This performed, the picture-books were brought forth and she was soon busy explaining the pictures to the pleased little girl. But this diversion she soon tired of and then came the cry, “Oh, Story Lady, won’t yo’ please tell me er story?”

“Why, I don’t think I know any now—” Nathalie had meant to look up a fairy book so as to be prepared, but the pleading look in the black eyes upturned to hers won its way and she said, “All right, I’ll see what I know? How would ‘The Babes in the Woods’ do?”

As this title was mentioned, a cry of protest came from the child, “No, I don’t want to hear about de woods. I’se afraid of de woods.”

“Of course you don’t, you poor little chickie,” answered Nathalie contritely, and then her face lightened up as a streak of sunshine at that moment glancing in the window proved an inspiration. So she began to tell about Sunshine Polly, who had been told that if she could get some sunshine in her heart she would always be happy, and how she forthwith set out for this golden country, and after many adventures found it. Indeed it proved to be a most beautiful place, with a king, very round and bright, and a lot of sunshine fairies flying all about throwing some of their sunny treasure into the eyes of every one they saw.

By the bright eyes watching her, Nathalie knew that she had made a good selection this time, and the story progressed. She told how Polly got the sunbeams, with a breathing spell every now and then to think up some more, and the cries, “Oh, dat’s a lubly story! Oh, I likes dat story!” But at last Polly returned from the land of sunshine with a crown of sunbeams on her head and a big bundle of it in her heart.

Nathalie smiled as she finished, for it seemed as if she too, had been to the sunshine land and had put some of it into Rosy’s little heart. “Ah, now I will get a chance to slip away,” she thought, picking up her basket as a prelude to her departure.

But Rosy, surmising by her movement that she contemplated leaving, began to wail plaintively, begging her so hard to tell just one more “lubly story.” As Nathalie stood, trying her best to think of another story, she heard a slight noise, and looked up to see three little black faces with big shiny eyes staring at her from over the ledge of the window.

The girl broke into a merry laugh, for really it was funny to see those three round faces—like a row of flower-pot saucers on a shelf. “Why, how did you get there?” she cried and then again burst into laughter. The laughter proved contagious, for the three little pickaninnies immediately joined in her merriment, and then, evidently thinking this was an invitation to come in, one after the other slid over the sill and trotted up to the bed, to the great delight of Rosy. Here they climbed up, sitting on the edge with their naked black feet hanging down, looking for all the world like monkeys’ claws as they swung them to and fro, anxiously waiting for the story to begin.

“Oh, what shall I tell them?” worried Nathalie, but in a flash she remembered, and was soon in the mysteries of that beloved of all fairy tales, “Jack and the Bean Stalk.” The interested glow in four pairs of eyes was inspiring, and amply repaid her for the time that she had so reluctantly given the little hearers.

The tale was soon ended, and again Nathalie sprang to her feet, feeling that now she must go, for there was that dessert she had to make for dinner. She gathered up her basket and had just turned to say good-by to her audience of four, when she saw Dr. Morrow, who was standing by the door, smiling down at her with his kindly eyes.

“Oh, were you there all the time?” she asked in dismay. The doctor nodded as he said, “Yes, Blue Robin, I have enjoyed your story very much. You had such an appreciative audience,” smiling at the little black faces, “that I was reluctant to disturb their bliss. Our little friend Rosy has well named you, ‘The Story Lady.’”

He turned towards his patient, and then with a kindly word for each of her little friends, he began to inquire as to how Rosy was. As Felia at this moment entered the room, Nathalie waved a good-by to Rosy, and surrounded by the three pickaninnies, each one eager to carry her basket, hurried out of the room and into the sunshine she had been telling about. The many comments made by her body-guard of three, showed how eager they were for the joys of story-land—a rare treat to them. Realizing how much can be taught a child through story-telling, as she had found when she was a child, Nathalie fell to thinking. By the time she reached home she had planned a story club—oh, it would be just the thing—if the Pioneers would agree to it. They could take turns, only an hour once or twice a week, in telling stories to these new friends of hers, and who knows, if the class grew they might eventually do a great deal of good? Still somewhat timid of taking the initiative, she planned to lay it before Helen and let the suggestion come from her.

