaintive little mew, as
if to ask piteously why she could not do something for him.  At
that Cecily and Felicity and Sara Ray all began crying, and we
boys felt choky.  Indeed, I caught Peter behind Aunt Olivia's
dairy later in the day, and if ever a boy had been crying I vow
that boy was Peter.  Nor did he deny it when I taxed him with it,
but he would not give in that he was crying about Paddy.
Nonsense!

"What were you crying for, then?" I said.

"I'm crying because--because my Aunt Jane is dead," said Peter
defiantly.

"But your Aunt Jane died two years ago," I said skeptically.

"Well, ain't that all the more reason for crying?" retorted
Peter.  "I've had to do without her for two years, and that's
worse than if it had just been a few days."

"I believe you were crying because Pat is so sick," I said
firmly.

"As if I'd cry about a cat!" scoffed Peter.  And he marched off
whistling.

Of course we had tried the lard and powder treatment again,
smearing Pat's paws and sides liberally.  But to our dismay, Pat
made no effort to lick it off.

"I tell you he's a mighty sick cat," said Peter darkly.  "When a
cat don't care what he looks like he's pretty far gone."

"If we only knew what was the matter with him we might do
something," sobbed the Story Girl, stroking her poor pet's
unresponsive head.

"I could tell you what's the matter with him, but you'd only
laugh at me," said Peter.

We all looked at him.

"Peter Craig, what do you mean?" asked Felicity.

"'Zackly what I say."

"Then, if you know what is the matter with Paddy, tell us,"
commanded the Story Girl, standing up.  She said it quietly; but
Peter obeyed.  I think he would have obeyed if she, in that tone
and with those eyes, had ordered him to cast himself into the
depths of the sea.  I know I should.

"He's BEWITCHED--that's what's the matter with him," said Peter,
half defiantly, half shamefacedly.

"Bewitched?  Nonsense!"

"There now, what did I tell you?" complained Peter.

The Story Girl looked at Peter, at the rest of us, and then at
poor Pat.

"How could he be bewitched?" she asked irresolutely, "and who
could bewitch him?"

"I don't know HOW he was bewitched," said Peter.  "I'd have to be
a witch myself to know that.  But Peg Bowen bewitched him."

"Nonsense!" said the Story Girl again.

"All right," said Peter.  "You don't have to believe me."

"If Peg Bowen could bewitch anything--and I don't believe she
could--why should she bewitch Pat?" asked the Story Girl.
"Everybody here and at Uncle Alec's is always kind to her."

"I'll tell you why," said Peter.  "Thursday afternoon, when you
fellows were all in school, Peg Bowen came here.  Your Aunt
Olivia gave her a lunch--a good one.  You may laugh at the notion
of Peg being a witch, but I notice your folks are always awful
good to her when she comes, and awful careful never to offend
her."

"Aunt Olivia would be good to any poor creature, and so would
mother," said Felicity.  "And of course nobody wants to offend
Peg, because she is spiteful, and she once set fire to a man's
barn in Markdale when he offended her.  But she isn't a
witch--that's ridiculous."

"All right.  But wait till I tell you.  When Peg Bowen was
leaving Pat stretched out on the steps.  She tramped on his tail.
You know Pat doesn't like to have his tail meddled with.  He
slewed himself round and clawed her bare foot.  If you'd just
seen the look she gave him you'd know whether she was a witch or
not.  And she went off down the lane, muttering and throwing her
hands round, just like she did in Lem Hill's cow pasture.  She
put a spell on Pat, that's what she did.  He was sick the next
morning."

We looked at each other in miserable, perplexed silence.  We were
only children--and we believed that there had been such things as
witches once upon a time--and Peg Bowen WAS an eerie creature.

"If that's so--though I can't believe it--we can't do anything,"
said the Story Girl drearily.  "Pat must die."

Cecily began to weep afresh.

"I'd do anything to save Pat's life," she said.  "I'd BELIEVE
anything."

"There's nothing we can do," said Felicity impatiently.

"I suppose," sobbed Cecily, "we might go to Peg Bowen and ask her
to forgive Pat and take the spell off him.  She might, if we
apologized real humble."

At first we were appalled by the suggestion.  We didn't believe
that Peg Bowen was a witch.  But to go to her--to seek her out in
that mysterious woodland retreat of hers which was invested with
all the terrors of the unknown!  And that this suggestion should
come from timid Cecily, of all people!  But then, there was poor
Pat!

"Would it do any good?" said the Story Girl desperately.  "Even
if she did make Pat sick I suppose it would only make her crosser
if we went and accused her of bewitching him.  Besides, she
didn't do anything of the sort."

But there was some uncertainty in the Story Girl's voice.

"It wouldn't do any harm to try," said Cecily.  "If she didn't
make him sick it won't matter if she is cross."

"It won't matter to Pat, but it might to the one who goes to
her," said Felicity.  "She isn't a witch, but she's a spiteful
old woman, and goodness knows what she'd do to us if she caught
us.  I'm scared of Peg Bowen, and I don't care who knows it.
Ever since I can mind ma's been saying, 'If you're not good Peg
Bowen will catch you.'"

"If I thought she really made Pat sick and could make him better,
I'd try to pacify her somehow," said the Story Girl decidedly.
"I'm frightened of her, too--but just look at poor, darling
Paddy."

We looked at Paddy who continued to stare fixedly before him with
unwinking eyes.  Uncle Roger came out and looked at him also,
with what seemed to us positively brutal unconcern.

"I'm afraid it's all up with Pat," he said.

"Uncle Roger," said Cecily imploringly, "Peter says Peg Bowen has
bewitched Pat for scratching her.  Do you think it can be so?"

"Did Pat scratch Peg?" asked Uncle Roger, with a horror-stricken
face.  "Dear me!  Dear me!  That mystery is solved.  Poor Pat!"

Uncle Roger nodded his head, as if resigning himself and Pat to
the worst.

"Do you really think Peg Bowen is a witch, Uncle Roger?" demanded
the Story Girl incredulously.

"Do I think Peg Bowen is a witch?  My dear Sara, what do YOU
think of a woman who can turn herself into a black cat whenever
she likes?  Is she a witch?  Or is she not?  I leave it to you."

"Can Peg Bowen turn herself into a black cat?" asked Felix,
staring.

"It's my belief that that is the least of Peg Bowen's
accomplishments," answered Uncle Roger.  "It's the easiest thing
in the world for a witch to turn herself into any animal you
choose to mention.  Yes, Pat is bewitched--no doubt of that--not
the least in the world."

"What are you telling those children such stuff for?" asked Aunt
Olivia, passing on her way to the well.

"It's an irresistible temptation," answered Uncle Roger,
strolling over to carry her pail.

"You can see your Uncle Roger believes Peg is a witch," said
Peter.

"And you can see Aunt Olivia doesn't," I said, "and I don't
either."

"See here," said the Story Girl resolutely, "I don't believe it,
but there MAY be something in it.  Suppose there is.  The
question is, what can we do?"

"I'll tell you what I'D do," said Peter.  "I'd take a present for
Peg, and ask her to make Pat well.  I wouldn't let on I thought
she'd made him sick.  Then she couldn't be offended--and maybe
she'd take the spell off."

"I think we'd better all give her something," said Felicity.
"I'm willing to do that.  But who's going to take the presents to
her?"

"We must all go together," said the Story Girl.

"I won't," cried Sara Ray in terror.  "I wouldn't go near Peg
Bowen's house for the world, no matter who was with me."

"I've thought of a plan," said the Story Girl.  "Let's all give
her something, as Felicity says.  And let us all go up to her
place this evening, and if we see her outside we'll just go
quietly and set the things down before her with the letter, and
say nothing but come respectfully away."

"If she'll let us," said Dan significantly.

"Can Peg read a letter?" I asked.

"Oh, yes.  Aunt Olivia says she is a good scholar.  She went to
school and was a smart girl until she became crazy.  We'll write
it very plain."

"What if we don't see her?" asked Felicity.

"We'll put the things on her doorstep then and leave them."

"She may be miles away over the country by this time," sighed
Cecily, "and never find them until it's too late for Pat.  But
it's the only thing to do.  What can we give her?"

"We mustn't offer her any money," said the Story Girl.  "She's
very indignant when any one does that.  She says she isn't a
beggar.  But she'll take anything else.  I shall give her my
string of blue beads.  She's fond of finery."

"I'll give her that sponge cake I made this morning," said
Felicity.  "I guess she doesn't get sponge cake very often."

"I've nothing but the rheumatism ring I got as a premium for
selling needles last winter," said Peter.  "I'll give her that.
Even if she hasn't got rheumatism it's a real handsome ring.  It
looks like solid gold."

"I'll give her a roll of peppermint candy," said Felix.

"I'll give one of those little jars of cherry preserve I made,"
said Cecily.

"I won't go near her," quavered Sara Ray, "but I want to do
something for Pat, and I'll send that piece of apple leaf lace I
knit last week."

I decided to give the redoubtable Peg some apples from my
birthday tree, and Dan declared he would give her a plug of
tobacco.

"Oh, won't she be insulted?" exclaimed Felix, rather horrified.

"Naw," grinned Dan.  "Peg chews tobacco like a man.  She'd rather
have it than your rubbishy peppermints, I can tell you.  I'll run
down to old Mrs. Sampson's and get a plug."

"Now, we must write the letter and take it and the presents to
her right away, before it gets dark," said the Story Girl.

We adjourned to the granary to indite the important document,
which the Story Girl was to compose.

"How shall I begin it?" she asked in perplexity.  "It would never
do to say, 'Dear Peg,' and 'Dear Miss Bowen' sounds too
ridiculous."

"Besides, nobody knows whether she is Miss Bowen or not," said
Felicity.  "She went to Boston when she grew up, and some say she
was married there and her husband deserted her, and that's why
she went crazy.  If she's married, she won't like being called
Miss."

"Well, how am I to address her?" asked the Story Girl in despair.

Peter again came to the rescue with a practical suggestion.

"Begin it, 'Respected Madam,'" he said.  "Ma has a letter a
school trustee once writ to my Aunt Jane and that's how it
begins."

"Respected Madam," wrote the Story Girl.  "We want to ask a very
great favour of you and we hope you will kindly grant it if you
can.  Our favourite cat, Paddy, is very sick, and we are afraid
he is going to die.  Do you think you could cure him?  And will
you please try?  We are all so fond of him, and he is such a good
cat, and has no bad habits.  Of course, if any of us tramps on
his tail he will scratch us, but you know a cat can't bear to
have his tail tramped on.  It's a very tender part of him, and
it's his only way of preventing it, and he doesn't mean any harm.
If you can cure Paddy for us we will always be very, very
grateful to you.  The accompanying small offerings are a
testimonial of our respect and gratitude, and we entreat you to
honour us by accepting them.

                                       "Very respectfully yours,
                                                 "SARA STANLEY."

"I tell you that last sentence has a fine sound," said Peter
admiringly.

"I didn't make that up," admitted the Story Girl honestly.  "I
read it somewhere and remembered it."

"I think it's TOO fine," criticized Felicity.  "Peg Bowen won't
know the meaning of such big words."

But it was decided to leave them in and we all signed the letter.

Then we got our "testimonials," and started on our reluctant
journey to the domains of the witch.  Sara Ray would not go, of
course, but she volunteered to stay with Pat while we were away.
We did not think it necessary to inform the grown-ups of our
errand, or its nature.  Grown-ups had such peculiar views.  They
might forbid our going at all--and they would certainly laugh at
us.

Peg Bowen's house was nearly a mile away, even by the short cut
past the swamp and up the wooded hill.  We went down through the
brook field and over the little plank bridge in the hollow, half
lost in its surrounding sea of farewell summers.  When we reached
the green gloom of the woods beyond we began to feel frightened,
but nobody would admit it.  We walked very closely together, and
we did not talk.  When you are near the retreat of witches and
folk of that ilk the less you say the better, for their feelings
are so notoriously touchy.  Of course, Peg wasn't a witch, but it
was best to be on the safe side.

Finally we came to the lane which led directly to her abode.  We
were all very pale now, and our hearts were beating.  The red
September sun hung low between the tall spruces to the west.  It
did not look to me just right for a sun.  In fact, everything
looked uncanny.  I wished our errand were well over.

A sudden bend in the lane brought us out to the little clearing
where Peg's house was before we were half ready to see it.  In
spite of my fear I looked at it with some curiosity.  It was a
small, shaky building with a sagging roof, set amid a perfect
jungle of weeds.  To our eyes, the odd thing about it was that
there was no entrance on the ground floor, as there should be in
any respectable house.  The only door was in the upper story, and
was reached by a flight of rickety steps.  There was no sign of
life about the place except--sight of ill omen--a large black
cat, sitting on the topmost step.  We thought of Uncle Roger's
gruesome hints.  Could that black cat be Peg?  Nonsense!  But
still--it didn't look like an ordinary cat.  It was so large--and
had such green, malicious eyes!  Plainly, there was something out
of the common about the beastie!

In a tense, breathless silence the Story Girl placed our parcels
on the lowest step, and laid her letter on the top of the pile.
Her brown fingers trembled and her face was very pale.

Suddenly the door above us opened, and Peg Bowen herself appeared
on the threshold.  She was a tall, sinewy old woman, wearing a
short, ragged, drugget skirt which reached scantly below her
knees, a scarlet print blouse, and a man's hat.  Her feet, arms,
and neck were bare, and she had a battered old clay pipe in her
mouth.  Her brown face was seamed with a hundred wrinkles, and
her tangled, grizzled hair fell unkemptly over her shoulders.
She was scowling, and her flashing black eyes held no friendly
light.

We had borne up bravely enough hitherto, in spite of our inward,
unconfessed quakings.  But now our strained nerves gave way, and
sheer panic seized us.  Peter gave a little yelp of pure terror.
We turned and fled across the clearing and into the woods.  Down
the long hill we tore, like mad, hunted creatures, firmly
convinced that Peg Bowen was after us.  Wild was that scamper, as
nightmare-like as any recorded in our dream books.  The Story
Girl was in front of me, and I can recall the tremendous leaps
she made over fallen logs and little spruce bushes, with her long
brown curls streaming out behind her from their scarlet fillet.
Cecily, behind me, kept gasping out the contradictory sentences,
"Oh, Bev, wait for me," and "Oh, Bev, hurry, hurry!" More by
blind instinct than anything else we kept together and found our
way out of the woods.  Presently we were in the field beyond the
brook.  Over us was a dainty sky of shell pink, placid cows were
pasturing around us; the farewell summers nodded to us in the
friendly breezes.  We halted, with a glad realization that we
were back in our own haunts and that Peg Bowen had not caught us.

"Oh, wasn't that an awful experience?" gasped Cecily, shuddering.
"I wouldn't go through it again--I couldn't, not even for Pat."

"It come on a fellow so suddent," said Peter shamefacedly.  "I
think I could a-stood my ground if I'd known she was going to
come out.  But when she popped out like that I thought I was done
for."

"We shouldn't have run," said Felicity gloomily.  "It showed we
were afraid of her, and that always makes her awful cross.  She
won't do a thing for Pat now."

"I don't believe she could do anything, anyway," said the Story
Girl.  "I think we've just been a lot of geese."

We were all, except Peter, more or less inclined to agree with
her.  And the conviction of our folly deepened when we reached
the granary and found that Pat, watched over by the faithful Sara
Ray, was no better.  The Story Girl announced that she would take
him into the kitchen and sit up all night with him.

"He sha'n't die alone, anyway," she said miserably, gathering his
limp body up in her arms.

We did not think Aunt Olivia would give her permission to stay
up; but Aunt Olivia did.  Aunt Olivia really was a duck.  We
wanted to stay with her also, but Aunt Janet wouldn't hear of
such a thing.  She ordered us off to bed, saying that it was
positively sinful in us to be so worked up over a cat.  Five
heart-broken children, who knew that there are many worse friends
than dumb, furry folk, climbed Uncle Alec's stairs to bed that
night.

"There's nothing we can do now, except pray God to make Pat
better," said Cecily.

I must candidly say that her tone savoured strongly of a last
resort; but this was owing more to early training than to any
lack of faith on Cecily's part.  She knew and we knew, that
prayer was a solemn rite, not to be lightly held, nor degraded to
common uses.  Felicity voiced this conviction when she said,

"I don't believe it would be right to pray about a cat."

