"Sit down, Keren-happuch," said the elder of that name, motioning to the footstool at her feet. Happie obeyed, rather dreading what might be coming. Miss Bradbury touched her eyelids lightly, and tipped up her chin with her fingers.

"What did they say to you, my Unhappie?" she asked without an echo of her usual brisk and brusque manner. Then, as Happie hesitated for an answer at once truthful and not unpleasant, she added: "Don't fence, my dear, and don't try to spare me. This is by no means the first time that I have encountered the unlovable qualities of my brother's daughters. Did they suggest to you their doubt of singleness of motive in your mother's love for me?"

"They said horrible things!" declared Happie, throwing away all reserve in letting herself speak. "Horrible, brutal, false things, Aunt Keren! At first I was stunned, then I was furious, sort of deadly, still, white furious, Aunt Keren! And I told them—I don't know WHAT I told them. Only I know I told them not to come here to see you again, because I shouldn't let them in. I hope you don't mind! I suppose I should let them in if you wanted them."

"I certainly do not mind; you did quite right. It would be undignified to allow people under your roof who spoke ill of your mother," said Aunt Keren quietly. "Happie——"

"Aunt Keren!" Happie interrupted her passionately. "We never knew you had any money. As far as we thought about it at all, we thought you were rather poor. We have been setting aside part of the tea room money to pay our own rent, because we thought you ought not to have given us that rent at Christmas. You were just Aunt Keren to us; no one ever thinks about money, whether people that belong to them have it or not. But they said——"

"Yes, my dear," Aunt Keren interrupted in her turn. "On the whole, don't tell me what they said. You are not quite right in saying that no one thinks of money in connection with his affections, but it is a pitiable creature that does. And those two nieces of mine are decidedly pitiable creatures. They had a sordid, vulgar mother, Happie. My brother married most unfortunately. Those two daughters of his have made an open onslaught upon my possessions, and they are wildly afraid that I shall will all that I have elsewhere. They have good reason for their fears. They would never use money kindly, wisely, properly. They have quite enough now for all purposes, which frees me from scruples as to my justice in doing what I please with what is my own, but their greed for more would never be satisfied while anything was beyond their reach. These are hideous truths, dear Happie, but you will have to learn that there are people in the world different from your mother, and that plenty of unfortunate beings make for themselves an atmosphere that is far from the unworldly, simple and loving atmosphere of your little Harlem Patty-Pans. You must be unceasingly thankful that when your mother was left almost destitute at your father's death, she had for you children something far more valuable than money could have given."

"Ah, yes, we know that!" cried Happie. "But as well as we know it now, Margery and I often say we shall appreciate it better when we are older and see more of the unpleasant side of life, at which we only peep while we are young."