Nathalie was trilling softly to herself little snatches of song, for somehow on that bright June day she felt very happy. She had started, as she told Helen, on a new career. Of course her mother had objected at first to her taking Felia’s place, but when she found that Nathalie was determined, she had consented, feeling that perhaps it would not harm her for a while. And then, too, she would learn many things she needed to know, and this was her opportunity to learn them. So Nathalie had won her consent, and with the help of Dorothy, who had been pressed into service, and the few things she allowed her mother to do, she had found her work slip along more easily than she had anticipated, and the thought that she was earning a mite towards a great object, as Helen said, had proved the glory.

And so she sang away, doing the week’s stint of darning, as the stocking drill at the Pilgrim Rally had helped her wonderfully, and now she was quite assured that her mother did not have to do her work over.

As she glanced up from her work to watch a tiny humming bird that was flitting among the leaves of the honeysuckle trellis, she heard the throb of an engine, and looked up to see Dr. Morrow’s car coming up the road. To her surprise, instead of running his car in through his gate to the garage, he brought it to a standstill in front of their house, alighted, and a moment later was coming briskly up the path.

His cheery greeting broke in upon her surprise as he cried, “Well, Blue Robin, so you are at home!” O dear! every one seemed to be calling her that nowadays, the girl thought a little ruefully.

“Good morning,” she cried; then her face paled apprehensively. “Oh, have you come about Dick—do you think his knee is worse?” she faltered, suddenly remembering that her brother had complained quite a little the last three days with the pain in his knee.

“No, I have not come about Dick,” was the reassuring answer. “I have come to see you on important business. Dick is doing as well as can be until he is operated on.”

Nathalie sighed, and then said, “Oh, Doctor, I do wish you would explain to me about Dick’s operation! Mother told me a little, but you see I don’t know much about these things.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows in pretended surprise and then he said in a serious tone, “I should say not. Such things as operations are not for little Blue Robins. They are supposed to trill little tru-al-lee songs, or tell fairy tales to children, as I hear some of them have been doing lately.”

The girl’s eyes grew bright. “Oh, we are all doing it. Has Mrs. Morrow told you about the Pioneer Story Club we have formed? Helen suggested it, in a way.” Nathalie was modest, for the suggestion had really come from herself, and also the planning with the aid of Helen’s wise head. “We go down to the colored settlement,” she continued, “every Saturday morning and take turns in telling stories to the little children. Don’t you think it a fine idea?” She spoke animatedly.

“Indeed I do, but now for the business.”

“Oh—but please tell me about the operation first!” Nathalie was afraid the doctor intended to put her off. “Tell me, will Dick really be good and strong again after he has the operation?”

The doctor gazed at her a moment with serious eyes and then said slowly, “Yes, Miss Nathalie, I believe that if your brother could have that operation he would be just as well as if this unfortunate accident had not happened.”

“But what makes the operation necessary, and what would you do to him?” she insistently demanded.

“Well, I am not going to tell you exactly what we would do to him. We shall not make hash of him—”

“Oh, Doctor!” exclaimed Nathalie with a shiver.

“But we will remove an unhealthy bone in his leg and replace it with a new one. I saw an infected finger joint removed the other day and replaced with a joint taken from one of the patient’s toes.”

“Oh, Doctor Morrow,” cried the distressed girl, “you are kidding, as the boys say.”

The doctor shook his head. “No, some years ago I might have been indulging in a yarn, but surgery has made great strides these last few decades, and cripples nowadays may be restored to health and strength by transplanting entire bones with their joint surfaces. This discovery was announced a short time ago by an eminent surgeon before the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery. Tests were made on dogs first, and the results were so satisfactory that the same methods have since been applied to the human body with like results.

“Hitherto bone transplantation had been attended with great stiffness and lack of power in the members treated, but now an infected hip joint may be removed in the same way, and replaced by healthy bones, and the functions work properly. But, young lady, I came here not to deliver a lecture on the transplantation of bones, but to ask you to do something for me.”

CHAPTER XI—THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER

“Now when I was a wee laddie,” continued the doctor, “that fairy tale was the star one to me, so I plead guilty, I was tempted and listened. And then when I discovered that the Story Lady, as Rosy says, was a sometime friend of mine, I found that old tale doubly interesting. A few days ago, when talking to a patient, I happened to relate this little incident in connection with something else I was telling, and then my troubles began.”

The doctor pretended dismay. “That lady has a crippled child who rarely goes out, never meets children of her own age, but is compelled a good part of the time to lie on a couch suffering more or less pain. This little girl was injured in an accident which her mother, poor creature, believes was her fault.”