"I'd like to know why not," retorted Cecily, "God made Paddy just
as much as He made you, Felicity King, though perhaps He didn't
go to so much trouble.  And I'm sure He's abler to help him than
Peg Bowen.  Anyhow, I'm going to pray for Pat with all my might
and main, and I'd like to see you try to stop me.  Of course I
won't mix it up with more important things.  I'll just tack it on
after I've finished asking the blessings, but before I say amen."

More petitions than Cecily's were offered up that night on behalf
of Paddy.  I distinctly heard Felix--who always said his prayers
in a loud whisper, owing to some lasting conviction of early life
that God could not hear him if he did not pray audibly--mutter
pleadingly, after the "important" part of his devotions was over,
"Oh, God, please make Pat better by the morning.  PLEASE do."

And I, even in these late years of irreverence for the dreams of
youth, am not in the least ashamed to confess that when I knelt
down to say my boyish prayer, I thought of our little furry
comrade in his extremity, and prayed as reverently as I knew how
for his healing.  Then I went to sleep, comforted by the simple
hope that the Great Father would, after "important things" were
all attended to, remember poor Pat.

As soon as we were up the next morning we rushed off to Uncle
Roger's.  But we met Peter and the Story Girl in the lane, and
their faces were as the faces of those who bring glad tidings
upon the mountains.

"Pat's better," cried the Story Girl, blithe, triumphant.  "Last
night, just at twelve, he began to lick his paws.  Then he licked
himself all over and went to sleep, too, on the sofa.  When I
woke Pat was washing his face, and he has taken a whole saucerful
of milk.  Oh, isn't it splendid?"

"You see Peg Bowen did put a spell on him," said Peter, "and then
she took it off."

"I guess Cecily's prayer had more to do with Pat's getting better
than Peg Bowen," said Felicity.  "She prayed for Pat over and
over again.  That is why he's better."

"Oh, all right," said Peter, "but I'd advise Pat not to scratch
Peg Bowen again, that's all."

"I wish I knew whether it was the praying or Peg Bowen that cured
Pat," said Felix in perplexity.

"I don't believe it was either of them," said Dan.  "Pat just got
sick and got better again of his own accord."

"I'm going to believe that it was the praying," said Cecily
decidedly.  "It's so much nicer to believe that God cured Pat
than that Peg Bowen did."

"But you oughtn't to believe a thing just 'cause it would be more
comfortable," objected Peter.  "Mind you, I ain't saying God
couldn't cure Pat.  But nothing and nobody can't ever make me
believe that Peg Bowen wasn't at the bottom of it all."

Thus faith, superstition, and incredulity strove together amongst
us, as in all history.



CHAPTER XXV. A CUP OF FAILURE

One warm Sunday evening in the moon of golden-rod, we all,
grown-ups and children, were sitting in the orchard by the Pulpit
Stone singing sweet old gospel hymns.  We could all sing more or
less, except poor Sara Ray, who had once despairingly confided to
me that she didn't know what she'd ever do when she went to
heaven, because she couldn't sing a note.

That whole scene comes out clearly for me in memory--the arc of
primrose sky over the trees behind the old house, the fruit-laden
boughs of the orchard, the bank of golden-rod, like a wave of
sunshine, behind the Pulpit Stone, the nameless colour seen on a
fir wood in a ruddy sunset.  I can see Uncle Alec's tired,
brilliant, blue eyes, Aunt Janet's wholesome, matronly face,
Uncle Roger's sweeping blond beard and red cheeks, and Aunt
Olivia's full-blown beauty.  Two voices ring out for me above all
others in the music that echoes through the halls of
recollection.  Cecily's sweet and silvery, and Uncle Alec's fine
tenor.  "If you're a King, you sing," was a Carlisle proverb in
those days.  Aunt Julia had been the flower of the flock in that
respect and had become a noted concert singer.  The world had
never heard of the rest.  Their music echoed only along the
hidden ways of life, and served but to lighten the cares of the
trivial round and common task.

That evening, after they tired of singing, our grown-ups began
talking of their youthful days and doings.

This was always a keen delight to us small fry.  We listened
avidly to the tales of our uncles and aunts in the days when
they, too--hard fact to realize--had been children.  Good and
proper as they were now, once, so it seemed, they had gotten into
mischief and even had their quarrels and disagreements.  On this
particular evening Uncle Roger told many stories of Uncle Edward,
and one in which the said Edward had preached sermons at the
mature age of ten from the Pulpit Stone fired, as the sequel will
show, the Story Girl's imagination.

"Can't I just see him at it now," said Uncle Roger, "leaning over
that old boulder, his cheeks red and his eyes burning with
excitement, banging the top of it as he had seen the ministers do
in church.  It wasn't cushioned, however, and he always bruised
his hands in his self-forgetful earnestness.  We thought him a
regular wonder.  We loved to hear him preach, but we didn't like
to hear him pray, because he always insisted on praying for each
of us by name, and it made us feel wretchedly uncomfortable,
somehow.  Alec, do you remember how furious Julia was because
Edward prayed one day that she might be preserved from vanity and
conceit over her singing?"

"I should think I do," laughed Uncle Alec.  "She was sitting
right there where Cecily is now, and she got up at once and
marched right out of the orchard, but at the gate she turned to
call back indignantly, 'I guess you'd better wait till you've
prayed the conceit out of yourself before you begin on me, Ned
King.  I never heard such stuck-up sermons as you preach.'  Ned
went on praying and never let on he heard her, but at the end of
his prayer he wound up with 'Oh, God, I pray you to keep an eye
on us all, but I pray you to pay particular attention to my
sister Julia, for I think she needs it even more than the rest of
us, world without end, Amen.'"

Our uncles roared with laughter over the recollection.  We all
laughed, indeed, especially over another tale in which Uncle
Edward, leaning too far over the "pulpit" in his earnestness,
lost his balance altogether and tumbled ingloriously into the
grass below.

"He lit on a big Scotch thistle," said Uncle Roger, chuckling,
"and besides that, he skinned his forehead on a stone.  But he
was determined to finish his sermon, and finish it he did.  He
climbed back into the pulpit, with the tears rolling over his
cheeks, and preached for ten minutes longer, with sobs in his
voice and drops of blood on his forehead.  He was a plucky little
beggar.  No wonder he succeeded in life."

"And his sermons and prayers were always just about as outspoken
as those Julia objected to," said Uncle Alec.  "Well, we're all
getting on in life and Edward is gray; but when I think of him I
always see him a little, rosy, curly-headed chap, laying down the
law to us from the Pulpit Stone.  It seems like the other day
that we were all here together, just as these children are, and
now we are scattered everywhere.  Julia in California, Edward in
Halifax, Alan in South America, Felix and Felicity and Stephen
gone to the land that is very far off."

There was a little space of silence; and then Uncle Alec began,
in a low, impressive voice, to repeat the wonderful verses of the
ninetieth Psalm--verses which were thenceforth bound up for us
with the beauty of that night and the memories of our kindred.
Very reverently we all listened to the majestic words.

"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst
formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to
everlasting thou art God....  For a thousand years in thy sight
are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the
night....  For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we
spend our years as a tale that is told.  The days of our years
are threescore and ten; and if by reason of strength they be
fourscore years yet is their strength, labour and sorrow; for it
is soon cut off and we fly away....  So teach us to number our
days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom....  Oh, satisfy us
early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our
days....  And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and
establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of
our hands establish thou it."

The dusk crept into the orchard like a dim, bewitching
personality.  You could see her--feel her--hear her.  She tiptoed
softly from tree to tree, ever drawing nearer.  Presently her
filmy wings hovered over us and through them gleamed the early
stars of the autumn night.

The grown-ups rose reluctantly and strolled away; but we children
lingered for a moment to talk over an idea the Story Girl
broached--a good idea, we thought enthusiastically, and one that
promised to add considerable spice to life.

We were on the lookout for some new amusement.  Dream books had
begun to pall.  We no longer wrote in them very regularly, and
our dreams were not what they used to be before the mischance of
the cucumber.  So the Story Girl's suggestion came pat to the
psychological moment.

'I've thought of a splendid plan," she said.  "It just flashed
into my mind when the uncles were talking about Uncle Edward.
And the beauty of it is we can play it on Sundays, and you know
there are so few things it is proper to play on Sundays.  But
this is a Christian game, so it will be all right."

"It isn't like the religious fruit basket game, is it?" asked
Cecily anxiously.

We had good reason to hope that it wasn't.  One desperate Sunday
afternoon, when we had nothing to read and the time seemed
endless, Felix had suggested that we have a game of fruit-basket;
only instead of taking the names of fruits, we were to take the
names of Bible characters.  This, he argued, would make it quite
lawful and proper to play on Sunday.  We, too desirous of being
convinced, also thought so; and for a merry hour Lazarus and
Martha and Moses and Aaron and sundry other worthies of Holy Writ
had a lively time of it in the King orchard.  Peter having a
Scriptural name of his own, did not want to take another; but we
would not allow this, because it would give him an unfair
advantage over the rest of us.  It would be so much easier to
call out your own name than fit your tongue to an unfamiliar one.
So Peter retaliated by choosing Nebuchadnezzar, which no one
could ever utter three times before Peter shrieked it out once.

In the midst of our hilarity, however, Uncle Alec and Aunt Janet
came down upon us.  It is best to draw a veil over what followed.
Suffice it to say that the recollection gave point to Cecily's
question.

"No, it isn't that sort of game at all," said the Story Girl.
"It is this; each of you boys must preach a sermon, as Uncle
Edward used to do.  One of you next Sunday, and another the next,
and so on.  And whoever preaches the best sermon is to get a
prize."

Dan promptly declared he wouldn't try to preach a sermon; but
Peter, Felix and I thought the suggestion a very good one.
Secretly, I believed I could cut quite a fine figure preaching a
sermon.

"Who'll give the prize?" asked Felix.

"I will," said the Story Girl.  "I'll give that picture father
sent me last week."

As the said picture was an excellent copy of one of Landseer's
stags, Felix and I were well pleased; but Peter averred that he
would rather have the Madonna that looked like his Aunt Jane, and
the Story Girl agreed that if his sermon was the best she would
give him that.

"But who's to be the judge?" I said, "and what kind of a sermon
would you call the best?"

"The one that makes the most impression," answered the Story Girl
promptly.  "And we girls must be the judges, because there's
nobody else.  Now, who is to preach next Sunday?"

It was decided that I should lead off, and I lay awake for an
extra hour that night thinking what text I should take for the
following Sunday.  The next day I bought two sheets of foolscap
from the schoolmaster, and after tea I betook myself to the
granary, barred the door, and fell to writing my sermon.  I did
not find it as easy a task as I had anticipated; but I pegged
grimly away at it, and by dint of severe labour for two evenings
I eventually got my four pages of foolscap filled, although I had
to pad the subject-matter not a little with verses of quotable
hymns.  I had decided to preach on missions, as being a topic
more within my grasp than abstruse theological doctrines or
evangelical discourses; and, mindful of the need of making an
impression, I drew a harrowing picture of the miserable plight of
the heathen who in their darkness bowed down to wood and stone.
Then I urged our responsibility concerning them, and meant to
wind up by reciting, in a very solemn and earnest voice, the
verse beginning, "Can we whose souls are lighted."  When I had
completed my sermon I went over it very carefully again and wrote
with red ink--Cecily made it for me out of an aniline dye--the
word "thump" wherever I deemed it advisable to chastise the
pulpit.

I have that sermon still, all its red thumps unfaded, lying
beside my dream book; but I am not going to inflict it on my
readers.  I am not so proud of it as I once was.  I was really
puffed up with earthly vanity over it at that time.  Felix, I
thought, would be hard put to it to beat it.  As for Peter, I did
not consider him a rival to be feared.  It was unsupposable that
a hired boy, with little education and less experience of
church-going, should be able to preach better than could I, in
whose family there was a real minister.

The sermon written, the next thing was to learn it off by heart
and then practise it, thumps included, until I was letter and
gesture perfect.  I preached it over several times in the granary
with only Paddy, sitting immovably on a puncheon, for audience.
Paddy stood the test fairly well.  At least, he made an adorable
listener, save at such times as imaginary rats distracted his
attention.

Mr. Marwood had at least three absorbed listeners the next Sunday
morning.  Felix, Peter and I were all among the chiels who were
taking mental notes on the art of preaching a sermon.  Not a
motion, or glance, or intonation escaped us.  To be sure, none of
us could remember the text when we got home; but we knew just how
you should throw back your head and clutch the edge of the pulpit
with both hands when you announced it.

In the afternoon we all repaired to the orchard, Bibles and hymn
books in hand.  We did not think it necessary to inform the
grown-ups of what was in the wind.  You could never tell what
kink a grown-up would take.  They might not think it proper to
play any sort of a game on Sunday, not even a Christian game.
Least said was soonest mended where grown-ups were concerned.

I mounted the pulpit steps, feeling rather nervous, and my
audience sat gravely down on the grass before me.  Our opening
exercises consisted solely of singing and reading.  We had agreed
to omit prayer.  Neither Felix, Peter nor I felt equal to praying
in public.  But we took up a collection.  The proceeds were to go
to missions.  Dan passed the plate--Felicity's rosebud plate--
looking as preternaturally solemn as Elder Frewen himself.  Every
one put a cent on it.

Well, I preached my sermon.  And it fell horribly flat.  I
realized that, before I was half way through it.  I think I
preached it very well; and never a thump did I forget or
misplace.  But my audience was plainly bored.  When I stepped
down from the pulpit, after demanding passionately if we whose
souls were lighted and so forth, I felt with secret humiliation
that my sermon was a failure.  It had made no impression at all.
Felix would be sure to get the prize.

"That was a very good sermon for a first attempt," said the Story
Girl graciously.  "It sounded just like real sermons I have
heard."

For a moment the charm of her voice made me feel that I had not
done so badly after all; but the other girls, thinking it their
duty to pay me some sort of a compliment also, quickly dispelled
that pleasing delusion.

"Every word of it was true," said Cecily, her tone unconsciously
implying that this was its sole merit.

"I often feel," said Felicity primly, "that we don't think enough
about the heathens.  We ought to think a great deal more."

Sara Ray put the finishing touch to my mortification.

"It was so nice and short," she said.

"What was the matter with my sermon?" I asked Dan that night.
Since he was neither judge nor competitor I could discuss the
matter with him.

"It was too much like a reg'lar sermon to be interesting," said
Dan frankly.

"I should think the more like a regular sermon it was, the
better," I said.

"Not if you want to make an impression," said Dan seriously.
"You must have something sort of different for that.  Peter, now,
HE'LL have something different."

"Oh, Peter!  I don't believe he can preach a sermon," I said.

"Maybe not, but you'll see he'll make an impression," said Dan.

Dan was neither the prophet nor the son of a prophet, but he had
the second sight for once; Peter DID make an impression.



CHAPTER XXVI. PETER MAKES AN IMPRESSION

Peter's turn came next.  He did not write his sermon out.  That,
he averred, was too hard work.  Nor did he mean to take a text.

"Why, who ever heard of a sermon without a text?" asked Felix
blankly.

"I am going to take a SUBJECT instead of a text," said Peter
loftily.  "I ain't going to tie myself down to a text.  And I'm
going to have heads in it--three heads.  You hadn't a single head
in yours," he added to me.

"Uncle Alec says that Uncle Edward says that heads are beginning
to go out of fashion," I said defiantly--all the more defiantly
that I felt I should have had heads in my sermon.  It would
doubtless have made a much deeper impression.  But the truth was
I had forgotten all about such things.

"Well, I'm going to have them, and I don't care if they are
unfashionable," said Peter.  "They're good things.  Aunt Jane
used to say if a man didn't have heads and stick to them he'd go
wandering all over the Bible and never get anywhere in
particular."

"What are you going to preach on?" asked Felix.

"You'll find out next Sunday," said Peter significantly.

The next Sunday was in October, and a lovely day it was, warm and
bland as June.  There was something in the fine, elusive air,
that recalled beautiful, forgotten things and suggested delicate
future hopes.  The woods had wrapped fine-woven gossamers about
them and the westering hill was crimson and gold.