"Truer than you guess!" agreed Miss Keren briefly. "Now, Happie, listen to a story, a true story about one Keren-happuch, with a second Keren-happuch coming into the tale at the end. I am going to tell it to you because of what happened this afternoon. It will satisfy you forever as to my reasons for doing what I intend to do. Don't interrupt me. For the first time in my life it tires me to talk, and it spoils a story to interrupt it. Nearly fifty years ago the first of the two Keren-happuchs was young, a girl of definite opinions, considerable will, of few and strong attachments; the kind of girl that can be superlatively happy or altogether miserable, and who is likely to make a bad matter of her life if things go contrary with her. This girl had a friend, the most beautiful, best girl that the sun ever shone upon, with every grace of mind and character, and with the crowning grace of all,—entire unselfishness and unconsciousness of self. Her name was Elizabeth Vaughan, and she was your grandmother. One hears a good deal said of men's friendships and how no women are capable of equal love for each other, but I am certain David and Jonathan were not more truly devoted than were these two girls of a half century ago. Keren-happuch worshiped Elizabeth, and the tie was peculiarly tender on both sides. There came into Keren-happuch's life a new interest after a while. It was when Elizabeth was away, and there was nothing to divert this girl of natural strength of feeling from going with all her might with the tide that seemed to her the flood-tide of happiness. Of course you can guess what the new interest was, for the girls were not quite twenty, and romance loves the second decade. It looked as though this foolish Keren-happuch were going to sail into the port of bliss, but Elizabeth came home. And then—why, no one could remember Keren-happuch when Elizabeth was about, and Keren awoke from her dream to find it not hers, but Elizabeth's. It is good to know that Keren-happuch loved her friend no less that the love she had hoped was her own had turned to Elizabeth. Keren-happuch had common sense, I am glad to say, and she saw that only a blind man could have preferred herself. So she wept her little tear in private, as she hoped, but Elizabeth saw its stain, and she tried to turn back to Keren-happuch the love she had innocently diverted. That part of the story does not matter. Each girl tried to bring about the happiness of the other, but Elizabeth could not give to another what belonged to herself and she married Roland Spencer. Keren-happuch rejoiced in their happiness, because she loved them both best of all the world, yet—well, one can rejoice through a heartache, Happie, and it is a matter for gratitude when heartache takes the form which allows such rejoicing. The best of this story is that there was no break in the triangle of an affection beyond ordinary human attachment. No change came to it through the marriage of Elizabeth and the man she loved and who loved her, and whom Keren-happuch loved but who did not love Keren-happuch, not in that sense of the word love. To the end Elizabeth Spencer and her husband were the solitary Keren-happuch's loyal friends. But Keren-happuch knew at the beginning as well as she knows to-day that she was to be the solitary Keren-happuch all her life. She never cared for life in just the same, glad, youthful way again, and she saw clearly that her happiness must be found in peace, and in conferring happiness, if she were able. So she grew into the crotchety, eccentric maiden lady whom you know, and it has been her whim to live much within her means in order to afford the luxury of giving what, after all, she did not need. By and by Elizabeth and her husband both died. Keren-happuch likes to believe that they know how faithfully she loves them still, and that in their daughter Charlotte and their grandchildren, the little Scollards, she recognizes her nearest of kin—indeed her only kin, for she has never been kin to her kindred. So you see, Happie, why you are more than merely my namesake. You are the legacy to me of my more than sister, and the man I loved, and whom she married. I am a rich woman, my dear. By and by, when I cannot use my money any longer I shall give it to you to use it for me, feeling sure that you will do with it as I would have done. For you are my heir; my child by the tie of my lifelong loneliness and by your blood. I have told you this to prove to you how ridiculous it is for my nieces to fancy that anything could divert me from my intention in regard to you, and to satisfy you that whatever I do for you, or for your mother or the other children, is done as if you were my own children.

"I have a plan to propose to you soon, but not now. And that is the end of my story! Jump up, Happie, and run away, for I'm tired of your chatter! What makes you such a little magpie? Don't you know that an invalid should be kept quiet? Yet you talk and talk! Isn't it time to 'put the potatoes over,' as they say in our Crestville?"

Happie arose, understanding that her Aunt Keren wanted no comment from her on what she had just heard.

"I think it must be, Auntie Keren, dearest," she said. "You can rest while I take their jackets off. Here is Jeunesse Dorée. He will keep you company and not talk as fast as I have done."

She lifted the yellow bit of purring affection into Miss Keren's lap, kissed her hard on the cheek and went quietly away. There was much to think of in the story she had just heard, much to move her as a young girl is always moved by an unhappy love story, but there was nothing to say to the revelation of the reason why the Scollard family was the nearest of kin to this strong-hearted woman, nor any words in which to thank her for the intentions she had announced.

CHAPTER XIII
A HINT OF SPRING

"What do you think we've decided to do?" cried Bob, the instant he got inside the Patty-Pans door.

"Break the umbrella stand," guessed Happie, springing forward to catch it as it staggered under too violent impact with Bob's foot.

"Not a bit of it; that was the inspiration of the moment," he retorted. "We decided on the way up to have a birthday party in the tea room—a Washington's Birthday party. It's going to be great. We shall have it in the afternoon so all the children can come to it, down to Penny. We think it's more suitable to include the young ones, because it occurred to me that George Washington was very young when he was born."

"Bob, you foolish boy, come back here and tell me about it!" Happie called after her brother as he started down the hall.

"Can't stop, have to hunt for a clean collar in my bureau under mother's bed, now Aunt Keren has my other bureau," Bob shouted back. "Margery'll tell you."