“Oh, how dreadfully she must suffer!” burst from Nathalie involuntarily.

“Yes, I sometimes think the poor mother suffers more than the child. Now this mother, from a mistaken idea, believes it best to keep her child secluded, thinking that the comments of strangers would hurt the child’s feelings and cause more suffering. So you see what a miserable life the little one leads. Well, I must cut my tale short—” taking out his watch and glancing at it; “perhaps it was something I said, I don’t know, but this lady asked me if I thought the young lady who was so good at story-telling would be willing to come and amuse her child with stories. You see I was in for it, but all I could do was to say I would ask her,” the doctor’s eyes sobered, “for I believe that this Story Lady girl is not only a worth while girl—is that the way my wife puts it when she lectures you?” the doctor’s face had wrinkled into a smile again, “but that she has one of the kindest hearts in the world.”

“Oh, Doctor, Mrs. Morrow never lectures,” answered Nathalie enthusiastically; “she just talks to us in the sweetest way; we just love to hear her. But, Doctor, why did you not tell the lady I would be only too glad to tell her little girl stories, but if she suffers so much it might tire her.” This was all said in one breath.

“Not so fast, Blue Robin. No, I did not tell her you would, for I did not know how it would strike you,” rejoined the doctor gravely. “I only told her what you could do.”

“Oh,” exclaimed his companion; “well then, please tell her the first time you see her that I shall be delighted to do all I can for her little girl.”

“When I see her—well, I’m going to see her now.” The doctor looked down at Nathalie keenly. “If you are willing to give this pleasure suppose you begin to-day?”

“To-day—you mean now—this morning?” exclaimed surprised Nathalie.

The doctor nodded gravely.

“Why, well, yes, I suppose I could go this morning.” Nathalie wrinkled her brows; she was wondering about dinner. “All right,” she said in a moment, “I’ll tell Mother and get my hat!” She started for the door.

“Just wait a moment!” commanded the doctor suddenly, taking Nathalie by the arm and peering down into her face with intent eyes. “I forgot something, for amusing this little girl means that you will have to promise two things.”

“What are they?” asked the girl curiously.

“The first one is that you will have to promise—as a Girl Pioneer—” the doctor’s eyes gleamed again “not to betray to a living soul that you are telling stories to this child; there is a reason.”

“Oh, that is easy,” nodded Nathalie; “that is, if you except Mamma, for I always tell everything to her.”

“Well, we’ll trust Mrs. Page as to secrecy, and the next thing—this is a big promise, for it will not be so easy to keep—is that when you go to this lady’s house you will consent to be blindfolded.” The doctor looked relieved.

“Blindfolded?” repeated puzzled Nathalie. “Why, do you mean that I will have to have my eyes covered up so I can’t see?”

Dr. Morrow nodded, his keen eyes watching the girl’s face intently.

There was a pause. “Am I to go with you?” inquired Nathalie. The doctor’s gray head jerked again.

“Why, yes, I’m willing to be blinded—as long as you’re with me to lead me about—but what a strange idea!”

“Yes, it is a strange idea, and I tried to reason the lady out of it. I even refused at first—and again yesterday—to ask you to do this ridiculous thing, but after thinking it over I have ventured. You know, there is the little girl to be considered, and you will?”

“Of course I will!” was the quick reply. “It is a funny thing to do, makes me think of the heroine of some detective tale. Blindfolded! Oh, it will be fun, a real adventure, I do wish I could tell Helen about it, I know she won’t tell.”

“No, not yet,” said the doctor, “just wait and see what happens. I’ll predict that after you tell one or two of your exciting tales the blindfold act will be out of it. Now get your hat.”

It was a glorious morning and Nathalie, in a merry chat with the doctor as they glided down one street and up another, forgot to wonder where they were going. But when they suddenly slowed up on a lonely road, the doctor peered cautiously about and then with a flourish drew forth a big black handkerchief, she remembered. She did indeed feel somewhat queer as the doctor laughingly tied the black cap, as he called it, over her eyes, and then, after seeing that it was not pressing too tightly, started his car again.

This time the car went so swiftly that Nathalie caught her breath. O dear, she was beginning to feel nervous. “It really seems as if you were kidnaping me!” she cried, with an attempt at merriment.

“So I am,” replied the doctor glumly. Evidently this blindfolding business was not to his liking.