We sat around the Pulpit Stone and waited for Peter and Sara Ray.
It was the former's Sunday off and he had gone home the night
before, but he assured us he would be back in time to preach his
sermon.  Presently he arrived and mounted the granite boulder as
if to the manor born.  He was dressed in his new suit and I,
perceiving this, felt that he had the advantage of me.  When I
preached I had to wear my second best suit, for it was one of
Aunt Janet's laws that we should take our good suits off when we
came home from church.  There were, I saw, compensations for
being a hired boy.

Peter made quite a handsome little minister, in his navy blue
coat, white collar, and neatly bowed tie.  His black eyes shone,
and his black curls were brushed up in quite a ministerial
pompadour, but threatened to tumble over at the top in graceless
ringlets.

It was decided that there was no use in waiting for Sara Ray, who
might or might not come, according to the humour in which her
mother was.  Therefore Peter proceeded with the service.

He read the chapter and gave out the hymn with as much SANG FROID
as if he had been doing it all his life.  Mr. Marwood himself
could not have bettered the way in which Peter said,

"We will sing the whole hymn, omitting the fourth stanza."

That was a fine touch which I had not thought of.  I began to
think that, after all, Peter might be a foeman worthy of my
steel.

When Peter was ready to begin he thrust his hands into his
pockets--a totally unorthodox thing.  Then he plunged in without
further ado, speaking in his ordinary conversational
tone--another unorthodox thing.  There was no shorthand reporter
present to take that sermon down; but, if necessary, I could
preach it over verbatim, and so, I doubt not, could everyone that
heard it.  It was not a forgettable kind of sermon.

"Dearly beloved," said Peter, "my sermon is about the bad
place--in short, about hell."

An electric shock seemed to run through the audience.  Everybody
looked suddenly alert.  Peter had, in one sentence, done what my
whole sermon had failed to do.  He had made an impression.

"I shall divide my sermon into three heads," pursued Peter.  "The
first head is, what you must not do if you don't want to go to
the bad place.  The second head is, what the bad place is
like"--sensation in the audience--"and the third head is, how to
escape going there.

"Now, there's a great many things you must not do, and it's very
important to know what they are.  You ought not to lose no time
in finding out.  In the first place you mustn't ever forget to
mind what grown-up people tell you--that is, GOOD grown-up
people."

"But how are you going to tell who are the good grown-up people?"
asked Felix suddenly, forgetting that he was in church.

"Oh, that is easy," said Peter.  "You can always just FEEL who is
good and who isn't.  And you mustn't tell lies and you mustn't
murder any one.  You must be specially careful not to murder any
one.  You might be forgiven for telling lies, if you was real
sorry for them, but if you murdered any one it would be pretty
hard to get forgiven, so you'd better be on the safe side.  And
you mustn't commit suicide, because if you did that you wouldn't
have any chance of repenting it; and you mustn't forget to say
your prayers and you mustn't quarrel with your sister."

At this point Felicity gave Dan a significant poke with her
elbow, and Dan was up in arms at once.

"Don't you be preaching at me, Peter Craig," he cried out.  "I
won't stand it.  I don't quarrel with my sister any oftener than
she quarrels with me.  You can just leave me alone."

"Who's touching you?" demanded Peter.  "I didn't mention no
names.  A minister can say anything he likes in the pulpit, as
long as he doesn't mention any names, and nobody can answer
back."

"All right, but just you wait till to-morrow," growled Dan,
subsiding reluctantly into silence under the reproachful looks of
the girls.

"You must not play any games on Sunday," went on Peter, "that is,
any week-day games--or whisper in church, or laugh in church--I
did that once but I was awful sorry--and you mustn't take any
notice of Paddy--I mean of the family cat at family prayers, not
even if he climbs up on your back.  And you mustn't call names or
make faces."

"Amen," cried Felix, who had suffered many things because
Felicity so often made faces at him.

Peter stopped and glared at him over the edge of the Pulpit
Stone.

"You haven't any business to call out a thing like that right in
the middle of a sermon," he said.

"They do it in the Methodist church at Markdale," protested
Felix, somewhat abashed.  "I heard them."

"I know they do.  That's the Methodist way and it is all right
for them.  I haven't a word to say against Methodists.  My Aunt
Jane was one, and I might have been one myself if I hadn't been
so scared of the Judgment Day.  But you ain't a Methodist.
You're a Presbyterian, ain't you?"

"Yes, of course.  I was born that way."

"Very well then, you've got to do things the Presbyterian way.
Don't let me hear any more of your amens or I'll amen you."

"Oh, don't anybody interrupt again," implored the Story Girl.
"It isn't fair.  How can any one preach a good sermon if he is
always being interrupted?  Nobody interrupted Beverley."

"Bev didn't get up there and pitch into us like that," muttered
Dan.

"You mustn't fight," resumed Peter undauntedly.  "That is, you
mustn't fight for the fun of fighting, nor out of bad temper.
You must not say bad words or swear.  You mustn't get
drunk--although of course you wouldn't be likely to do that
before you grow up, and the girls never.  There's prob'ly a good
many other things you mustn't do, but these I've named are the
most important.  Of course, I'm not saying you'll go to the bad
place for sure if you do them.  I only say you're running a risk.
The devil is looking out for the people who do these things and
he'll be more likely to get after them than to waste time over
the people who don't do them.  And that's all about the first
head of my sermon."

At this point Sara Ray arrived, somewhat out of breath.  Peter
looked at her reproachfully.

"You've missed my whole first head, Sara," he said.  "that isn't
fair, when you're to be one of the judges.  I think I ought to
preach it over again for you."

"That was really done once.  I know a story about it," said the
Story Girl.

"Who's interrupting now?" aid Dan slyly.

"Never mind, tell us the story," said the preacher himself,
eagerly leaning over the pulpit.

"It was Mr. Scott who did it," said the Story Girl.  "He was
preaching somewhere in Nova Scotia, and when he was more than
half way through his sermon--and you know sermons were VERY long
in those days--a man walked in.  Mr. Scott stopped until he had
taken his seat.  Then he said, 'My friend, you are very late for
this service.  I hope you won't be late for heaven.  The
congregation will excuse me if I recapitulate the sermon for our
friend's benefit.'  And then he just preached the sermon over
again from the beginning.  It is said that that particular man
was never known to be late for church again."

"It served him right," said Dan, "but it was pretty hard lines on
the rest of the congregation."

"Now, let's be quiet so Peter can go on with his sermon," said
Cecily.

Peter squared his shoulders and took hold of the edge of the
pulpit.  Never a thump had he thumped, but I realized that his
way of leaning forward and fixing this one or that one of his
hearers with his eye was much more effective.

"I've come now to the second head of my sermon--what the bad
place is like."

He proceeded to describe the bad place.  Later on we discovered
that he had found his material in an illustrated translation of
Dante's _Inferno_ which had once been given to his Aunt Jane as a
school prize.  But at the time we supposed he must be drawing
from Biblical sources.  Peter had been reading the Bible steadily
ever since what we always referred to as "the Judgment Sunday,"
and he was by now almost through it.  None of the rest of us had
ever read the Bible completely through, and we thought Peter must
have found his description of the world of the lost in some
portion with which we were not acquainted.  Therefore, his
utterances carried all the weight of inspiration, and we sat
appalled before his lurid phrases.  He used his own words to
clothe the ideas he had found, and the result was a force and
simplicity that struck home to our imaginations.

Suddenly Sara Ray sprang to her feet with a scream--a scream that
changed into strange laughter.  We all, preacher included, looked
at her aghast.  Cecily and Felicity sprang up and caught hold of
her.  Sara Ray was really in a bad fit of hysterics, but we knew
nothing of such a thing in our experience, and we thought she had
gone mad.  She shrieked, cried, laughed, and flung herself about.

"She's gone clean crazy," said Peter, coming down out of his
pulpit with a very pale face.

"You've frightened her crazy with your dreadful sermon," said
Felicity indignantly.

She and Cecily each took Sara by an arm and, half leading, half
carrying, got her out of the orchard and up to the house.  The
rest of us looked at each other in terrified questioning.

"You've made rather too much of an impression, Peter," said the
Story Girl miserably.

"She needn't have got so scared.  If she'd only waited for the
third head I'd have showed her how easy it was to get clear of
going to the bad place and go to heaven instead.  But you girls
are always in such a hurry," said Peter bitterly.

"Do you s'pose they'll have to take her to the asylum?" said Dan
in a whisper.

"Hush, here's your father," said Felix.

Uncle Alec came striding down the orchard. We had never before
seen Uncle Alec angry.  But there was no doubt that he was very
angry.  His blue eyes fairly blazed at us as he said,

"What have you been doing to frighten Sara Ray into such a
condition?"

"We--we were just having a sermon contest," explained the Story
Girl tremulously.  "And Peter preached about the bad place, and
it frightened Sara.  That is all, Uncle Alec."

"All!  I don't know what the result will be to that nervous
delicate child.  She is shrieking in there and nothing will quiet
her.  What do you mean by playing such a game on Sunday, and
making a jest of sacred things?  No, not a word--" for the Story
Girl had attempted to speak.  "You and Peter march off home.  And
the next time I find you up to such doings on Sunday or any other
day I'll give you cause to remember it to your latest hour."

The Story Girl and Peter went humbly home and we went with them.

"I CAN'T understand grown-up people," said Felix despairingly.
"When Uncle Edward preached sermons it was all right, but when we
do it it is 'making a jest of sacred things.'  And I heard Uncle
Alec tell a story once about being nearly frightened to death
when he was a little boy, by a minister preaching on the end of
the world; and he said, 'That was something like a sermon.  You
don't hear such sermons nowadays.'  But when Peter preaches just
such a sermon, it's a very different story."

"It's no wonder we can't understand the grown-ups," said the
Story Girl indignantly, "because we've never been grown-up
ourselves.  But THEY have been children, and I don't see why they
can't understand us.  Of course, perhaps we shouldn't have had
the contest on Sundays.  But all the same I think it's mean of
Uncle Alec to be so cross.  Oh, I do hope poor Sara won't have to
be taken to the asylum."

Poor Sara did not have to be.  She was eventually quieted down,
and was as well as usual the next day; and she humbly begged
Peter's pardon for spoiling his sermon.  Peter granted it rather
grumpily, and I fear that he never really quite forgave Sara for
her untimely outburst.  Felix, too, felt resentment against her,
because he had lost the chance of preaching his sermon.

"Of course I know I wouldn't have got the prize, for I couldn't
have made such an impression as Peter," he said to us mournfully,
"but I'd like to have had a chance to show what I could do.
That's what comes of having those cry-baby girls mixed up in
things.  Cecily was just as scared as Sara Ray, but she'd more
sense than to show it like that."

"Well, Sara couldn't help it," said the Story Girl charitably,
"but it does seem as if we'd had dreadful luck in everything
we've tried lately.  I thought of a new game this morning, but
I'm almost afraid to mention it, for I suppose something dreadful
will come of it, too."

"Oh, tell us, what is it?" everybody entreated.

"Well, it's a trial by ordeal, and we're to see which of us can
pass it.  The ordeal is to eat one of the bitter apples in big
mouthfuls without making a single face."

Dan made a face to begin with.

"I don't believe any of us can do that," he said.

"YOU can't, if you take bites big enough to fill your mouth,"
giggled Felicity, with cruelty and without provocation.

"Well, maybe you could," retorted Dan sarcastically.  "You'd be
so afraid of spoiling your looks that you'd rather die than make
a face, I s'pose, no matter what you et."

"Felicity makes enough faces when there's nothing to make faces
at," said Felix, who had been grimaced at over the breakfast
table that morning and hadn't liked it.

"I think the bitter apples would be real good for Felix," said
Felicity.  "They say sour things make people thin."

"Let's go and get the bitter apples," said Cecily hastily, seeing
that Felix, Felicity and Dan were on the verge of a quarrel more
bitter than the apples.

We went to the seedling tree and got an apple apiece.  The game
was that every one must take a bite in turn, chew it up, and
swallow it, without making a face.  Peter again distinguished
himself.  He, and he alone, passed the ordeal, munching those
dreadful mouthfuls without so much as a change of expression on
his countenance, while the facial contortions the rest of us went
through baffled description.  In every subsequent trial it was
the same.  Peter never made a face, and no one else could help
making them.  It sent him up fifty per cent in Felicity's
estimation.

"Peter is a real smart boy," she said to me.  "It's such a pity
he is a hired boy."

But, if we could not pass the ordeal, we got any amount of fun
out of it, at least.  Evening after evening the orchard re-echoed
to our peals of laughter.

"Bless the children," said Uncle Alec, as he carried the milk
pails across the yard.  "Nothing can quench their spirits for
long."



CHAPTER XXVII. THE ORDEAL OF BITTER APPLES

I could never understand why Felix took Peter's success in the
Ordeal of Bitter Apples so much to heart.  He had not felt very
keenly over the matter of the sermons, and certainly the mere
fact that Peter could eat sour apples without making faces did
not cast any reflection on the honour or ability of the other
competitors.  But to Felix everything suddenly became flat,
stale, and unprofitable, because Peter continued to hold the
championship of bitter apples.  It haunted his waking hours and
obsessed his nights.  I heard him talking in his sleep about it.
If anything could have made him thin the way he worried over this
matter would have done it.

For myself, I cared not a groat.  I had wished to be successful
in the sermon contest, and felt sore whenever I thought of my
failure.  But I had no burning desire to eat sour apples without
grimacing, and I did not sympathize over and above with my
brother.  When, however, he took to praying about it, I realized
how deeply he felt on the subject, and hoped he would be
successful.

Felix prayed earnestly that he might be enabled to eat a bitter
apple without making a face.  And when he had prayed three nights
after this manner, he contrived to eat a bitter apple without a
grimace until he came to the last bite, which proved too much for
him.  But Felix was vastly encouraged.

"Another prayer or two, and I'll be able to eat a whole one," he
said jubilantly.

But this devoutly desired consummation did not come to pass.  In
spite of prayers and heroic attempts, Felix could never get
beyond that last bite.  Not even faith and works in combination
could avail.  For a time he could not understand this.  But he
thought the mystery was solved when Cecily came to him one day
and told him that Peter was praying against him.

"He's praying that you'll never be able to eat a bitter apple
without making a face," she said.  "He told Felicity and Felicity
told me.  She said she thought it was real cute of him.  I think
that is a dreadful way to talk about praying and I told her so.
She wanted me to promise not to tell you, but I wouldn't promise,
because I think it's fair for you to know what is going on."

Felix was very indignant--and aggrieved as well.

"I don't see why God should answer Peter's prayers instead of
mine," he said bitterly.  "I've gone to church and Sunday School
all my life, and Peter never went till this summer.  It isn't
fair."

"Oh, Felix, don't talk like that," said Cecily, shocked.  "God
MUST be fair.  I'll tell you what I believe is the reason.  Peter
prays three times a day regular--in the morning and at dinner
time and at night--and besides that, any time through the day
when he happens to think of it, he just prays, standing up.  Did
you ever hear of such goings-on?"

"Well, he's got to stop praying against me, anyhow," said Felix
resolutely.  "I won't put up with it, and I'll go and tell him so
right off."

Felix marched over to Uncle Roger's, and we trailed after,
scenting a scene.  We found Peter shelling beans in the granary,
and whistling cheerily, as with a conscience void of offence
towards all men.

"Look here, Peter," said Felix ominously, "they tell me that
you've been praying right along that I couldn't eat a bitter
apple.  Now, I tell you--"

"I never did!" exclaimed Peter indignantly.  "I never mentioned
your name.  I never prayed that you couldn't eat a bitter apple.
I just prayed that I'd be the only one that could."

"Well, that's the same thing," cried Felix.  "You've just been
praying for the opposite to me out of spite.  And you've got to
stop it, Peter Craig."

"Well, I just guess I won't," said Peter angrily.  "I've just as
good a right to pray for what I want as you, Felix King, even if
you was brought up in Toronto.  I s'pose you think a hired boy
hasn't any business to pray for particular things, but I'll show
you.  I'll just pray for what I please, and I'd like to see you
try and stop me."

"You'll have to fight me, if you keep on praying against me,"
said Felix.

The girls gasped; but Dan and I were jubilant, snuffing battle
afar off.

"All right.  I can fight as well as pray."

"Oh, don't fight," implored Cecily.  "I think it would be
dreadful.  Surely you can arrange it some other way.  Let's all
give up the Ordeal, anyway.  There isn't much fun in it.  And
then neither of you need pray about it."

"I don't want to give up the Ordeal," said Felix, "and I won't."