It was Bob's delight to pretend to suffer from the invasion of Aunt Keren, and never to be able to find anything that he wanted because he had bundled his possessions into boxes and slid them under his mother's bed—the latter part of the statement being true. However, Bob said that he didn't mind "making his room a burnt offering. Aunt Keren had done more than that for him," he added, "before she was fired." Aunt Keren enjoyed Bob's fooling. The Scollards saw her shoulders shake while she regarded the boy severely through her glasses. It was the cheerful nonsense of the Patty-Pans crowd that was warding off nervous prostration, Mrs. Scollard decided.

"Margery, what does he mean?" Happie demanded, turning to her sister. "Perhaps you'd better tell me at dinner, though, for it's all ready, and quite capable of burning itself up while I listen."

"Yes, let us get our hats and coats off," said Mrs. Scollard, who had come home with what Happie called "the tea party," that night. So Happie ran back to her little kitchen, deferring for a time the satisfaction of her curiosity.

"Will you help me off with my coat, Auntie Keren? And ask mamma to let me keep on my dancing slippers, they're so lovely," sighed Penny, who never hesitated to make everybody within her orbit useful. Miss Keren laughed as she complied with the first part of the request. Happie, coming in with a steaming dishful of spaghetti, beautifully white striping its groundwork of tomato sauce, thought that Aunt Keren did not look cast-down by the call of the afternoon, nor saddened by her confidence. She looked brighter and better. Aunt Keren was one of those persons to whom arousing of any sort is beneficial.

"Now tell me about the party," Happie implored as they gathered around the table.

"I'm afraid I have to confess to its being part of a plot," said Margery. "I want to ask young people of all ages and sizes to a Washington's Birthday party in the tea room—so much Bob told in his first——"

"Inbursting outburst," Bob said for her, as she hesitated.

"Thanks, little Robin Redbreast," said Margery sweetly. "I thought we'd play games, make candy—or you would, Happie,—on our gas stove there, and have a genuine childish frolic. The feature of the afternoon is to be cutting down the cherry tree. I want a little tree set up in a box—not a real tree, but an artificial one—and everybody is to be blindfolded and given a little hatchet. Then they are to be swung around three times, and left to march up to the tree and cut it—or cut at it—once. The hatchet must be left just where it strikes till the person taking charge of the woodmen pins a numbered bit of cloth on the spot. There are to be prizes for the cut nearest a certain mark on the tree, and consolation prizes for the furthest from it—you see it is just the old game of pinning the tail on the donkey, only made what magazine editors call 'a timely article.' Do you suppose it will be any fun?"

"Of course!" cried Happie. "Anything is fun when there are enough of the right sort to play it. Whom would you ask?"

"Your E's," began Margery. "I don't know that I'll ask any of the older girls, my friends, but still we might ask one or two. Anyone you like——"

"Mr. Gaston? He's too old," said Happie hastily.

"Oh, as to too old, I thought we'd ask Auntie Cam to come down with Edith, and Aunt Keren and mother are asked this moment," said Margery blushing. "Mr. Gaston is fond of simple, jolly times. I suppose we'd better ask him. But—oh, Happie, do pay attention, and don't tease! I have a deep—not a dark, but a deep—plot in planning this party. I want little Serena to come, and I want her to fancy Ralph and Snigs. Now how can we manage that?"

"Ralph is so good to children, and all the little ones like him so much that it would be easy enough, if he didn't know it was Serena. But I don't think either of those boys would notice her much if they knew who she was. They'd be afraid of being misunderstood," Happie replied promptly.

"That's what I think," sighed Margery. "Well, all we can do is to try to bring the cousins together. Serena is such a lovely little creature that Ralph would lose his heart to her in a minute if he didn't keep his hand on it, so to speak."

"Like a pocketbook in the Brooklyn bridge crush," suggested Bob. "Your party's all right, Margery, my dear, but your reuniting families and healing feuds isn't going to work."

"I suppose not," agreed Margery with another sigh, "but I'd like to set the ball rolling. Maybe something would come of it later."

"I think I'll compose something for the party," murmured Laura.

"It's a praiseworthy attempt, at least, Margery," said Aunt Keren as they arose from dinner. "Happie, just a moment, please."

Happie followed Miss Keren into the hall, wondering. "I didn't want to speak of it before your mother, because she would strain every nerve to do what I desired, or feel grieved if she could not do it," began Miss Keren. "I am thinking of going up to Crestville for a little while. I feel that there is strength for me up there in those mountains, in the bright winter air. Do you think they could get on here, if I took you with me?"