As the car came to a standstill the doctor cried, “Now, Blue Robin, we are about to perform the first act in our little drama, so get up your nerve.”

“I hope you won’t let me fall!” exclaimed Nathalie cheerily. “I don’t want to break my nose or anything just yet.”

What a weird feeling it gave her to be led along a stone walk, then up a few steps guided by her companion’s strong arm, then evidently into a hall, as Nathalie surmised by the polished floor covered with heavy rugs. After being led stumblingly up the stairway—which she thought would never come to an end—they crept slowly along for some distance; she could not tell whether it was a hall or a room, and felt very trembly as she afterwards told her mother, and she was brought to a sudden halt by hearing, “Oh, Mamma, here she is!”

The voice did not belong to a small child and Nathalie, surprised, stood still in embarrassed silence wondering what was coming next.

“Oh, Doctor, how kind you are!” cried another voice. “I had given you up, how obstinate you must think me!” The voice faltered, and then Nathalie felt a soft touch on her arm as it continued, “Oh, it was very kind of you to consent to come and entertain my daughter, and to be obliged to come this way, too. I feel guilty; I know how unpleasant it must be to have something over your eyes.”

“Well, don’t worry over that now,” was the doctor’s terse admonition. “I have complied with your requests—on second thought, and my young girl friend has been most kind in agreeing to your wishes, for the present at least. Later, I hope, you will change your mind about these blinders.”

“Please don’t scold,” cried the voice again, “I know it is foolish of me. I will lead you to a chair!” the owner of the voice exclaimed as the girl gropingly put out her hand as if afraid of falling. Then the same soft touch led the blinded one across the room. “No, you are not going to fall; there you are all right now,” she said, as Nathalie with a sense of relief sank back in a chair.

“Now,” continued the voice, “I am going to be your eyes and tell you what is before you.”

“That will be very nice,” interposed embarrassed Nathalie, feeling somewhat foolish at having to sit in this queer way before people. She was at a loss what to say, but had time to collect herself as the lady went on talking rapidly. She described the room with its hangings, the pictures on the wall, told where the doors and windows were, and—“Oh, here is the couch—” she hesitated slightly, “and on it is my daughter, her name is—”

“Oh, Mamma, if you don’t want the young lady to know my name, tell her I’m the Princess in the Tower!” exclaimed the same sweet voice that had called out when Nathalie first entered the room.

“That will be just the thing, ‘the Princess in the Tower,’” laughed the lady lightly. “Now, Princess, I am going to leave you to entertain Miss—”

“Nathalie Page,” interposed the girl quickly, who, reassured by the laughing tone of the young girl on the couch, had begun to recover from the awkwardness of her plight. Somehow the situation appealed to the girl’s imagination and she began to enjoy it. “Oh, I ought to be the one in the tower,” she merrily asserted, “for I feel as if I were a prisoner with this funny thing over my eyes.”

“It is too bad,” cried her companion sympathetically, “but you know it is a whim of Mamma’s. You see,” she explained, “I had an accident when I was a child, and it has made me deformed—” there was a pathetic note in her voice. “Mamma is so sensitive, she is afraid that if people see me they will make unkind remarks.”

“Oh, how could any one be unkind?” exclaimed horrified Nathalie.

“Well, they are sometimes. I used to be sensitive myself, too, but I’m getting used to it. I tell Mamma if I don’t mind she ought not to. Yes,” she ended sadly, “I am indeed a prisoner shut up in these big gray walls.”

“How hard it must be!” answered Nathalie. “But do you never go out?”

“Sometimes I go in the garden. I used to drive, but the people in this town are so curious; they stare so. I believe they are worse than in the city, where I suppose people are used to all kinds of strange sights. But there, I’m doing all the talking, please tell me about yourself! I’m so glad to know some one who comes from New York. The doctor told me you were a New Yorker; he told me, too, that you were very clever, and that you told stories beautifully.”

“Nonsense,” exclaimed Nathalie. “The doctor is a dear, but he natters me; I am not clever, I wish I were. I studied hard at school and am ready to enter college this fall, and as I am only sixteen people think it very clever for a girl to accomplish, but I don’t see why a girl can’t do it as well as a boy. But now I’m not going to have a chance to show people whether I am really clever or not,” and then she briefly told about her disappointment in having to give up college.

“But what are you going to do if you do not go to college? Please tell me!” said the princess, as Nathalie hesitated. “I just love the sound of your voice!” burst from the girl impulsively.