"Oh, well, surely you can settle it some way without fighting,"
persisted Cecily.

"I'm not wanting to fight," said Peter.  "It's Felix.  If he
don't interfere with my prayers there's no need of fighting.  But
if he does there's no other way to settle it."

"But how will that settle it?" asked Cecily.

"Oh, whoever's licked will have to give in about the praying,"
said Peter.  "That's fair enough.  If I'm licked I won't pray for
that particular thing any more."

"It's dreadful to fight about anything so religious as praying,"
sighed poor Cecily.

"Why, they were always fighting about religion in old times,"
said Felix.  "The more religious anything was the more fighting
there was about it."

"A fellow's got a right to pray as he pleases," said Peter, "and
if anybody tries to stop him he's bound to fight.  That's my way
of looking at it."

"What would Miss Marwood say if she knew you were going to
fight?" asked Felicity.

Miss Marwood was Felix' Sunday School teacher and he was very
fond of her.  But by this time Felix was quite reckless.

"I don't care what she would say," he retorted.

Felicity tried another tack.

"You'll be sure to get whipped if you fight with Peter," she
said.  "You're too fat to fight."

After that, no moral force on earth could have prevented Felix
from fighting.  He would have faced an army with banners.

"You might settle it by drawing lots," said Cecily desperately.

"Drawing lots is wickeder that fighting," said Dan.  "It's a kind
of gambling."

"What would Aunt Jane say if she knew you were going to fight?"
Cecily demanded of Peter.

"Don't you drag my Aunt Jane into this affair," said Peter
darkly.

"You said you were going to be a Presbyterian," persisted Cecily.
"Good Presbyterians don't fight."

"Oh, don't they!  I heard your Uncle Roger say that Presbyterians
were the best for fighting in the world--or the worst, I forget
which he said, but it means the same thing."

Cecily had but one more shot in her locker.

"I thought you said in your sermon, Master Peter, that people
shouldn't fight."

"I said they oughtn't to fight for fun, or for bad temper,"
retorted Peter.  "This is different.  I know what I'm fighting
for but I can't think of the word."

"I guess you mean principle," I suggested.

"Yes, that's it," agreed Peter.  "It's all right to fight for
principle.  It's kind of praying with your fists."

"Oh, can't you do something to prevent them from fighting, Sara?"
pleaded Cecily, turning to the Story Girl, who was sitting on a
bin, swinging her shapely bare feet to and fro.

"It doesn't do to meddle in an affair of this kind between boys,"
said the Story Girl sagely.

I may be mistaken, but I do not believe the Story Girl wanted
that fight stopped.  And I am far from being sure that Felicity
did either.

It was ultimately arranged that the combat should take place in
the fir wood behind Uncle Roger's granary.  It was a nice,
remote, bosky place where no prowling grown-up would be likely to
intrude.  And thither we all resorted at sunset.

"I hope Felix will beat," said the Story Girl to me, "not only
for the family honour, but because that was a mean, mean prayer
of Peter's. Do you think he will?"

"I don't know," I confessed dubiously.  "Felix is too fat.  He'll
get out of breath in no time.  And Peter is such a cool customer,
and he's a year older than Felix.  But then Felix has had some
practice.  He has fought boys in Toronto.  And this is Peter's
first fight."

"Did you ever fight?" asked the Story Girl.

"Once," I said briefly, dreading the next question, which
promptly came.

"Who beat?"

It is sometimes a bitter thing to tell the truth, especially to a
young lady for whom you have a great admiration.  I had a
struggle with temptation in which I frankly confess I might have
been worsted had it not been for a saving and timely remembrance
of a certain resolution made on the day preceding Judgment
Sunday.

"The other fellow," I said with reluctant honesty.

"Well," said the Story Girl, "I think it doesn't matter whether
you get whipped or not so long as you fight a good, square
fight."

Her potent voice made me feel that I was quite a hero after all,
and the sting went out of my recollection of that old fight.

When we arrived behind the granary the others were all there.
Cecily was very pale, and Felix and Peter were taking off their
coats.  There was a pure yellow sunset that evening, and the
aisles of the fir wood were flooded with its radiance.  A cool,
autumnal wind was whistling among the dark boughs and scattering
blood red leaves from the maple at the end of the granary.

"Now," said Dan, "I'll count, and when I say three you pitch in,
and hammer each other until one of you has had enough.  Cecily,
keep quiet.  Now, one--two--three!"

Peter and Felix "pitched in," with more zeal than discretion on
both sides.  As a result, Peter got what later developed into a
black eye, and Felix's nose began to bleed.  Cecily gave a shriek
and ran out of the wood.  We thought she had fled because she
could not endure the sight of blood, and we were not sorry, for
her manifest disapproval and anxiety were damping the excitement
of the occasion.

Felix and Peter drew apart after that first onset, and circled
about one another warily.  Then, just as they had come to grips
again, Uncle Alec walked around the corner of the granary, with
Cecily behind him.

He was not angry.  There was a quizzical look in his eyes.  But
he took the combatants by their shirt collars and dragged them
apart.

"This stops right here, boys," he said.  "You know I don't allow
fighting."

"Oh, but Uncle Alec, it was this way," began Felix eagerly.
"Peter--"

"No, I don't want to hear about it," said Uncle Alec sternly.  "I
don't care what you were fighting about, but you must settle your
quarrels in a different fashion.  Remember my commands, Felix.
Peter, Roger is looking for you to wash his buggy.  Be off."

Peter went off rather sullenly, and Felix, also sullenly, sat
down and began to nurse his nose.  He turned his back on Cecily.

Cecily "caught it" after Uncle Alec had gone.  Dan called her a
tell-tale and a baby, and sneered at her until Cecily began to
cry.

"I couldn't stand by and watch Felix and Peter pound each other
all to pieces," she sobbed.  "They've been such friends, and it
was dreadful to see them fighting."

"Uncle Roger would have let them fight it out," said the Story
Girl discontentedly.  "Uncle Roger believes in boys fighting.  He
says it's as harmless a way as any of working off their original
sin.  Peter and Felix wouldn't have been any worse friends after
it.  They'd have been better friends because the praying question
would have been settled.  And now it can't be--unless Felicity
can coax Peter to give up praying against Felix."

For once in her life the Story Girl was not as tactful as her
wont.  Or--is it possible that she said it out of malice
prepense?  At all events, Felicity resented the imputation that
she had more influence with Peter than any one else.

"I don't meddle with hired boys' prayers," she said haughtily.

"It was all nonsense fighting about such prayers, anyhow," said
Dan, who probably thought that since all chance of a fight was
over, he might as well avow his real sentiments as to its folly.
"Just as much nonsense as praying about the bitter apples in the
first place."

"Oh, Dan, don't you believe there is some good in praying?" said
Cecily reproachfully.

"Yes, I believe there's some good in some kinds of praying, but
not in that kind," said Dan sturdily.  "I don't believe God cares
whether anybody can eat an apple without making a face or not."

"I don't believe it's right to talk of God as if you were well
acquainted with Him," said Felicity, who felt that it was a good
chance to snub Dan.

"There's something wrong somewhere," said Cecily perplexedly.
"We ought to pray for what we want, of that I'm sure--and Peter
wanted to be the only one who could pass the Ordeal.  It seems as
if he must be right--and yet it doesn't seem so.  I wish I could
understand it."

"Peter's prayer was wrong because it was a selfish prayer, I
guess," said the Story Girl thoughtfully.  "Felix's prayer was
all right, because it wouldn't have hurt any one else; but it was
selfish of Peter to want to be the only one. We mustn't pray
selfish prayers."

"Oh, I see through it now," said Cecily joyfully.

"Yes, but," said Dan triumphantly, "if you believe God answers
prayers about particular things, it was Peter's prayer He
answered.  What do you make of that?"

"Oh!" the Story Girl shook her head impatiently.  "There's no use
trying to make such things out.  We only get more mixed up all
the time.  Let's leave it alone and I'll tell you a story.  Aunt
Olivia had a letter today from a friend in Nova Scotia, who lives
in Shubenacadie.  When I said I thought it a funny name, she told
me to go and look in her scrap book, and I would find a story
about the origin of the name.  And I did.  Don't you want to hear
it?"

Of course we did.  We all sat down at the roots of the firs.
Felix, having finally squared matters with his nose, turned
around and listened also.  He would not look at Cecily, but every
one else had forgiven her.

The Story Girl leaned that brown head of hers against the fir
trunk behind her, and looked up at the apple-green sky through
the dark boughs above us.  She wore, I remember, a dress of warm
crimson, and she had wound around her head a string of
waxberries, that looked like a fillet of pearls.  Her cheeks were
still flushed with the excitement of the evening.  In the dim
light she was beautiful, with a wild, mystic loveliness, a
compelling charm that would not be denied.

"Many, many moons ago, an Indian tribe lived on the banks of a
river in Nova Scotia.  One of the young braves was named Accadee.
He was the tallest and bravest and handsomest young man in the
tribe--"

"Why is it they're always so handsome in stories?" asked Dan.
"Why are there never no stories about ugly people?"

"Perhaps ugly people never have stories happen to them,"
suggested Felicity.

"I think they're just as interesting as the handsome people,"
retorted Dan.

"Well, maybe they are in real life," said Cecily, "but in stories
it's just as easy to make them handsome as not.  I like them best
that way.  I just love to read a story where the heroine is
beautiful as a dream."

"Pretty people are always conceited," said Felix, who was getting
tired of holding his tongue.

"The heroes in stories are always nice," said Felicity, with
apparent irrelevance.  "They're always so tall and slender.
Wouldn't it be awful funny if any one wrote a story about a fat
hero--or about one with too big a mouth?"

"It doesn't matter what a man LOOKS like," I said, feeling that
Felix and Dan were catching it rather too hotly.  "He must be a
good sort of chap and DO heaps of things.  That's all that's
necessary."

"Do any of you happen to want to hear the rest of my story?"
asked the Story Girl in an ominously polite voice that recalled
us to a sense of our bad manners.  We apologized and promised to
behave better; she went on, appeased:

"Accadee was all these things that I have mentioned, and he was
the best hunter in the tribe besides.  Never an arrow of his that
did not go straight to the mark.  Many and many a snow white
moose he shot, and gave the beautiful skin to his sweetheart.
Her name was Shuben and she was as lovely as the moon when it
rises from the sea, and as pleasant as a summer twilight.  Her
eyes were dark and soft, her foot was as light as a breeze, and
her voice sounded like a brook in the woods, or the wind that
comes over the hills at night.  She and Accadee were very much in
love with each other, and often they hunted together, for Shuben
was almost as skilful with her bow and arrow as Accadee himself.
They had loved each other ever since they were small pappooses,
and they had vowed to love each other as long as the river ran.

"One twilight, when Accadee was out hunting in the woods, he shot
a snow white moose; and he took off its skin and wrapped it
around him.  Then he went on through the woods in the starlight;
and he felt so happy and light of heart that he sometimes frisked
and capered about just as a real moose would do.  And he was
doing this when Shuben, who was also out hunting, saw him from
afar and thought he was a real moose.  She stole cautiously
through the woods until she came to the brink of a little valley.
Below her stood the snow white moose.  She drew her arrow to her
eye--alas, she knew the art only too well!--and took careful aim.
The next moment Accadee fell dead with her arrow in his heart."

The Story Girl paused--a dramatic pause.  It was quite dark in
the fir wood.  We could see her face and eyes but dimly through
the gloom.  A silvery moon was looking down on us over the
granary.  The stars twinkled through the softly waving boughs.
Beyond the wood we caught a glimpse of a moonlit world lying in
the sharp frost of the October evening.  The sky above it was
chill and ethereal and mystical.

But all about us were shadows; and the weird little tale, told in
a voice fraught with mystery and pathos, had peopled them for us
with furtive folk in belt and wampum, and dark-tressed Indian
maidens.

"What did Shuben do when she found out she had killed Accadee?"
asked Felicity.

"She died of a broken heart before the spring, and she and
Accadee were buried side by side on the bank of the river which
has ever since borne their names--the river Shubenacadie," said
the Story Girl.

The sharp wind blew around the granary and Cecily shivered.  We
heard Aunt Janet's voice calling "Children, children."  Shaking
off the spell of firs and moonlight and romantic tale, we
scrambled to our feet and went homeward.

"I kind of wish I'd been born an Injun," said Dan.  "It must have
been a jolly life--nothing to do but hunt and fight."

"It wouldn't be so nice if they caught you and tortured you at
the stake," said Felicity.

"No," said Dan reluctantly.  "I suppose there'd be some drawback
to everything, even being an Injun."

"Isn't it cold?" said Cecily, shivering again.  "It will soon be
winter.  I wish summer could last forever.  Felicity likes the
winter, and so does the Story Girl, but I don't.  It always seems
so long till spring."

"Never mind, we've had a splendid summer," I said, slipping my
arm about her to comfort some childish sorrow that breathed in
her plaintive voice.

Truly, we had had a delectable summer; and, having had it, it was
ours forever.  "The gods themselves cannot recall their gifts."
They may rob us of our future and embitter our present, but our
past they may not touch.  With all its laughter and delight and
glamour it is our eternal possession.

Nevertheless, we all felt a little of the sadness of the waning
year.  There was a distinct weight on our spirits until Felicity
took us into the pantry and stayed us with apple tarts and
comforted us with cream.  Then we brightened up.  It was really a
very decent world after all.



CHAPTER XXVIII. THE TALE OF THE RAINBOW BRIDGE

Felix, so far as my remembrance goes, never attained to success
in the Ordeal of Bitter Apples.  He gave up trying after awhile;
and he also gave up praying about it, saying in bitterness of
spirit that there was no use in praying when other fellows prayed
against you out of spite.  He and Peter remained on bad terms for
some time, however.

We were all of us too tired those nights to do any special
praying.  Sometimes I fear our "regular" prayers were slurred
over, or mumbled in anything but reverent haste.  October was a
busy month on the hill farms.  The apples had to be picked, and
this work fell mainly to us children.  We stayed home from school
to do it.  It was pleasant work and there was a great deal of fun
in it; but it was hard, too, and our arms and backs ached roundly
at night.  In the mornings it was very delightful; in the
afternoons tolerable; but in the evenings we lagged, and the
laughter and zest of fresher hours were lacking.

Some of the apples had to be picked very carefully.  But with
others it did not matter; we boys would climb the trees and shake
the apples down until the girls shrieked for mercy.  The days
were crisp and mellow, with warm sunshine and a tang of frost in
the air, mingled with the woodsy odours of the withering grasses.
The hens and turkeys prowled about, pecking at windfalls, and Pat
made mad rushes at them amid the fallen leaves.  The world beyond
the orchard was in a royal magnificence of colouring, under the
vivid blue autumn sky.  The big willow by the gate was a splendid
golden dome, and the maples that were scattered through the
spruce grove waved blood-red banners over the sombre
cone-bearers.  The Story Girl generally had her head garlanded
with their leaves.  They became her vastly.  Neither Felicity nor
Cecily could have worn them.  Those two girls were of a domestic
type that assorted ill with the wildfire in Nature's veins.  But
when the Story Girl wreathed her nut brown tresses with crimson
leaves it seemed, as Peter said, that they grew on her--as if the
gold and flame of her spirit had broken out in a coronal, as much
a part of her as the pale halo seems a part of the Madonna it
encircles.

What tales she told us on those far-away autumn days, peopling
the russet arcades with folk of an elder world.  Many a princess
rode by us on her palfrey, many a swaggering gallant ruffled it
bravely in velvet and plume adown Uncle Stephen's Walk, many a
stately lady, silken clad, walked in that opulent orchard!

When we had filled our baskets they had to be carried to the
granary loft, and the contents stored in bins or spread on the
floor to ripen further.  We ate a good many, of course, feeling
that the labourer was worthy of his hire.  The apples from our
own birthday trees were stored in separate barrels inscribed with
our names.  We might dispose of them as we willed.  Felicity sold
hers to Uncle Alec's hired man--and was badly cheated to boot,
for he levanted shortly afterwards, taking the apples with him,
having paid her only half her rightful due.  Felicity has not
gotten over that to this day.

Cecily, dear heart, sent most of hers to the hospital in town,
and no doubt gathered in therefrom dividends of gratitude and
satisfaction of soul, such as can never be purchased by any mere
process of bargain and sale.  The rest of us ate our apples, or
carried them to school where we bartered them for such treasures
as our schoolmates possessed and we coveted.