"You want me to answer, 'honest true, black and blue,' like the children, Aunt Keren?" Happie asked. "Then I'm afraid I can't say yes. Because if I were away it would take Gretta out of the tea room to look after the Patty-Pans, and Margery could not get on alone down there."

"And Laura could not be depended upon?" suggested Miss Keren.

"Oh, Aunt Keren, you know Laura!" said Happie regretfully. "She is so musically undependable! I'm afraid depending on Laura would be a good deal like taking the sign of the treble clef and the sign of the bass clef and putting them under one's arms for crutches hoping to walk with them. I wish I could say that I thought they could spare me, for I'd love to go—for the sake of both the Keren-happuchs!"

"Never mind the elder one, and the younger will have a long summer up there," said Miss Keren. "I think that I shall go in a few days. Rosie Gruber is quite able to look after me. Run along, child. Don't look regretful. I shall be perfectly safe, and shall quite enjoy solitude up there. You know I never had a chance to be in my country house alone, while it was mine. Gretta is calling you."

Happie ran down the hall, and soon she and Gretta were whisking dish cloth and dish towels, Happie doing her part in comparative silence while the once reticent Gretta gave her the history of the day in the tea room.

Margery did not appear. They caught a glimpse of her in another gown, all soft pearl-gray and white, as she went singing into the parlor, and they heard her moving chairs about and giving small touches of added arrangement to the orderly room, which symptoms made Happie groan forebodingly.

"Yes, there he is!" she exclaimed as the bell rang. "I don't see why he calls here so often. You would suppose that he would think her family might want Margery to themselves occasionally!"

"Oh, come, Happie! Mr. Gaston isn't here quite so often as that seems to mean. We do have Margery to ourselves a good many nights," said Gretta fairly. "I think he's very nice not to mind all of us. Up home when a young man calls on a girl the family let her have the room—I mean the parlor"—Gretta joined in Happie's laughter over this slip of hers into the Crestville name for the one significant best room in the farmhouses. "Well, up there if a girl has a friend he doesn't expect to call on any one but her. Mr. Gaston sees almost as much of you and Bob and Laura as he does of Margery. I think he's very nice not to mind, and you ought not to grudge him his small fraction of her—for he likes her very much, Miss Happie!"

"Of course he does. I'm not blind, and I'd shake him if he didn't, though I want to pound him because he does!" said inconsistent Happie.

"Happie," called Margery, as Happie tried to slip into her own room unheard, "do come here for a moment and let Mr. Gaston tell you something delightful!"

"I wonder if he is going away!" thought Happie. She was a little bit ashamed, later, to remember her ungraciousness. It was not pleasant to feel one's mind going backward and forward like a shuttlecock between the conviction that for the first time in her life she was unjust and the pang that made justice impossible when she realized afresh that this fine young Baltimorean would steal away her sister.

"Good-evening, Andromeda," said Robert Gaston, rising to greet her by his nickname for her that recalled the dragon-office boy from whom he had rescued her. "Faithful little Andromeda! Housekeeping and nursing all alone these many days! I hope your patient is better?"

"Yes, thank you," said Happie. "She is going up to the Ark for a little while. Margery, you didn't know Aunt Keren told me after dinner that she meant to go up to Crestville in a few days to stay there, with Rosie to look after her. She thinks she will gain strength, even though it is winter."

"Oh, dear me!" shivered Margery. Then she added: "I'm sure it will do her good. I wish we could all go for a few days. Think of those mountains snowclad, and think of sleighing in that bracing air! Oh, I wonder—— You don't suppose we could have a party over Sunday in the Ark while she is there? All of us—and Mr. Gaston—and close the tea room for a day or two? Oh, if we could!"

"It would be good fun," admitted Happie. "Aunt Keren will never think of it, and we couldn't suggest it. I shall be able to help down there again, if Aunt Keren goes to the country."