Nathalie laughed at this extravagant praise, wondering for a moment if the young girl were not making fun of her. Loath to believe that she could be so rude, however, she went on and told of her city life, her schoolmates, about Dick’s accident, and how they came to settle in Westport, and then she stopped. She had been on the verge of telling about the Pioneers when she recollected that the doctor had said she was to tell the child stories. “Oh, I must stop talking—I was to tell you stories—what will your mother think of me?”

“That is all right,” promptly returned the girl, “you are here to entertain me; that’s what she told the doctor, and if I would rather have you talk than tell stories, it will be as I say.”

“Are you sure of that?” questioned conscience-stricken Nathalie. “The doctor told me I was to tell you stories.”

“Of course he did, but because he said a thing doesn’t make it so; Mamma told him that, I guess, but you are really to do as I say.”

There was a note of decision in the girl’s voice, which was an intimation that she was used to having her own way. Nathalie somehow felt awkward and uncertain as to what course to pursue, and became suddenly silent, inwardly racking her brains, trying to think of some story that would please a young girl of about the age she judged her companion to be.

“Oh, aren’t you going to tell me about the Girl Pioneers?” was the question that suddenly interrupted Nathalie’s train of thought.

“The Girl Pioneers!” echoed Nathalie, wondering how her companion came to know about that organization.

“I want to tell you a secret,” the princess whispered at that moment. Nathalie felt a slim hand touch her with a clinging pressure on the arm. “Do you know the doctor and I are great friends, we have lots of jolly talks together. Oh, I just love to hear his step; don’t tell, but sometimes I make believe I’m suffering terribly so Mamma will send for him!”

“But you shouldn’t do that!” cried Nathalie, rather shocked at the idea of simulating pain, suddenly remembering a story she had heard of a young girl who had finally come to suffer from the very disease she had feigned.

“Oh, what difference does it make as long as it brings him?” retorted the princess. “You see he tells me of the outside world, and makes me laugh when I have pain, for I do have lots of it sometimes. One day when I was having an awful time with my back he almost made me forget the pain by telling me some of the funny things that have happened to the Boy Scouts and to the Girl Pioneers.

“He told me all about you, too, how you sprained your foot and about your brother Dick, and about your finding the blue robin’s nest in the old cedar. He said you were pretty, too. I like pretty people. I wish you didn’t have that horrible thing on your eyes, I want to see them. Mother said I would have been pretty, too, if I had not had this terrible hump—oh,” she cried abruptly, “I was not to tell you anything about myself, for I’m a horrible thing to look at now.”

“Oh, no, you can’t be,” exclaimed Nathalie involuntarily, for by this time the sweet girlish voice and soft clinging hand had stirred her imagination, and the pictures presented had made the make-believe princess a most beautiful creature.

“Oh, but I am,” persisted the girl in a resigned voice. “But then, do tell me about the Pioneers!” Then noting Nathalie’s reluctance, she called out in a high, shrill voice, “Mamma, come here, I want you!”

“What is it, darling?” answered her mother coming hastily from the adjoining room, where she had been conversing with the doctor. “What does my princess want?” remembering the rôle the girl had assumed.

“The princess wants to be obeyed,” answered that personage imperiously. “Miss Page refuses to talk about herself or to tell me anything, because she says you ordered her to tell me only stories.”

Nathalie’s face reddened under her black mask, “Oh, no,” she interposed swiftly, “I did not say it that way. I said the doctor had asked me to come here and tell you stories, but then I supposed you were a little girl.”

“No, I am not a little girl,” replied the princess, “I am fourteen.”

“Miss Page, if you do not mind I shall be glad if you will do as Ni—as—the princess desires,” said her mother pleadingly. “She is an invalid, you know, and, I am afraid, sadly spoiled.”

“Very well,” rejoined Nathalie briefly, feeling somewhat relieved to think she could talk about the Pioneers and not to have to think up a story. Yet it did seem strange to ask her to come there and tell stories and then ask her not to do so.

“Now that you have permission, please go right ahead and tell me everything you know about the Pioneers!”

“That will be delightfully easy, I can assure you,” exclaimed Nathalie. “Although I am a new Pioneer, I am beginning to be very enthusiastic. I can’t tell you much about the hikes for I have never been on a long hike yet. We were going on a bird hike the other day—” then she remembered the search party and its results, and in a few words told about Rosebud and the morning spent in searching for her.