There was a dusky, little, pear-shaped apple--from one of Uncle
Stephen's trees--which was our favourite; and next to it a
delicious, juicy yellow apple from Aunt Louisa's tree.  We were
also fond of the big sweet apples; we used to throw them up in
the air and let them fall on the ground until they were bruised
and battered to the bursting point.  Then we sucked on the juice;
sweeter was it than the nectar drunk by blissful gods on the
Thessalian hill.

Sometimes we worked until the cold yellow sunsets faded out over
the darkening distances, and the hunter's moon looked down on us
through the sparkling air.  The constellations of autumn
scintillated above us.  Peter and the Story Girl knew all about
them, and imparted their knowledge to us generously.  I recall
Peter standing on the Pulpit Stone, one night ere moonrise, and
pointing them out to us, occasionally having a difference of
opinion with the Story Girl over the name of some particular
star.  Job's Coffin and the Northern Cross were to the west of
us; south of us flamed Fomalhaut.  The Great Square of Pegasus
was over our heads.  Cassiopeia sat enthroned in her beautiful
chair in the north-east; and north of us the Dippers swung
untiringly around the Pole Star.  Cecily and Felix were the only
ones who could distinguish the double star in the handle of the
Big Dipper, and greatly did they plume themselves thereon.  The
Story Girl told us the myths and legends woven around these
immemorial clusters, her very voice taking on a clear, remote,
starry sound as she talked of them.  When she ceased, we came
back to earth, feeling as if we had been millions of miles away
in the blue ether, and that all our old familiar surroundings
were momentarily forgotten and strange.

That night when he pointed out the stars to us from the Pulpit
Stone was the last time for several weeks that Peter shared our
toil and pastime.  The next day he complained of headache and
sore throat, and seemed to prefer lying on Aunt Olivia's kitchen
sofa to doing any work.  As it was not in Peter to be a
malingerer he was left in peace, while we picked apples.  Felix
alone, must unjustly and spitefully, declared that Peter was
simply shirking.

"He's just lazy, that's what's the matter with him," he said.

"Why don't you talk sense, if you must talk?" said Felicity.
"There's no sense in calling Peter lazy.  You might as well say I
had black hair.  Of course, Peter, being a Craig, has his faults,
but he's a smart boy.  His father was lazy but his mother hasn't
a lazy bone in her body, and Peter takes after her."

"Uncle Roger says Peter's father wasn't exactly lazy," said the
Story Girl.  "The trouble was, there were so many other things he
liked better than work."

"I wonder if he'll ever come back to his family," said Cecily.
"Just think how dreadful it would be if OUR father had left us
like that!"

"Our father is a King," said Felicity loftily, "and Peter's
father was only a Craig.  A member of our family COULDN'T behave
like that."

"They say there must be a black sheep in every family," said the
Story Girl.

"There isn't any in ours," said Cecily loyally.

"Why do white sheep eat more than black?" asked Felix.

"Is that a conundrum?" asked Cecily cautiously.  "If it is I
won't try to guess the reason.  I never can guess conundrums."

"It isn't a conundrum," said Felix.  "It's a fact.  They do--and
there's a good reason for it."

We stopped picking apples, sat down on the grass, and tried to
reason it out--with the exception of Dan, who declared that he
knew there was a catch somewhere and he wasn't going to be
caught.  The rest of us could not see where any catch could
exist, since Felix solemnly vowed, 'cross his heart, white sheep
did eat more than black.  We argued over it seriously, but
finally had to give it up.

"Well, what is the reason?" asked Felicity.

"Because there's more of them," said Felix, grinning.

I forget what we did to Felix.

A shower came up in the evening and we had to stop picking.
After the shower there was a magnificent double rainbow.  We
watched it from the granary window, and the Story Girl told us an
old legend, culled from one of Aunt Olivia's many scrapbooks.

"Long, long ago, in the Golden Age, when the gods used to visit
the earth so often that it was nothing uncommon to see them, Odin
made a pilgrimage over the world.  Odin was the great god of the
northland, you know.  And wherever he went among men he taught
them love and brotherhood, and skilful arts; and great cities
sprang up where he had trodden, and every land through which he
passed was blessed because one of the gods had come down to men.
But many men and women followed Odin himself, giving up all their
worldly possessions and ambitions; and to these he promised the
gift of eternal life.  All these people were good and noble and
unselfish and kind; but the best and noblest of them all was a
youth named Ving; and this youth was beloved by Odin above all
others, for his beauty and strength and goodness.  Always he
walked on Odin's right hand, and always the first light of Odin's
smile fell on him.  Tall and straight was he as a young pine, and
his long hair was the colour of ripe wheat in the sun; and his
blue eyes were like the northland heavens on a starry night.

"In Odin's band was a beautiful maiden named Alin.  She was as
fair and delicate as a young birch tree in spring among the dark
old pines and firs, and Ving loved her with all his heart.  His
soul thrilled with rapture at the thought that he and she
together should drink from the fountain of immortality, as Odin
had promised, and be one thereafter in eternal youth.

"At last they came to the very place where the rainbow touched
the earth.  And the rainbow was a great bridge, built of living
colours, so dazzling and wonderful that beyond it the eye could
see nothing, only far away a great, blinding, sparkling glory,
where the fountain of life sprang up in a shower of diamond fire.
But under the Rainbow Bridge rolled a terrible flood, deep and
wide and violent, full of rocks and rapids and whirlpools.

"There was a Warder of the bridge, a god, dark and stern and
sorrowful.  And to him Odin gave command that he should open the
gate and allow his followers to cross the Rainbow Bridge, that
they might drink of the fountain of life beyond.  And the Warder
set open the gate.

"'Pass on and drink of the fountain,' he said.  'To all who taste
of it shall immortality be given.  But only to that one who shall
drink of it first shall be permitted to walk at Odin's right hand
forever.'

"Then the company passed through in great haste, all fired with a
desire to be the first to drink of the fountain and win so
marvellous a boon.  Last of all came Ving.  He had lingered
behind to pluck a thorn from the foot of a beggar child he had
met on the highway, and he had not heard the Warder's words.  But
when, eager, joyous, radiant, he set his foot on the rainbow, the
stern, sorrowful Warder took him by the arm and drew him back.

"'Ving, strong, noble, and valiant,' he said, 'Rainbow Bridge is
not for thee.'

"Very dark grew Ving's face.  Hot rebellion rose in his heart and
rushed over his pale lips.

"'Why dost thou keep back the draught of immortality from me?' he
demanded passionately.

"The Warder pointed to the dark flood that rolled under the
bridge.

"'The path of the rainbow is not for thee,' he said, 'but yonder
way is open.  Ford that flood.  On the furthest bank is the
fountain of life.'

"'Thou mockest me,' muttered Ving sullenly.  'No mortal could
cross that flood.  Oh, Master,' he prayed, turning beseechingly
to Odin, 'thou didst promise to me eternal life as to the others.
Wilt thou not keep that promise?  Command the Warder to let me
pass.  He must obey thee.'

"But Odin stood silent, with his face turned from his beloved,
and Ving's heart was filled with unspeakable bitterness and
despair.

"'Thou mayest return to earth if thou fearest to essay the
flood,' said the Warder.

"'Nay,' said Ving wildly, 'earthly life without Alin is more
dreadful than the death which awaits me in yon dark river.'

"And he plunged fiercely in.  He swam, and struggled, he
buffetted the turmoil.  The waves went over his head again and
again, the whirlpools caught him and flung him on the cruel
rocks.  The wild, cold spray beat on his eyes and blinded him, so
that he could see nothing, and the roar of the river deafened him
so that he could hear nothing; but he felt keenly the wounds and
bruises of the cruel rocks, and many a time he would have given
up the struggle had not the thought of sweet Alin's loving eyes
brought him the strength and desire to struggle as long as it was
possible.  Long, long, long, to him seemed that bitter and
perilous passage; but at last he won through to the furthest
side.  Breathless and reeling, his vesture torn, his great wounds
bleeding, he found himself on the shore where the fountain of
immortality sprang up.  He staggered to its brink and drank of
its clear stream.  Then all pain and weariness fell away from
him, and he rose up, a god, beautiful with immortality.  And as
he did there came rushing over the Rainbow Bridge a great
company--the band of fellow travellers.  But all were too late to
win the double boon.  Ving had won to it through the danger and
suffering of the dark river."

The rainbow had faded out, and the darkness of the October dusk
was falling.

"I wonder," said Dan meditatively, as we went away from that
redolent spot, "what it would be like to live for ever in this
world."

"I expect we'd get tired of it after awhile," said the Story
Girl.  "But," she added, "I think it would be a goodly while
before I would."



CHAPTER XXIX. THE SHADOW FEARED OF MAN

We were all up early the next morning, dressing by candlelight.
But early as it was we found the Story Girl in the kitchen when
we went down, sitting on Rachel Ward's blue chest and looking
important.

"What do you think?" she exclaimed.  "Peter has the measles!  He
was dreadfully sick all night, and Uncle Roger had to go for the
doctor.  He was quite light-headed, and didn't know any one.  Of
course he's far too sick to be taken home, so his mother has come
up to wait on him, and I'm to live over here until he is better."

This was mingled bitter and sweet.  We were sorry to hear that
Peter had the measles; but it would be jolly to have the Story
Girl living with us all the time.  What orgies of story telling
we should have!

"I suppose we'll all have the measles now," grumbled Felicity.
"And October is such an inconvenient time for measles--there's so
much to do."

"I don't believe any time is very convenient to have the
measles," Cecily said.

"Oh, perhaps we won't have them," said the Story Girl cheerfully.
"Peter caught them at Markdale, the last time he was home, his
mother says."

"I don't want to catch the measles from Peter," said Felicity
decidedly.  "Fancy catching them from a hired boy!"

"Oh, Felicity, don't call Peter a hired boy when he's sick,"
protested Cecily.

During the next two days we were very busy--too busy to tell
tales or listen to them.  Only in the frosty dusk did we have
time to wander afar in realms of gold with the Story Girl.  She
had recently been digging into a couple of old volumes of classic
myths and northland folklore which she had found in Aunt Olivia's
attic; and for us, god and goddess, laughing nymph and mocking
satyr, norn and valkyrie, elf and troll, and "green folk"
generally, were real creatures once again, inhabiting the
orchards and woods and meadows around us, until it seemed as if
the Golden Age had returned to earth.

Then, on the third day, the Story Girl came to us with a very
white face.  She had been over to Uncle Roger's yard to hear the
latest bulletin from the sick room.  Hitherto they had been of a
non-committal nature; but now it was only too evident that she
had bad news.

"Peter is very, very sick," she said miserably.  "He has caught
cold someway--and the measles have struck in--and--and--" the
Story Girl wrung her brown hands together--"the doctor is afraid
he--he--won't get better."

We all stood around, stricken, incredulous.

"Do you mean," said Felix, finding voice at length, "that Peter
is going to die?"

The Story Girl nodded miserably.

"They're afraid so."

Cecily sat down by her half filled basket and began to cry.
Felicity said violently that she didn't believe it.

"I can't pick another apple to-day and I ain't going to try,"
said Dan.

None of us could.  We went to the grown-ups and told them so; and
the grown-ups, with unaccustomed understanding and sympathy, told
us that we need not.  Then we roamed about in our wretchedness
and tried to comfort one another.  We avoided the orchard; it was
for us too full of happy memories to accord with our bitterness
of soul.  Instead, we resorted to the spruce wood, where the hush
and the sombre shadows and the soft, melancholy sighing of the
wind in the branches over us did not jar harshly on our new
sorrow.

We could not really believe that Peter was going to die--to DIE.
Old people died.  Grown-up people died.  Even children of whom we
had heard died.  But that one of US--of our merry little band--
should die was unbelievable.  We could not believe it.  And yet
the possibility struck us in the face like a blow.  We sat on the
mossy stones under the dark old evergreens and gave ourselves up
to wretchedness.  We all, even Dan, cried, except the Story Girl.

"I don't see how you can be so unfeeling, Sara Stanley," said
Felicity reproachfully.  "You've always been such friends with
Peter--and made out you thought so much of him--and now you ain't
shedding a tear for him."

I looked at the Story Girl's dry, piteous eyes, and suddenly
remembered that I had never seen her cry.  When she told us sad
tales, in a voice laden with all the tears that had ever been
shed, she had never shed one of her own.

"I can't cry," she said drearily.  "I wish I could.  I've a
dreadful feeling here--" she touched her slender throat--"and if
I could cry I think it would make it better.  But I can't."

"Maybe Peter will get better after all," said Dan, swallowing a
sob.  "I've heard of lots of people who went and got better after
the doctor said they were going to die."

"While there's life there's hope, you know," said Felix.  "We
shouldn't cross bridges till we come to them."

"Those are only proverbs," said the Story Girl bitterly.
"Proverbs are all very fine when there's nothing to worry you,
but when you're in real trouble they're not a bit of help."

"Oh, I wish I'd never said Peter wasn't fit to associate with,"
moaned Felicity.  "If he ever gets better I'll never say such a
thing again--I'll never THINK it.  He's just a lovely boy and
twice as smart as lots that aren't hired out."

"He was always so polite and good-natured and obliging," sighed
Cecily.

"He was just a real gentleman," said the Story Girl.

"There ain't many fellows as fair and square as Peter," said Dan.

"And such a worker," said Felix.

"Uncle Roger says he never had a boy he could depend on like
Peter," I said.

"It's too late to be saying all these nice things about him now,"
said the Story Girl.  "He won't ever know how much we thought of
him.  It's too late."

"If he gets better I'll tell him," said Cecily resolutely.

"I wish I hadn't boxed his ears that day he tried to kiss me,"
went on Felicity, who was evidently raking her conscience for
past offences in regard to Peter.  "Of course I couldn't be
expected to let a hir--to let a boy kiss me.  But I needn't have
been so cross about it.  I might have been more dignified.  And I
told him I just hated him.  That wasn't true, but I s'pose he'll
die thinking it is.  Oh, dear me, what makes people say things
they've got to be so sorry for afterwards?"

"I suppose if Peter d-d-dies he'll go to heaven anyhow," sobbed
Cecily.  "He's been real good all this summer, but he isn't a
church member."

"He's a Presbyterian, you know," said Felicity reassuringly.  Her
tone expressed her conviction that that would carry Peter through
if anything would.  "We're none of us church members.  But of
course Peter couldn't be sent to the bad place.  That would be
ridiculous.  What would they do with him there, when he's so good
and polite and honest and kind?"

"Oh, I think he'll be all right, too," sighed Cecily, "but you
know he never did go to church and Sunday School before this
summer."

"Well, his father run away, and his mother was too busy earning a
living to bring him up right," argued Felicity.  "Don't you
suppose that anybody, even God, would make allowances for that?"

"Of course Peter will go to heaven," said the Story Girl.  "He's
not grown up enough to go anywhere else.  Children always go to
heaven.  But I don't want him to go there or anywhere else.  I
want him to stay right here.  I know heaven must be a splendid
place, but I'm sure Peter would rather be here, having fun with
us."

"Sara Stanley," rebuked Felicity.  "I should think you wouldn't
say such things at such a solemn time.  You're such a queer
girl."

"Wouldn't you rather be here yourself than in heaven?" said the
Story Girl bluntly.  "Wouldn't you now, Felicity King?  Tell the
truth, 'cross your heart."

But Felicity took refuge from this inconvenient question in
tears.

"If we could only DO something to help Peter!" I said
desperately.  "It seems dreadful not to be able to do a single
thing."

"There's one thing we can do," said Cecily gently.  "We can pray
for him."

"So we can," I agreed.

"I'm going to pray like sixty," said Felix energetically.

"We'll have to be awful good, you know," warned Cecily.  "There's
no use praying if you're not good."

"That will be easy," sighed Felicity.  "I don't feel a bit like
being bad.  If anything happens to Peter I feel sure I'll never
be naughty again.  I won't have the heart."

We did, indeed, pray most sincerely for Peter's recovery.  We did
not, as in the case of Paddy, "tack it on after more important
things," but put it in the very forefront of our petitions.  Even
skeptical Dan prayed, his skepticism falling away from him like a
discarded garment in this valley of the shadow, which sifts out
hearts and tries souls, until we all, grown-up or children,
realize our weakness, and, finding that our own puny strength is
as a reed shaken in the wind, creep back humbly to the God we
have vainly dreamed we could do without.