"Ah, but you haven't heard my plan for a little jollification!" said Robert. "Andromeda, will you countenance a theatre party? I want to ask Mrs. Charleford and Edith, your mother, her two elder daughters, Bob, the elder of the Gordon boys, and—who else? Oh, Robert Gaston,—to see the Midsummer Night's Dream. I want to take two boxes, and get Mrs. Charleford and Mrs. Scollard each to chaperon one half our party, and have as good a time as we can. Why, let me see—Mrs. Charleford, Edith, two; your mother, you two girls, three; Bob, Ralph, and myself—eight. Why, we can easily take Laura and Snigs Gordon. Dear me, I forgot Gretta, though she is one of my first thoughts, because in the matter of play-going age counts before musical talent, so Gretta has prior claim over Laura. But even with her we can ask Laura and Snigs, for that is only eleven altogether, and we boys can stand up at the back. I want the two lower boxes on the left, if I can get them—but you haven't said whether or not you approve," Robert interrupted himself, amusedly watching the rapture in Happie's dimpling, tell-tale face which needed no speech to reveal her mind.

"It's a perfectly blissful plan!" she cried. "I never sat in a box in my life, and I always wanted to dreadfully. And I've been crazy to see the Midsummer Night's Dream; I know lots of it by heart. I love that play and the Tempest so very much. And we haven't had time—because of the tea room and all, to take Gretta about as I meant to. It is a beautiful plan. I'm ever and ever so grateful for my part of it. You really are very kind, Mr. Gaston."

Robert Gaston smiled, well pleased. Not being in the least dull he had read plainly Happie's mental attitude towards him, and he was sincerely sorry for her, thinking that he should not have liked an interloper to come to steal Margery away had he been Happie, and fully compassionating her foreboding pangs—which showed that Margery was not wrong in believing him fine and tender beyond the ordinary.

"It is not kind to be good to oneself, Miss Andromeda-Happie," he said. "Will you ask your mother about it? Or ask her to let me ask her?"

"Yes, I'll tell her that you want to see her," said Happie, slipping away. Gretta's suggestion that Robert Gaston might want to read and talk to Margery alone oppressed her, in spite of her pleasure in the box party.

When Robert Gaston left the Patty-Pans that night he left "three perfected plans promising pleasure," Bob said as he shook hands. The tea room party for Washington's birthday was decided upon. This came first, as the holiday fell in the ensuing week. Then the party for the Midsummer Night's Dream early in the following week! Robert confessed that his own birthday followed Washington's in four days, and that he should like to keep it by having his party on the 26th, which was Tuesday, if he could. As far as the Scollards were concerned there was no objection to any date, unless it were to be a distant one, for which Laura would have been wholly unable to survive her impatience, and Happie was not less eager.

The third party was the crowning joy of that planful evening. Whether Aunt Keren had heard what Margery had said about the house party in the Ark there was no way of knowing—in Patty-Pans anything is more likely to be heard than not—but she came into the little parlor in her odd abrupt way just as Robert Gaston arose to go, saying: "Good-evening, Mr. Gaston. Sit down again and help me conspire."

"Certainly, with pleasure," said Robert amiably. "Against whom? I am ready to help you with bomb, plain dynamite, deadly potion, or powder and shot. Whomever you want removed, whatever your conspiracy may be, I'm your man, Miss Bradbury."

"Nice boy! I dislike hesitation above most things," said Miss Bradbury approvingly. "A ready ruffian is such a comfort! I want the entire Scollard family removed, also Gretta and the Gordon boys, and you, too. I have selected steam as the instrument."

"Appropriate to flat-dwellers, who are so accustomed to the pounding steam in the radiators that it must have lost much of its terrors," Robert replied. "Please command me, Miss Bradbury, and elucidate."

"I am going up to Crestville to recuperate—also to sleigh ride—this week. Saturday I have decided to go. That will give Rosie a chance to clean the house from top to bottom. It would be downright cruelty to deprive Rosie of an excuse to clean. I shall stay till I am tired of solitude and feel stronger. By that time my friends here will be ready to welcome me again. I'm afraid Happie will get tired of me, if I don't run away, and it would be like losing our hyphen to have one of the Keren-happuchs weary of the other! Now, I want a party while I am there. I have talked to the owner of the Ark, Miss Gretta, and she is rather more than willing to let me have my way. The tea room is to be closed from Thursday night until Tuesday morning. I am sure it will not bankrupt the six maidens, nor divert the business. You are all to go up to Crestville on the eight o'clock train on Friday morning, March first, and you are to come down again on Monday afternoon, on the 1:47. We are to sleigh, skate, build wood fires on our hearth, sing, tell stories, crack nuts, and be generally jolly. We are going to see whether or not Gretta is right when she says her country is more beautiful in winter than in summer. And we are going to offer libations to Jack Frost to send us crackling cold weather, without much wind—even Gretta admits the wind up there is formidable—and with plenty of snow. Contrary minded?"