“Oh, that was just fine of you,” cried the princess as Nathalie came to the part where the Pioneers had acted as if they did not want to hunt for the little girl. “And those girls! I think they were very selfish, but go on and tell me some more about the Pioneers!”

Nathalie, thus pressed, told of the Pilgrim Rally, the coming of the Boy Scouts, the Pioneer dance, and then lastly how she had accepted Miss I Can, the motto of the organization, as a very dear friend, and how she was trying to live up to it. The girl could not account for the feeling that made her sacrifice her usual reserve in regard to her inner life, and tell this make-believe princess about what she was trying to do. In thinking it over when by herself, she concluded that perhaps it was the lesson in this little motto that she had intuitively felt might help the little prisoner in the tower.

“Oh, I wish you would get up a story club for me!” exclaimed the blood royal, as Nathalie finally ended her Pioneer recital by telling about the story club the girls had formed to tell stories to the little children in the colored settlement.

“Wouldn’t it be just lovely! And they would all be real live girls, too, not story-book people, for oh, Miss Page, I get so tired of book folks! I want to meet just real every-day girls. That is why I coaxed my mother to get the doctor to have you come here and tell me stories, but don’t say another word about telling me stories,” she lowered her voice, “for that was just a trick to get Mother to consent. When I want a thing I just keep plaguing her and then she lets me have my way.”

“Oh, but you ought to tell your mother everything,” exclaimed her new friend, somewhat repelled by this frank admission of deceit. “I always tell my mother everything, why I could not sleep at night if I thought I had deceived her.”

“Everything is fair in love and war, that’s what my governess used to say, but she was a horrid thing,” the princess confessed candidly; “I just hated her. She had a beau and I used to steal his letters and pretend I had read them, just for the fun of seeing her get in a rage. But go on, and tell me more about those girls.”

The last word had barely left her lips when a shriek, shrill and terrifying, rang through the room. Nathalie jumped up in a spasm of terror, but before she could ascertain what it was, another one, even shriller and more prolonged than the first one, as it seemed to the frightened girl, sounded right in her very ear. Her heart leaped to her throat, a stifled cry escaped her as she dropped back in her chair cowering with fear. Then came another cry, followed by weird, demoniacal laughter. Nathalie put her hands up to her face determined to tear off her bandage, for that blood-curdling shriek, that hideous laugh, she had heard before—and then she remembered—oh, she was in the house of the Mystic!

CHAPTER XII—THE WILD FLOWER HIKE

But Jimmie, determined not to be worsted in his fight to be heard, with much loudness and clearness of note now broke into “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.” This sudden transition from the terrestrial to the celestial proved too much for Jimmie’s audience, and peals of laughter rang out, in which Nathalie’s treble and the doctor’s deeper note mingled with the cockatoo’s song. Jimmie, thinking he was winning an encore, started in with “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief—” but this time he was summarily thrust from the room by an attendant—amid jabbering protests.

The doctor now reminded Nathalie that they must be going, as he had an important case on hand; he had waited for her, he explained, knowing that she would be unable to manage alone with her blinders, as he called the handkerchief.

As Nathalie rose to go the princess seized her hand, crying, “No, you shall not go. You have only been here a few moments!” Notwithstanding her mother’s admonition that the doctor must not be detained, the invalid persisted in clutching her new friend’s hand in a vise-like grip, much to her embarrassment. Finding, however, that she was not to have her way, the princess broke forth into a low whimpering.

Nathalie stood still, and then feeling ashamed that a girl of her age should act the part of a child of five, endeavored to persuade her to let her go, promising to come again soon. She met with no success, and driven desperate by the command, “Come, Nathalie, we must go!” she roughly pulled her hand away. Whereupon, the whimpering cries of the princess degenerated into shrieks of rage, so prolonged and shrill that Nathalie, with a thrill of surprise, immediately recognized from whom Jimmie had learned his shrieks.

As the car sped swiftly along in the direction of home, after the black handkerchief had been relegated to the doctor’s pocket again, Nathalie suddenly reddened furiously, looked queer for a moment, and then burst into stifled laughter, much to the doctor’s amusement, who was gravely watching her.

“Hello!” he cried at length, “what’s up?” after his companion had made one or two ineffectual efforts to control her risibility.