Peter was no better the next day.  Aunt Olivia reported that his
mother was broken-hearted.  We did not again ask to be released
from work.  Instead, we went at it with feverish zeal.  If we
worked hard there was less time for grief and grievious thoughts.
We picked apples and dragged them to the granary doggedly.  In
the afternoon Aunt Janet brought us a lunch of apple turnovers;
but we could not eat them.  Peter, as Felicity reminded us with a
burst of tears, had been so fond of apple turnovers.

And, oh, how good we were!  How angelically and unnaturally good!
Never was there such a band of kind, sweet-tempered, unselfish
children in any orchard.  Even Felicity and Dan, for once in
their lives, got through the day without any exchange of
left-handed compliments.  Cecily confided to me that she never
meant to put her hair up in curlers on Saturday nights again,
because it was pretending.  She was so anxious to repent of
something, sweet girl, and this was all she could think of.

During the afternoon Judy Pineau brought up a tear-blotted note
from Sara Ray.  Sara had not been allowed to visit the hill farm
since Peter had developed measles.  She was an unhappy little
exile, and could only relieve her anguish of soul by daily
letters to Cecily, which the faithful and obliging Judy Pineau
brought up for her.  These epistles were as gushingly underlined
as if Sara had been a correspondent of early Victorian days.

Cecily did not write back, because Mrs. Ray had decreed that no
letters must be taken down from the hill farm lest they carry
infection.  Cecily had offered to bake every epistle thoroughly
in the oven before sending it; but Mrs. Ray was inexorable, and
Cecily had to content herself by sending long verbal messages
with Judy Pineau.

"My OWN DEAREST Cecily," ran Sara's letter.  "I have just heard
the sad news about POOR DEAR PETER.  I can't describe MY
FEELINGS.  They are DREADFUL.  I have been crying ALL THE
AFTERNOON.  I wish I could FLY to you, but ma will not let me.
She is afraid I will catch the measles, but I would rather have
the measles A DOZEN TIMES OVER than be sepparated from you all
like this.  But I have felt, ever since the Judgment Sunday that
I MUST OBEY MA BETTER than I used to do.  If ANYTHING HAPPENS to
Peter and you are let see him BEFORE IT HAPPENS give him MY LOVE
and tell him HOW SORRY I AM, and that I hope we will ALL meet in
A BETTER WORLD Everything in school is about the same.  The
master is awful cross by spells.  Jimmy Frewen walked home with
Nellie Bowan last night from prayer-meeting and HER ONLY
FOURTEEN.  Don't you think it horrid BEGINNING SO YOUNG?  YOU AND
ME would NEVER do anything like that till we were GROWN UP, would
we?  Willy Fraser looks SO LONESOME in school these days.  I must
stop for ma says I waste FAR TOO MUCH TIME writing letters.  Tell
Judy ALL THE NEWS for me.

                           "Your OWN TRUE FRIEND,
                                                 "SARA RAY.

"P.S.  Oh I DO hope Peter will get better.  Ma is going to get
me a new brown dress for the winter.
                                                         "S. R."

When evening came we went to our seats under the whispering,
sighing fir trees.  It was a beautiful night--clear, windless,
frosty.  Some one galloped down the road on horseback, lustily
singing a comic song.  How dared he?  We felt that it was an
insult to our wretchedness.  If Peter were going to--going
to--well, if anything happened to Peter, we felt so miserably
sure that the music of life would be stilled for us for ever.
How could any one in the world be happy when we were so unhappy?

Presently Aunt Olivia came down the long twilight arcade.  Her
bright hair was uncovered and she looked slim and queen-like in
her light dress.  We thought Aunt Olivia very pretty then.
Looking back from a mature standpoint I realize that she must
have been an unusually beautiful woman; and she looked her
prettiest as she stood under the swaying boughs in the last faint
light of the autumn dusk and smiled down at our woebegone faces.

"Dear, sorrowful little people, I bring you glad tidings of great
joy," she said.  "The doctor has just been here, and he finds
Peter much better, and thinks he will pull through after all."

We gazed up at her in silence for a few moments.  When we had
heard the news of Paddy's recovery we had been noisy and
jubilant; but we were very quiet now.  We had been too near
something dark and terrible and menacing; and though it was thus
suddenly removed the chill and shadow of it were about us still.
Presently the Story Girl, who had been standing up, leaning
against a tall fir, slipped down to the ground in a huddled
fashion and broke into a very passion of weeping.  I had never
heard any one cry so, with dreadful, rending sobs.  I was used to
hearing girls cry.  It was as much Sara Ray's normal state as any
other, and even Felicity and Cecily availed themselves
occasionally of the privilege of sex.  But I had never heard any
girl cry like this.  It gave me the same unpleasant sensation
which I had felt one time when I had seen my father cry.

"Oh, don't, Sara, don't," I said gently, patting her convulsed
shoulder.

"You ARE a queer girl," said Felicity--more tolerantly than usual
however--"you never cried a speck when you thought Peter was
going to die--and now when he is going to get better you cry like
that."

"Sara, child, come with me," said Aunt Olivia, bending over her.
The Story Girl got up and went away, with Aunt Olivia's arms
around her.  The sound of her crying died away under the firs,
and with it seemed to go the dread and grief that had been our
portion for hours.  In the reaction our spirits rose with a
bound.

"Oh, ain't it great that Peter's going to be all right?" said
Dan, springing up.

"I never was so glad of anything in my whole life," declared
Felicity in shameless rapture.

"Can't we send word somehow to Sara Ray to-night?" asked Cecily,
the ever-thoughtful.  "She's feeling so bad--and she'll have to
feel that way till to-morrow if we can't."

"Let's all go down to the Ray gate and holler to Judy Pineau till
she comes out," suggested Felix.

Accordingly, we went and "hollered," with a right good will.  We
were much taken aback to find that Mrs. Ray came to the gate
instead of Judy, and rather sourly demanded what we were yelling
about.  When she heard our news, however, she had the decency to
say she was glad, and to promise she would convey the good
tidings to Sara--"who is already in bed, where all children of
her age should be," added Mrs. Ray severely.

WE had no intention of going to bed for a good two hours yet.
Instead, after devoutly thanking goodness that our grown-ups, in
spite of some imperfections, were not of the Mrs. Ray type, we
betook ourselves to the granary, lighted a huge lantern which Dan
had made out of a turnip, and proceeded to devour all the apples
we might have eaten through the day but had not.  We were a
blithe little crew, sitting there in the light of our goblin
lantern.  We had in very truth been given beauty for ashes and
the oil of joy for mourning.  Life was as a red rose once more.

"I'm going to make a big batch of patty-pans, first thing in the
morning," said Felicity jubilantly.  "Isn't it queer?  Last night
I felt just like praying, and tonight I feel just like cooking."

"We mustn't forget to thank God for making Peter better," said
Cecily, as we finally went to the house.

"Do you s'pose Peter wouldn't have got better anyway?" said Dan.

"Oh, Dan, what makes you ask such questions?" exclaimed Cecily in
real distress.

"I dunno," said Dan.  "They just kind of come into my head, like.
But of course I mean to thank God when I say my prayers to-night.
That's only decent."



CHAPTER XXX. A COMPOUND LETTER

Once Peter was out of danger he recovered rapidly, but he found
his convalescence rather tedious; and Aunt Olivia suggested to us
one day that we write a "compound letter" to amuse him, until he
could come to the window and talk to us from a safe distance.
The idea appealed to us; and, the day being Saturday and the
apples all picked, we betook ourselves to the orchard to compose
our epistles, Cecily having first sent word by a convenient
caller to Sara Ray, that she, too, might have a letter ready.
Later, I, having at that time a mania for preserving all
documents relating to our life in Carlisle, copied those letters
in the blank pages at the back of my dream book.  Hence I can
reproduce them verbatim, with the bouquet they have retained
through all the long years since they were penned in that
autumnal orchard on the hill, with its fading leaves and frosted
grasses, and the "mild, delightsome melancholy" of the late
October day enfolding.

CECILY'S LETTER

"DEAR PETER:--I am so very glad and thankful that you are going
to get better.  We were so afraid you would not last Tuesday, and
we felt dreadful, even Felicity.  We all prayed for you.  I think
the others have stopped now, but I keep it up every night still,
for fear you might have a relaps.  (I don't know if that is
spelled right.  I haven't the dixonary handy, and if I ask the
others Felicity will laugh at me, though she cannot spell lots of
words herself.)  I am saving some of the Honourable Mr. Whalen's
pears for you.  I've got them hid where nobody can find them.
There's only a dozen because Dan et all the rest, but I guess you
will like them.  We have got all the apples picked, and are all
ready to take the measles now, if we have to, but I hope we
won't.  If we have to, though, I'd rather catch them from you
than from any one else, because we are acquainted with you.  If I
do take the measles and anything happens to me Felicity is to
have my cherry vase.  I'd rather give it to the Story Girl, but
Dan says it ought to be kept in the family, even if Felicity is a
crank.  I haven't anything else valuable, since I gave Sara Ray
my forget-me-not jug, but if you would like anything I've got let
me know and I'll leave instructions for you to have it.  The
Story Girl has told us some splendid stories lately.  I wish I
was clever like her.  Ma says it doesn't matter if you're not
clever as long as you are good, but I am not even very good.

"I think this is all my news, except that I want to tell you how
much we all think of you, Peter.  When we heard you were sick we
all said nice things about you, but we were afraid it was too
late, and I said if you got better I'd tell you.  It is easier to
write it than to tell it out to your face.  We think you are
smart and polite and obliging and a great worker and a gentleman.

                         "Your true friend,
                                           "CECILY KING.

"P.S. If you answer my letter don't say anything about the pears,
because I don't want Dan to find out there's any left.     C. K."

FELICITY'S LETTER

"DEAR PETER:--Aunt Olivia says for us all to write a compound
letter to cheer you up.  We are all awful glad you are getting
better.  It gave us an awful scare when we heard you were going
to die.  But you will soon be all right and able to get out
again.  Be careful you don't catch cold.  I am going to bake some
nice things for you and send them over, now that the doctor says
you can eat them.  And I'll send you my rosebud plate to eat off
of.  I'm only lending it, you know, not giving it.  I let very
few people use it because it is my greatest treasure.  Mind you
don't break it.  Aunt Olivia must always wash it, not your
mother.

"I do hope the rest of us won't catch the measles.  It must look
horrid to have red spots all over your face.  We all feel pretty
well yet.  The Story Girl says as many queer things as ever.
Felix thinks he is getting thin, but he is fatter than ever, and
no wonder, with all the apples he eats.  He has give up trying to
eat the bitter apples at last.  Beverley has grown half an inch
since July, by the mark on the hall door, and he is awful pleased
about it.  I told him I guessed the magic seed was taking effect
at last, and he got mad.  He never gets mad at anything the Story
Girl says, and yet she is so sarkastic by times.  Dan is pretty
hard to get along with as usul, but I try to bear pashently with
him.  Cecily is well and says she isn't going to curl her hair
any more.  She is so conscienshus.  I am glad my hair curls of
itself, ain't you?

"We haven't seen Sara Ray since you got sick.  She is awful
lonesome, and Judy says she cries nearly all the time but that is
nothing new.  I'm awful sorry for Sara but I'm glad I'm not her.
She is going to write you a letter too.  You'll let me see what
she puts in it, won't you?  You'd better take some Mexican Tea
now.  It's a great blood purifyer.

"I am going to get a lovely dark blue dress for the winter.  It
is ever so much prettier than Sara Ray's brown one.  Sara Ray's
mother has no taste.  The Story Girl's father is sending her a
new red dress, and a red velvet cap from Paris.  She is so fond
of red.  I can't bear it, it looks so common.  Mother says I can
get a velvet hood too.  Cecily says she doesn't believe it's
right to wear velvet when it's so expensive and the heathen are
crying for the gospel.  She got that idea from a Sunday School
paper but I am going to get my hood all the same.

"Well, Peter, I have no more news so I will close for this time.

"hoping you will soon be quite well, I remain
                                   "yours sincerely,
                                         "FELICITY KING.

"P.S. The Story Girl peeked over my shoulder and says I ought to
have signed it 'yours affeckshunately,' but I know better,
because the _Family Guide_ has told lots of times how you should
sign yourself when you are writing to a young man who is only a
friend.                                                  F. K."

FELIX' LETTER

"DEAR PETER:--I am awful glad you are getting better.  We all
felt bad when we thought you wouldn't, but I felt worse than the
others because we hadn't been on very good terms lately and I had
said mean things about you.  I'm sorry and, Peter, you can pray
for anything you like and I won't ever object again.  I'm glad
Uncle Alec interfered and stopped the fight.  If I had licked you
and you had died of the measles it would have been a dreadful
thing.

"We have all the apples in and haven't much to do just now and we
are having lots of fun but we wish you were here to join in.  I'm
a lot thinner than I was.  I guess working so hard picking apples
is a good thing to make you thin.  The girls are all well.
Felicity puts on as many airs as ever, but she makes great things
to eat.  I have had some splendid dreams since we gave up writing
them down.  That is always the way.  We ain't going to school
till we're sure we are not going to have the measles.  This is
all I can think of, so I will draw to a close.  Remember, you can
pray for anything you like.                          FELIX KING."

SARA RAY'S LETTER

"DEAR PETER:--I never wrote to A BOY before, so PLEASE excuse ALL
mistakes.  I am SO glad you are getting better.  We were SO
afraid you were GOING TO DIE.  I CRIED ALL NIGHT about it.  But
now that you are OUT OF DANGER will you tell me WHAT IT REALLY
FEELS LIKE to think you are going to die?  Does it FEEL QUEER?
Were you VERY badly frightened?

"Ma won't let me go up the hill AT ALL now.  I would DIE if it
was not for Judy Pinno.  (The French names are SO HARD TO SPELL.)
JUDY IS VERY OBLIGING and I feel that she SIMPATHISES WITH ME.
In my LONELY HOURS I read my dream book and Cecily's old letters
and they are SUCH A COMFORT to me.  I have been reading one of
the school library books too.  I is PRETTY GOOD but I wish they
had got more LOVE STORIES because they are so exciting.  But the
master would not let them.

"If you had DIED, Peter, and YOUR FATHER had heard it wouldn't he
have FELT DREADFUL?  We are having BEAUTIFUL WEATHER and the
seenary is fine since the leaves turned.  I think there is
nothing so pretty as Nature after all.

"I hope ALL DANGER from the measles will soon be over and we can
ALL MEET AGAIN AT THE HOME ON THE HILL.  Till then FAREWELL.
                         "Your true friend,
                                           "SARA RAY.

"P. S. Don't let Felicity see this letter.                 S. R."

DAN'S LETTER

"DEAR OLD PETE:--Awful glad you cheated the doctor.  I thought
you weren't the kind to turn up your toes so easy.  You should of
heard the girls crying.

"They're all getting their winter finery now and the talk about
it would make you sick.  The Story Girl is getting hers from
Paris and Felicity is awful jealous though she pretends she
isn't.  I can see through her.

"Kitt Mar was up here Thursday to see the girls.  She's had the
measles so she isn't scared.  She's a great girl to laugh.  I
like a girl that laughs, don't you?

"We had a call from Peg Bowen yesterday.  You should of seen the
Story Girl hustling Pat out of the way, for all she says she
don't believe he was bewitched.  Peg had your rheumatism ring on
and the Story Girl's blue beads and Sara Ray's lace soed across
the front of her dress.  She wanted some tobacco and some
pickles.  Ma gave her some pickles but said we didn't have no
tobacco and Peg went off mad but I guess she wouldn't bewitch
anything on account of the pickles.

"I ain't any hand to write letters so I guess I'll stop.  Hope
you'll be out soon.                                        DAN."

THE STORY GIRL'S LETTER

"DEAR PETER:--Oh, how glad I am that you are getting better!
Those days when we thought you wouldn't were the hardest of my
whole life.  It seemed too dreadful to be true that perhaps you
would die.  And then when we heard you were going to get better
that seemed too good to be true.  Oh, Peter, hurry up and get
well, for we are having such good times and we miss you so much.
I have coaxed Uncle Alec not to burn his potato stalks till you
are well, because I remember how you always liked to see the
potato stalks burn.  Uncle Alec consented, though Aunt Janet said
it was high time they were burned.  Uncle Roger burned his last
night and it was such fun.