But at last she sobered, and with the tears still in her eyes told how she and Grace had been sent by Mrs. Morrow a short time before—to deliver a letter to Mrs. Van Vorst, and how when they were waiting in the reception room they had heard those same terrible shrieks and frenzied laughter that Jimmie had emitted that morning, and, thinking that it was an insane person, they had run for their lives.

“O dear,” she gasped hysterically, “what a joke on Grace and me! To think of our running away when it was only a cockatoo! Oh, what sillies we were!”

“I agree with you,” returned the doctor so solemnly that the girl flushed and looked at him quickly with shamed eyes, but his humorous twinkle did not agree with his blunt assurance, so Nathalie’s self-esteem suffered no wound.

“You know where you were then to-day?” questioned the doctor slowly after a pause.

“Oh, yes, at the house of the Mystic!”

“The house of the Mystic?” with some astonishment.

“Oh, that is the name the girls have given Mrs. Van Vorst because she acts so queerly. She has been very disagreeable to the Pioneers, they claim, refusing to let them drill on the lawn in the rear of her house. The girls say she hates young people, and then she always dresses so queerly in gray, too. She has shrouded herself in mystery by shutting herself up in that big gray house behind those walls. Edith Whiton insists that there is an insane person in the house and that he chased her the day of the Pilgrim Rally.”

“An insane person! There is no insane person in the house. That is nonsense, and should not be repeated!” exclaimed the doctor in an annoyed tone.

“Yes, I know, but the girls believe Edith, and so did I until to-day. But Grace and I have never told a soul what we heard, only Mrs. Morrow. But, oh, Doctor,” she cried impulsively, “can’t I tell Grace about the cockatoo? I will tell her not to tell a living soul,” she ended earnestly.

“No,” returned the doctor decidedly, “Miss Grace is all right, but she might let it out in her sleep. No, you wait, and some time you girls can have the best laugh ever, as my kiddies say.”

So the story of Nathalie’s visit to the princess in the tower was buried deep within her heart, although it came very near being unearthed several times when she was in the company of Grace or Helen, for really, it was hard to keep it a secret when it was such a good joke.

Saturday, the day of the wild-flower hike, was warm and sunshiny, with the balminess of summer in its gently wafting breezes. Every one present was filled with the anticipation that they were going to have a “dandy time.”

“Are we all here?” questioned Mrs. Morrow, as she stood on the veranda steps, craning her neck from one side to the other in the endeavor to see that her bird groups were all there. In her natty khaki suit, with its red-banded sombrero and red tie, she looked as jaunty and young as the Bluebirds, Bob Whites, and Orioles, who, with admiring eyes, watched her as they stood lined up on the path with knapsacks, staffs, and all the paraphernalia needed for the hike.

The several bird calls attested that the band were all on hand, and then they filed up on the veranda before their Director as lunch-baskets were opened for inspection, so that she could see that each one had been properly prepared and was in a “relishy condition,” as Helen explained to Nathalie.

In a few moments the inspection was over and the girls tripped merrily down the walk and out of the gate, making such a hubbub with the clatter of their tongues that the doctor, as he came hurriedly up the path, teasingly put his fingers in his ears in intimation that they were making undue clamor.

The Flower of the Family’s knapsack bulged with a package of Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Flour, suggestive of the flapjacks to be, while the Editor-in-chief, with a reporter-like air, carried a large note-book under her arm so as to feature the affair in the forthcoming “Pioneer.” The Encyclopedia was lumbered with two musty volumes on flower lore, she explained, so as to be able to give all desired information on the various specimens that were to be gathered by the hikers.

The Pot-Boiler’s knapsack was not only stuffed with several mysterious-looking packages, but was glaringly conspicuous, that young lady, true to her name, having pasted a paper advertisement of an iron pot on its cover. The Sport carried a few garden implements: a small shovel, a rake, and a hoe, with which to burrow in the ground for those specimens that grew in a brook or in the mossy hollows in the woods. The Tike, as the privileged fag, carried a basket to fill with wild-flowers to be distributed to the shut-ins of the town hospital on their return.

Each Pioneer, besides her lunch-box, carried a self-made note-book—Nathalie had spent several hours making hers—with a pencil attached for her flower specimens, data, and so forth. Nathalie felt a bit disappointed that she had not been able to buy a uniform, although Helen had said that it made no difference, for she noticed to her dismay that she was the only Pioneer minus that very desirable accessory, dear to the heart of every hiker.

The girls had gone but half a block when a sudden cry of pleasure rippled through the line. Then, as one Pioneer, the girls gave their call in welcome to Dr. Homer, who, as Mrs. Morrow explained, was to take the place usually occupied by her husband, when the Pioneers were on a long hike.

The doctor responded by giving the Boy Scout salute as he stood a moment with raised hat. When the girls filed by, to Nathalie’s surprise he stepped to her side and asked, as he smiled in recognition, “May I have the pleasure of hiking with you?”

Nathalie’s cheeks bloomed pink at the remembrance of their last meeting, but her eyes brightened as she nodded an assent. Perhaps some of the girls felt a little envious as they saw whom the doctor had selected for the favor of his company, as he was a great favorite and had always proved a delightful companion. But they quickly stifled any feeling that jarred, as each one remembered that she had had her turn, and that now it was Nathalie’s opportunity to have this pleasure as the new Pioneer.

And Nathalie’s turn added a zest and enjoyment to her first hike that was long remembered, for through Dr. Homer’s kindness in imparting to her many stray bits of knowledge she was able to hide her greenness in wood-lore, bird-lore, and many of the activities in which the other Pioneers were so proficient.

The Pioneers had barely reached the open when the Sport and one of the Orioles were despatched by the Director to blaze a trail. In order to give this advance corps a chance to get ahead, the rest of the company rested on the road, sitting down on the grass, or on some decayed tree trunk, while others practiced wall-scaling, among them Nathalie and the doctor, the latter acting as their instructor.

This scaling feat meant stepping carefully upon the ledge of a stone wall that skirted the road, and then springing down as quickly and lightly as possible, so as not to dislodge stray stones and bring them rattling after one. This forerunner of other feats to come led the doctor to tell how a Scout practiced wall-scaling; sometimes by standing on the shoulders of another Scout, and then climbing a high wooden fence, which was claimed by many to be a more difficult performance than scaling a stone wall. This, of course, proved an incentive for the girls to do their best, especially Nathalie, who as a city-bred girl did not want to prove a laggard.

A few minutes later, as they resumed their tramp, Nathalie’s face grew radiant as she suddenly spied a tree near with a penknife notch on the bark. “Oh, girls, here is the trail! Go this way!” she cried excitedly, pointing as she spoke to the notched sign of a twig bent at the end, making it look somewhat like the point of a broken arrow. As she was coming to be a zealous student of the bent-twig signs, the trail-blazing system invented for the Pioneers, she explained a number of these bent-twig signs to the doctor, who was deeply interested and not only told of the many signs used by the Scouts, but showed her the trees that were the easiest to cut.

Chatting, laughing, and singing—for the girls vied with the birds in their joyousness that summer morning—making bird calls, alternating with notch-making and flower-gathering made the time pass swiftly. The new Pioneer was amazed when Dr. Homer pulled out his watch and looking at his pedometer said that they had walked four miles, and that in a short time they would hit the wood trail, where they were to camp for dinner.

Nathalie’s flower-box was soon full of specimens that she had gathered from the roadside and the meadow where her lesson in wall-scaling came in handy. Perhaps this wild flower hunt proved but a small part of her pleasure, for as she strolled along the doctor proved most companionable as he coached her in hike knowledge.

Never walk over anything you can go around, he had told her, and never step on anything you can step over, for every time you step on anything you lift the weight of your body, which makes more to carry when tramping. He also made her laugh heartily when he insisted upon examining the footwear of the hikers, expounding as he did so upon the foolishness of damsels in general, who would insist upon wearing shoes either too big or too small for them. The small shoes, he said, crowded the feet, and the big ones added extra weight, and made them road-weary before the tramp was half over.

He also told her about the weather signs; a low cloud moving swiftly indicated coolness; hard-edged clouds, wind; rolled or jagged clouds, strong wind; and a mackerel sky, a whole day of fair weather. Nathalie, perhaps to show this young man with the smiling gray eyes who looked at you so fearlessly that she, too, did know just a tiny bit about weather signs, sang softly:

    “Hark  to  the  East  Wind’s  song  from  the  sea,
    Blowing  the  misty  clouds  o’er  lea;
    Shaking  the  sheaves  of  golden  grain
    With  the  patter  of  the  rain;
    Giving  the  earth  a  cooling  drink,
    Washing  the  flow’rs  a  brighter  pink.