"Pat is splendid.  He has never had a sick spell since that bad
one.  I would send him over to be company for you, but Aunt Janet
says no, because he might carry the measles back.  I don't see
how he could, but we must obey Aunt Janet.  She is very good to
us all, but I know she does not approve of me.  She says I'm my
father's own child.  I know that doesn't mean anything
complimentary because she looked so queer when she saw that I had
heard her, but I don't care.  I'm glad I'm like father.  I had a
splendid letter from him this week, with the darlingest pictures
in it.  He is painting a new picture which is going to make him
famous.  I wonder what Aunt Janet will say then.

"Do you know, Peter, yesterday I thought I saw the Family Ghost
at last.  I was coming through the gap in the hedge, and I saw
somebody in blue standing under Uncle Alec's tree.  How my heart
beat!  My hair should have stood up on end with terror but it
didn't.  I felt to see, and it was lying down quite flat.  But it
was only a visitor after all.  I don't know whether I was glad or
disappointed.  I don't think it would be a pleasant experience to
see the ghost.  But after I had seen it think what a heroine I
would be!

"Oh, Peter, what do you think?  I have got acquainted with the
Awkward Man at last.  I never thought it would be so easy.
Yesterday Aunt Olivia wanted some ferns, so I went back to the
maple woods to get them for her, and I found some lovely ones by
the spring.  And while I was sitting there, looking into the
spring who should come along but the Awkward Man himself.  He sat
right down beside me and began to talk.  I never was so surprised
in my life.  We had a very interesting talk, and I told him two
of my best stories, and a great many of my secrets into the
bargain.  They may say what they like, but he was not one bit shy
or awkward, and he has beautiful eyes.  He did not tell me any of
his secrets, but I believe he will some day.  Of course I never
said a word about his Alice-room.  But I gave him a hint about
his little brown book.  I said I loved poetry and often felt like
writing it, and then I said, 'Do you ever feel like that, Mr.
Dale?'  He said, yes, he sometimes felt that way, but he did not
mention the brown book.  I thought he might have.  But after all
I don't like people who tell you everything the first time you
meet them, like Sara Ray.  When he went away he said, 'I hope I
shall have the pleasure of meeting you again,' just as seriously
and politely as if I was a grown-up young lady.  I am sure he
could never have said it if I had been really grown up.  I told
him it was likely he would and that he wasn't to mind if I had a
longer skirt on next time, because I'd be just the same person.

"I told the children a beautiful new fairy story to-day.  I made
them go to the spruce wood to hear it.  A spruce wood is the
proper place to tell fairy stories in.  Felicity says she can't
see that it makes any difference where you tell them, but oh, it
does.  I wish you had been there to hear it too, but when you are
well I will tell it over again for you.

"I am going to call the southernwood 'appleringie' after this.
Beverley says that is what they call it in Scotland, and I think
it sounds so much more poetical than southernwood.  Felicity says
the right name is 'Boy's Love,' but I think that sounds silly.

"Oh, Peter, shadows are such pretty things.  The orchard is full
of them this very minute.  Sometimes they are so still you would
think them asleep.  Then they go laughing and skipping.  Outside,
in the oat field, they are always chasing each other.  They are
the wild shadows.  The shadows in the orchard are the tame
shadows.

"Everything seems to be rather tired growing except the spruces
and chrysanthemums in Aunt Olivia's garden.  The sunshine is so
thick and yellow and lazy, and the crickets sing all day long.
The birds are nearly all gone and most of the maple leaves have
fallen.

"Just to make you laugh I'll write you a little story I heard
Uncle Alec telling last night.  It was about Elder Frewen's
grandfather taking a pair of rope reins to lead a piano home.
Everybody laughed except Aunt Janet.  Old Mr. Frewen was HER
grandfather too, and she wouldn't laugh.  One day when old Mr.
Frewen was a young man of eighteen his father came home and said,
'Sandy, I bought a piano at Simon Ward's sale to-day.  You're to
go to-morrow and bring it home.'  So next day Sandy started off
on horseback with a pair of rope reins to lead the piano home.
He thought it was some kind of livestock.

"And then Uncle Roger told about old Mark Ward who got up to make
a speech at a church missionary social when he was drunk.  (Of
course he didn't get drunk at the social.  He went there that
way.)  And this was his speech.

"'Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, I can't express my thoughts
on this grand subject of missions.  It's in this poor human
critter'--patting himself on the breast--'but he can't git it
out.'

"I'll tell you these stories when you get well.  I can tell them
ever so much better than I can write them.

"I know Felicity is wondering why I'm writing such a long letter,
so perhaps I'd better stop.  If your mother reads it to you there
is a good deal of it she may not understand, but I think your
Aunt Jane would.
      "I remain
              "your very affectionate friend,
                                       "SARA STANLEY."

I did not keep a copy of my own letter, and I have forgotten
everything that was in it, except the first sentence, in which I
told Peter I was awful glad he was getting better.

Peter's delight on receiving our letters knew no bounds.  He
insisted on answering them and his letter, painstakingly
disinfected, was duly delivered to us.  Aunt Olivia had written
it at his dictation, which was a gain, as far as spelling and
punctuation went.  But Peter's individuality seemed merged and
lost in Aunt Olivia's big, dashing script.  Not until the Story
Girl read the letter to us in the granary by jack-o-lantern
light, in a mimicry of Peter's very voice, did we savour the real
bouquet of it.

PETER'S LETTER

"DEAR EVERYBODY, BUT ESPECIALLY FELICITY:--I was awful glad to
get your letters.  It makes you real important to be sick, but
the time seems awful long when you're getting better.  Your
letters were all great, but I liked Felicity's best, and next to
hers the Story Girl's.  Felicity, it will be awful good of you to
send me things to eat and the rosebud plate.  I'll be awful
careful of it.  I hope you won't catch the measles, for they are
not nice, especially when they strike in, but you would look all
right, even if you did have red spots on your face.  I would like
to try the Mexican Tea, because you want me to, but mother says
no, she doesn't believe in it, and Burtons Bitters are a great
deal healthier.  If I was you I would get the velvet hood all
right.  The heathen live in warm countries so they don't want
hoods.

"I'm glad you are still praying for me, Cecily, for you can't
trust the measles.  And I'm glad you're keeping you know what for
me.  I don't believe anything will happen to you if you do take
the measles; but if anything does I'd like that little red book
of yours, _The Safe Compass_, just to remember you by.  It's such
a good book to read on Sundays.  It is interesting and religious,
too.  So is the Bible.  I hadn't quite finished the Bible before
I took the measles, but ma is reading the last chapters to me.
There's an awful lot in that book.  I can't understand the whole
of it, since I'm only a hired boy, but some parts are real easy.

"I'm awful glad you have such a good opinion of me.  I don't
deserve it, but after this I'll try to.  I can't tell you how I
feel about all your kindness.  I'm like the fellow the Story Girl
wrote about who couldn't get it out.  I have the picture the
Story Girl gave me for my sermon on the wall at the foot of my
bed.  I like to look at it, it looks so much like Aunt Jane.

"Felix, I've given up praying that I'd be the only one to eat the
bitter apples, and I'll never pray for anything like that again.
It was a horrid mean prayer.  I didn't know it then, but after
the measles struck in I found out it was.  Aunt Jane wouldn't
have liked it.  After this I'm going to pray prayers I needn't be
ashamed of.

"Sara Ray, I don't know what it feels like to be going to die
because I didn't know I was going to die till I got better.
Mother says I was luny most of the time after they struck in.  It
was just because they struck in I was luny.  I ain't luny
naturally, Felicity.  I will do what you asked in your
postscript, Sara, although it will be hard.

"I'm glad Peg Bowen didn't catch you, Dan.  Maybe she bewitched
me that night we were at her place, and that is why the measles
struck in.  I'm awful glad Mr. King is going to leave the potato
stalks until I get well, and I'm obliged to the Story Girl for
coaxing him.  I guess she will find out about Alice yet.  There
were some parts of her letter I couldn't see through, but when
the measles strike in, they leave you stupid for a spell.
Anyhow, it was a fine letter, and they were all fine, and I'm
awful glad I have so many nice friends, even if I am only a hired
boy.  Perhaps I'd never have found it out if the measles hadn't
struck in.  So I'm glad they did but I hope they never will
again.
             "Your obedient servant,
                                 "PETER CRAIG."



CHAPTER XXXI. ON THE EDGE OF LIGHT AND DARK

We celebrated the November day when Peter was permitted to rejoin
us by a picnic in the orchard.  Sara Ray was also allowed to
come, under protest; and her joy over being among us once more
was almost pathetic.  She and Cecily cried in one another's arms
as if they had been parted for years.

We had a beautiful day for our picnic.  November dreamed that it
was May.  The air was soft and mellow, with pale, aerial mists in
the valleys and over the leafless beeches on the western hill.
The sere stubble fields brooded in glamour, and the sky was
pearly blue.  The leaves were still thick on the apple trees,
though they were russet hued, and the after-growth of grass was
richly green, unharmed as yet by the nipping frosts of previous
nights.  The wind made a sweet, drowsy murmur in the boughs, as
of bees among apple blossoms.

"It's just like spring, isn't it?" asked Felicity.

The Story Girl shook her head.

"No, not quite.  It looks like spring, but it isn't spring.  It's
as if everything was resting--getting ready to sleep.  In spring
they're getting ready to grow.  Can't you FEEL the difference?"

"I think it's just like spring," insisted Felicity.

In the sun-sweet place before the Pulpit Stone we boys had put up
a board table.  Aunt Janet allowed us to cover it with an old
tablecloth, the worn places in which the girls artfully concealed
with frost-whitened ferns.  We had the kitchen dishes, and the
table was gaily decorated with Cecily's three scarlet geraniums
and maple leaves in the cherry vase.  As for the viands, they
were fit for the gods on high Olympus.  Felicity had spent the
whole previous day and the forenoon of the picnic day in
concocting them.  Her crowning achievement was a rich little plum
cake, on the white frosting of which the words "Welcome Back"
were lettered in pink candies.  This was put before Peter's
place, and almost overcame him.

"To think that you'd go to so much trouble for me!" he said, with
a glance of adoring gratitude at Felicity.  Felicity got all the
gratitude, although the Story Girl had originated the idea and
seeded the raisins and beaten the eggs, while Cecily had trudged
all the way to Mrs. Jameson's little shop below the church to buy
the pink candies.  But that is the way of the world.

"We ought to have grace," said Felicity, as we sat down at the
festal board.  "Will any one say it?"

She looked at me, but I blushed to the roots of my hair and shook
my head sheepishly.  An awkward pause ensued; it looked as if we
would have to proceed without grace, when Felix suddenly shut his
eyes, bent his head, and said a very good grace without any
appearance of embarrassment.  We looked at him when it was over
with an increase of respect.

"Where on earth did you learn that, Felix?" I asked.

"It's the grace Uncle Alec says at every meal," answered Felix.

We felt rather ashamed of ourselves.  Was it possible that we had
paid so little attention to Uncle Alec's grace that we did not
recognize it when we heard it on other lips?

"Now," said Felicity jubilantly, "let's eat everything up."

In truth, it was a merry little feast.  We had gone without our
dinners, in order to "save our appetites," and we did ample
justice to Felicity's good things.  Paddy sat on the Pulpit Stone
and watched us with great yellow eyes, knowing that tidbits would
come his way later on.  Many witty things were said--or at least
we thought them witty--and uproarious was the laughter.  Never
had the old King orchard known a blither merrymaking or lighter
hearts.

The picnic over, we played games until the early falling dusk,
and then we went with Uncle Alec to the back field to burn the
potato stalks--the crowning delight of the day.

The stalks were in heaps all over the field, and we were allowed
the privilege of setting fire to them.  'Twas glorious!  In a few
minutes the field was alight with blazing bonfires, over which
rolled great, pungent clouds of smoke.  From pile to pile we ran,
shrieking with delight, to poke each up with a long stick and
watch the gush of rose-red sparks stream off into the night.  In
what a whirl of smoke and firelight and wild, fantastic, hurtling
shadows we were!

When we grew tired of our sport we went to the windward side of
the field and perched ourselves on the high pole fence that
skirted a dark spruce wood, full of strange, furtive sounds.
Over us was a great, dark sky, blossoming with silver stars, and
all around lay dusky, mysterious reaches of meadow and wood in
the soft, empurpled night.  Away to the east a shimmering
silveryness beneath a palace of aerial cloud foretokened
moonrise.  But directly before us the potato field, with its
wreathing smoke and sullen flames, the gigantic shadow of Uncle
Alec crossing and recrossing it, reminded us of Peter's famous
description of the bad place, and probably suggested the Story
Girl's remark.

"I know a story," she said, infusing just the right shade of
weirdness into her voice, "about a man who saw the devil.  Now,
what's the matter, Felicity?"

"I can never get used to the way you mention the--the--that
name," complained Felicity.  "To hear you speak of the Old
Scratch any one would think he was just a common person."

"Never mind.  Tell us the story," I said curiously.

"It is about Mrs. John Martin's uncle at Markdale," said the
Story Girl.  "I heard Uncle Roger telling it the other night.  He
didn't know I was sitting on the cellar hatch outside the window,
or I don't suppose he would have told it.  Mrs. Martin's uncle's
name was William Cowan, and he has been dead for twenty years;
but sixty years ago he was a young man, and a very wild, wicked
young man.  He did everything bad he could think of, and never
went to church, and he laughed at everything religious, even the
devil.  He didn't believe there was a devil at all.  One
beautiful summer Sunday evening his mother pleaded with him to go
to church with her, but he would not.  He told her that he was
going fishing instead, and when church time came he swaggered
past the church, with his fishing rod over his shoulder, singing
a godless song.  Half way between the church and the harbour
there was a thick spruce wood, and the path ran through it.  When
William Cowan was half way through it SOMETHING came out of the
wood and walked beside him."

I have never heard anything more horribly suggestive than that
innocent word "something," as enunciated by the Story Girl.  I
felt Cecily's hand, icy cold, clutching mine.

"What--what--was IT like?" whispered Felix, curiosity getting the
better of his terror.

"IT was tall, and black, and hairy," said the Story Girl, her
eyes glowing with uncanny intensity in the red glare of the
fires, "and IT lifted one great, hairy hand, with claws on the
end of it, and clapped William Cowan, first on one shoulder and
then on the other, and said, 'Good sport to you, brother.'
William Cowan gave a horrible scream and fell on his face right
there in the wood.  Some of the men around the church door heard
the scream, and they rushed down to the wood.  They saw nothing
but William Cowan, lying like a dead man on the path.  They took
him up and carried him home; and when they undressed him to put
him to bed, there, on each shoulder, was the mark of a big hand,
BURNED INTO THE FLESH.  It was weeks before the burns healed, and
the scars never went away.  Always, as long as William Cowan
lived, he carried on his shoulders the prints of the devil's
hand."

I really do not know how we should ever have got home, had we
been left to our own devices.  We were cold with fright.  How
could we turn our backs on the eerie spruce wood, out of which
SOMETHING might pop at any moment?  How cross those long, shadowy
fields between us and our rooftree?  How venture through the
darkly mysterious bracken hollow?

Fortunately, Uncle Alec came along at this crisis and said he
thought we'd better come home now, since the fires were nearly
out.  We slid down from the fence and started, taking care to
keep close together and in front of Uncle Alec.

"I don't believe a word of that yarn," said Dan, trying to speak
with his usual incredulity.

"I don't see how you can help believing it," said Cecily.  "It
isn't as if it was something we'd read of, or that happened far
away.  It happened just down at Markdale, and I've seen that very
spruce wood myself."

"Oh, I suppose William Cowan got a fright of some kind," conceded
Dan, "but I don't believe he saw the devil."

"Old Mr. Morrison at Lower Markdale was one of the men who
undressed him, and he remembers seeing the marks," said the Story
Girl triumphantly.

"How did William Cowan behave afterwards?" I asked.

"He was a changed man," said the Story Girl solemnly.  "Too much
changed.  He never was known to laugh again, or even smile.  He
became a very religious man, which was a good thing, but he was
dreadfully gloomy and thought everything pleasant sinful.  He
wouldn't even eat any more than was actually necessary to keep
him alive.  Uncle Roger says that if he had been a Roman Catholic
he would have become a monk, but, as he was a Presbyterian, all
he could do was to turn into a crank."

"Yes, but your Uncle Roger was never clapped on the shoulder and
called brother by the devil," said Peter.  "If he had, he
mightn't have been so precious jolly afterwards himself."

"I do wish to goodness," said Felicity in exasperation, "that
you'd stop talking of the--the--of such subjects in the dark.
I'm so scared now that I keep thinking father's steps behind us
are SOMETHING'S.  Just think, my own father!"

The Story Girl slipped her arm through Felicity's.

"Never mind," she said soothingly.  "I'll tell you another
story--such a beautiful story that you'll forget all about the
devil."

She told us one of Hans Andersen's most exquisite tales; and the
magic of her voice charmed away all our fear, so that when we
reached the bracken hollow, a lake of shadow surrounded by the
silver shore of moonlit fields, we all went through it without a
thought of His Satanic Majesty at all.  And beyond us, on the
hill, the homelight was glowing from the farmhouse window like a
beacon of old loves.



CHAPTER XXXII. THE OPENING OF THE BLUE CHEST

November wakened from her dream of May in a bad temper.  The day
after the picnic a cold autumn rain set in, and we got up to find
our world a drenched, wind-writhen place, with sodden fields and
dour skies.  The rain was weeping on the roof as if it were
shedding the tears of old sorrows; the willow by the gate tossed
its gaunt branches wildly, as if it were some passionate,
spectral thing, wringing its fleshless hands in agony; the
orchard was haggard and uncomely; nothing seemed the same except
the staunch, trusty, old spruces.

It was Friday, but we were not to begin going to school again
until Monday, so we spent the day in the granary, sorting apples
and hearing tales.  In the evening the rain ceased, the wind came
around to the northwest, freezing suddenly, and a chilly yellow
sunset beyond the dark hills seemed to herald a brighter morrow.

Felicity and the Story Girl and I walked down to the post-office
for the mail, along a road where fallen leaves went eddying
fitfully up and down before us in weird, uncanny dances of their
own.  The evening was full of eerie sounds--the creaking of fir
boughs, the whistle of the wind in the tree-tops, the vibrations
of strips of dried bark on the rail fences.  But we carried
summer and sunshine in our hearts, and the bleak unloveliness of
the outer world only intensified our inner radiance.

Felicity wore her new velvet hood, with a coquettish little
collar of white fur about her neck.  Her golden curls framed her
lovely face, and the wind stung the pink of her cheeks to
crimson.  On my left hand walked the Story Girl, her red cap on
her jaunty brown head.  She scattered her words along the path
like the pearls and diamonds of the old fairy tale.  I remember
that I strutted along quite insufferably, for we met several of
the Carlisle boys and I felt that I was an exceptionally lucky
fellow to have such beauty on one side and such charm on the
other.

There was one of father's thin letters for Felix, a fat, foreign
letter for the Story Girl, addressed in her father's minute
handwriting, a drop letter for Cecily from some school friend,
with "In Haste" written across the corner, and a letter for Aunt
Janet, postmarked Montreal.

"I can't think who that is from," said Felicity.  "Nobody in
Montreal ever writes to mother.  Cecily's letter is from Em
Frewen.  She always puts 'In Haste' on her letters, no matter
what is in them."

When we reached home, Aunt Janet opened and read her Montreal
letter.  Then she laid it down and looked about her in
astonishment.

"Well, did ever any mortal!" she said.

"What in the world is the matter?" said Uncle Alec.

"This letter is from James Ward's wife in Montreal," said Aunt
Janet solemnly.  "Rachel Ward is dead.  And she told James' wife
to write to me and tell me to open the old blue chest."

"Hurrah!" shouted Dan.

"Donald King," said his mother severely, "Rachel Ward was your
relation and she is dead.  What do you mean by such behaviour?"

"I never was acquainted with her," said Dan sulkily.  "And I
wasn't hurrahing because she is dead.  I hurrahed because that
blue chest is to be opened at last."

"So poor Rachel is gone," said Uncle Alec.  "She must have been
an old woman--seventy-five I suppose.  I remember her as a fine,
blooming young woman.  Well, well, and so the old chest is to be
opened at last.  What is to be done with its contents?"

"Rachel left instructions about them," answered Aunt Janet,
referring to the letter.  "The wedding dress and veil and letters
are to be burned.  There are two jugs in it which are to be sent
to James' wife.  The rest of the things are to be given around
among the connection.  Each members is to have one, 'to remember
her by.'"

"Oh, can't we open it right away this very night?" said Felicity
eagerly.

"No, indeed!" Aunt Janet folded up the letter decidedly.  "That
chest has been locked up for fifty years, and it'll stand being
locked up one more night.  You children wouldn't sleep a wink
to-night if we opened it now.  You'd go wild with excitement."

"I'm sure I won't sleep anyhow," said Felicity.  "Well, at least
you'll open it the first thing in the morning, won't you, ma?"

"No, I'll do nothing of the sort," was Aunt Janet's pitiless
decree.  "I want to get the work out of the way first--and Roger
and Olivia will want to be here, too.  We'll say ten o'clock
to-morrow forenoon."

"That's sixteen whole hours yet," sighed Felicity.

"I'm going right over to tell the Story Girl," said Cecily.
"Won't she be excited!"

We were all excited.  We spent the evening speculating on the
possible contents of the chest, and Cecily dreamed miserably that
night that the moths had eaten everything in it.

The morning dawned on a beautiful world.  A very slight fall of
snow had come in the night--just enough to look like a filmy veil
of lace flung over the dark evergreens, and the hard frozen
ground.  A new blossom time seemed to have revisited the orchard.
The spruce wood behind the house appeared to be woven out of
enchantment.  There is nothing more beautiful than a thickly
growing wood of firs lightly powdered with new-fallen snow.  As
the sun remained hidden by gray clouds, this fairy-beauty lasted
all day.

The Story Girl came over early in the morning, and Sara Ray, to
whom faithful Cecily had sent word, was also on hand.  Felicity
did not approve of this.

"Sara Ray isn't any relation to our family," she scolded to
Cecily, "and she has no right to be present."

"She's a particular friend of mine," said Cecily with dignity.
"We have her in everything, and it would hurt her feelings
dreadfully to be left out of this.  Peter is no relation either,
but he is going to be here when we open it, so why shouldn't
Sara?"

"Peter ain't a member of the family YET, but maybe he will be
some day.  Hey, Felicity?" said Dan.

"You're awful smart, aren't you, Dan King?" said Felicity,
reddening.  "Perhaps you'd like to send for Kitty Marr,
too--though she DOES laugh at your big mouth."

"It seems as if ten o'clock would never come," sighed the Story
Girl.  "The work is all done, and Aunt Olivia and Uncle Roger are
here, and the chest might just as well be opened right away."

"Mother SAID ten o'clock and she'll stick to it," said Felicity
crossly.  "It's only nine now."

"Let us put the clock on half an hour," said the Story Girl.
"The clock in the hall isn't going, so no one will know the
difference."

We all looked at each other.

"I wouldn't dare," said Felicity irresolutely.

"Oh, if that's all, I'll do it," said the Story Girl.

When ten o'clock struck Aunt Janet came into the kitchen,
remarking innocently that it hadn't seemed anytime since nine.
We must have looked horribly guilty, but none of the grown-ups
suspected anything.  Uncle Alec brought in the axe, and pried off
the cover of the old blue chest, while everybody stood around in
silence.

Then came the unpacking.  It was certainly an interesting
performance.  Aunt Janet and Aunt Olivia took everything out and
laid it on the kitchen table.  We children were forbidden to
touch anything, but fortunately we were not forbidden the use of
our eyes and tongues.

"There are the pink and gold vases Grandmother King gave her,"
said Felicity, as Aunt Olivia unwrapped from their tissue paper
swathings a pair of slender, old-fashioned, twisted vases of pink
glass, over which little gold leaves were scattered.  "Aren't
they handsome?"

"And oh," exclaimed Cecily in delight, "there's the china fruit
basket with the apple on the handle.  Doesn't it look real?  I've
thought so much about it.  Oh, mother, please let me hold it for
a minute.  I'll be as careful as careful."

"There comes the china set Grandfather King gave her," said the
Story Girl wistfully.  "Oh, it makes me feel sad.  Think of all
the hopes that Rachel Ward must have put away in this chest with
all her pretty things."

Following these, came a quaint little candlestick of blue china,
and the two jugs which were to be sent to James' wife.

"They ARE handsome," said Aunt Janet rather enviously.  "They
must be a hundred years old.  Aunt Sara Ward gave them to Rachel,
and she had them for at least fifty years.  I should have thought
one would have been enough for James' wife.  But of course we
must do just as Rachel wished.  I declare, here's a dozen tin
patty pans!"

"Tin patty pans aren't very romantic," said the Story Girl
discontentedly.

"I notice that you are as fond as any one of what is baked in
them," said Aunt Janet.  "I've heard of those patty pans.  An old
servant Grandmother King had gave them to Rachel.  Now we are
coming to the linen.  That was Uncle Edward Ward's present.  How
yellow it has grown."

We children were not greatly interested in the sheets and
tablecloths and pillow-cases which now came out of the capacious
depths of the old blue chest.  But Aunt Olivia was quite
enraptured over them.

"What sewing!" she said.  "Look, Janet, you'd almost need a
magnifying glass to see the stitches.  And the dear,
old-fashioned pillow-slips with buttons on them!"

"Here are a dozen handkerchiefs," said Aunt Janet.  "Look at the
initial in the corner of each.  Rachel learned that stitch from a
nun in Montreal.  It looks as if it was woven into the material."

"Here are her quilts," said Aunt Olivia.  "Yes, there is the blue
and white counterpane Grandmother Ward gave her--and the Rising
Sun quilt her Aunt Nancy made for her--and the braided rug.  The
colours are not faded one bit.  I want that rug, Janet."

Underneath the linen were Rachel Ward's wedding clothes.  The
excitement of the girls waxed red hot over these.  There was a
Paisley shawl in the wrappings in which it had come from the
store, and a wide scarf of some yellowed lace.  There was the
embroidered petticoat which had cost Felicity such painful
blushes, and a dozen beautifully worked sets of the fine muslin
"undersleeves" which had been the fashion in Rachel Ward's youth.

"This was to have been her appearing out dress," said Aunt
Olivia, lifting out a shot green silk.  "It is all cut to
pieces--but what a pretty soft shade it was!  Look at the skirt,
Janet.  How many yards must it measure around?"

"Hoopskirts were in then," said Aunt Janet.  "I don't see her
wedding hat here.  I was always told that she packed it away,
too."

"So was I.  But she couldn't have.  It certainly isn't here.  I
have heard that the white plume on it cost a small fortune.  Here
is her black silk mantle.  It seems like sacrilege to meddle with
these clothes."

"Don't be foolish, Olivia.  They must be unpacked at least.  And
they must all be burned since they have cut so badly.  This
purple cloth dress is quite good, however.  It can be made over
nicely, and it would become you very well, Olivia."

"No, thank you," said Aunt Olivia, with a little shudder.  "I
should feel like a ghost.  Make it over for yourself, Janet."

"Well, I will, if you don't want it.  I am not troubled with
fancies.  That seems to be all except this box.  I suppose the
wedding dress is in it."

"Oh," breathed the girls, crowding about Aunt Olivia, as she
lifted out the box and cut the cord around it.  Inside was lying
a dress of soft silk, that had once been white but was now
yellowed with age, and, enfolding it like a mist, a long, white
bridal veil, redolent with some strange, old-time perfume that
had kept its sweetness through all the years.

"Poor Rachel Ward," said Aunt Olivia softly.  "Here is her point
lace handkerchief.  She made it herself.  It is like a spider's
web.  Here are the letters Will Montague wrote her.  And here,"
she added, taking up a crimson velvet case with a tarnished gilt
clasp, "are their photographs--his and hers."

We looked eagerly at the daguerreotypes in the old case.

"Why, Rachel Ward wasn't a bit pretty!" exclaimed the Story Girl
in poignant disappointment.

No, Rachel Ward was not pretty, that had to be admitted.  The
picture showed a fresh young face, with strongly marked,
irregular features, large black eyes, and black curls hanging
around the shoulders in old-time style.

"Rachel wasn't pretty," said Uncle Alec, "but she had a lovely
colour, and a beautiful smile.  She looks far too sober in that
picture."

"She has a beautiful neck and bust," said Aunt Olivia critically.

"Anyhow, Will Montague was really handsome," said the Story Girl.

"A handsome rogue," growled Uncle Alec.  "I never liked him.  I
was only a little chap of ten but I saw through him.  Rachel Ward
was far too good for him."

We would dearly have liked to get a peep into the letters, too.
But Aunt Olivia would not allow that.  They must be burned
unread, she declared.  She took the wedding dress and veil, the
picture case, and the letters away with her.  The rest of the
things were put back into the chest, pending their ultimate
distribution.  Aunt Janet gave each of us boys a handkerchief.
The Story Girl got the blue candlestick, and Felicity and Cecily
each got a pink and gold vase.  Even Sara Ray was made happy by
the gift of a little china plate, with a loudly coloured picture
of Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh in the middle of it.  Moses
wore a scarlet cloak, while Aaron disported himself in bright
blue.  Pharaoh was arrayed in yellow.  The plate had a scalloped
border with a wreath of green leaves around it.

"I shall never use it to eat off," said Sara rapturously.  "I'll
put it up on the parlour mantelpiece."

"I don't see much use in having a plate just for ornament," said
Felicity.

"It's nice to have something interesting to look at," retorted
Sara, who felt that the soul must have food as well as the body.

"I'm going to get a candle for my candlestick, and use it every
night to go to bed with," said the Story Girl.  "And I'll never
light it without thinking of poor Rachel Ward.  But I DO wish she
had been pretty."

"Well," said Felicity, with a glance at the clock, "it's all
over, and it has been very interesting.  But that clock has got
to be put back to the right time some time through the day.  I
don't want bedtime coming a whole half-hour before it ought to."

In the afternoon, when Aunt Janet was over at Uncle Roger's,
seeing him and Aunt Olivia off to town, the clock was righted.
The Story Girl and Peter came over to stay all night with us, and
we made taffy in the kitchen, which the grown-ups kindly gave
over to us for that purpose.

"Of course it was very interesting to see the old chest
unpacked," said the Story Girl as she stirred the contents of a
saucepan vigorously.  "But now that it is over I believe I am
sorry that it is opened.  It isn't mysterious any longer.  We
know all about it now, and we can never imagine what things are
in it any more."

"It's better to know than to imagine," said Felicity.

"Oh, no, it isn't," said the Story Girl quickly.  "When you know
things you have to go by facts.  But when you just dream about
things there's nothing to hold you down."

"You're letting the taffy scorch, and THAT'S a fact you'd better
go by," said Felicity sniffing.  "Haven't you got a nose?"

When we went to bed, that wonderful white enchantress, the moon,
was making an elf-land of the snow-misted world outside.  From
where I lay I could see the sharp tops of the spruces against the
silvery sky.  The frost was abroad, and the winds were still and
the land lay in glamour.

Across the hall, the Story Girl was telling Felicity and Cecily
the old, old tale of Argive Helen and "evil-hearted Paris."

"But that's a bad story," said Felicity when the tale was ended.
"She left her husband and run away with another man."

"I suppose it was bad four thousand years ago," admitted the
Story Girl.  "But by this time the bad must have all gone out of
it.  It's only the good that could last so long."


Our summer was over.  It had been a beautiful one.  We had known
the sweetness of common joys, the delight of dawns, the dream and
glamour of noontides, the long, purple peace of carefree nights.
We had had the pleasure of bird song, of silver rain on greening
fields, of storm among the trees, of blossoming meadows, and of
the converse of whispering leaves.  We had had brotherhood with
wind and star, with books and tales, and hearth fires of autumn.
Ours had been the little, loving tasks of every day, blithe
companionship, shared thoughts, and adventuring.  Rich were we in
the memory of those opulent months that had gone from us--richer
than we then knew or suspected.  And before us was the dream of
spring.  It is always safe to dream of spring.  For it is sure to
come; and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be
infinitely sweeter.

THE END.








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 2500  2000 December
 3000  2001 November
 4000  2001 October/November
 6000  2002 December*
 9000  2003 November*
10000  2004 January*


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