Miss Keren paused for an expression of opinion as to her proposal, and it came without a sign of there being a contrary-minded mind among her hearers.

Margery's face lighted up with delight, although she already looked as happy as a girl can be. "Auntie Keren! You veritable fairy godmother! Just what I was saying a while ago that I wished we might do!" she cried.

Miss Keren checked a tiny smile, and Happie looked at her suspiciously. She was quicker than Margery to catch clues, and she remembered the excellent acoustics of their little connected rooms.

"Sometimes I wonder if fairies aren't just particularly quick people?" she said suggestively. "There's no fear of any one here voting against your proposal, Auntie Keren, dear."

"No, indeed, Miss Keren! I never had such a birthday present. I can't say how glad I am to get this invitation," cried Robert, with such evident sincerity that Margery's bright color deepened. "You'll show me your brook, and Don Dolor, and your Rosie and Mahlon, your mountains, your little all-sorts store, everything, won't you, Miss Margery?"

"How much she has told him and how well he remembers!" thought Happie, as Margery nodded smilingly. "There's a Valley of Eden up there, not too far to go to. Shall I show you that also?" she asked.

Robert had once more arisen to go. He stood looking down at pretty Margery smiling up at him. "You do that in spite of yourself," he said.

"Auntie Keren, you really are a duck!" said Happie, putting her arm around the elder Keren-happuch's tall, thin figure and conducting her down the hall. "Let me take you safely to your room, Fairy Godmother. You are much too valuable a fairy godmother to go down this long passage alone."

"I am not going to my room, Happie," said Miss Keren as Happie paused at what had been Bob's door. "I want to talk with your mother in the dining-room a half hour. She is giving Laura mathematics, or trying to. Mathematics and the artistic temperament seem to have no affinity. It is wonderful that child can count time! You run back to Margery and Gretta, I don't want you."

"Frankness, Miss Keren-happuch, is admirable, but horrible. I suppose I can't be offended with a fairy godmother, though! Only think of going to bed with three, a whole three, good times to dream over! How deliriously happy we are going to be!" Happie recklessly squeezed Miss Keren as she pulled away her arm and faced right about on her summary dismissal. Her last vestige of awe of Miss Keren had vanished. She realized the squeeze herself only when she had almost reached her own door. "It's the fourteenth of February—why, so it is!" Happie thought, stopping short at the discovery. "We've been getting valentines. Winter must be breaking up, for there's not a trace of ice between Aunt Keren and me now."

CHAPTER XIV
LITTLE SERENA

"I wonder what it all means," said Happie, as she turned from the glass to let Margery button the middle buttons of her waist. "We are giving a party to-day in the tea room; next week we intend to close it for three days. It seems to me it isn't as much like a real business as it should be, not a businesslike business. I meant to go into it in a life-or-death way. Just as if I were all the time reciting, 'Give me three grains of corn, mother,' and the tea room were the three grains of corn; all there was between us and starvation, I mean. But it is rather like a playhouse tea room. I wonder why?"

"It's Miss Bradbury's fault," said Gretta before Margery could answer. "First she paid the rent ahead, now she invites us up——"

"To your house!" Margery laughingly interrupted.

"Well!" admitted Gretta. "Only it never can seem mine. Up to the Ark, anyway, and tells you to close the tea room. I think she makes us all feel as though the tea room weren't necessary, somehow."

"Gretta's right," said Margery. "There is something in the air that makes the tea room seem like a side issue. Yet no one could have been more in earnest than we were about it. And we have helped mother a great deal with its results this winter. Oh, I suppose we imagine it. It really isn't important that we close the room for those three days. It will go on just the same, and we are a little tired. That is what Aunt Keren saw, probably. Yet there is a stir in the air—as if something were going to happen."

Margery pinned a long-stemmed American Beauty rose on her breast as she spoke, having shaken it out of the box where it lay with twenty-three of its sisters, and smiled at her reflection, without seeing it.

"Something good, I hope," said Happie.

"Good? Oh, yes! Nothing but the best of good things happens to the Scollards lately! I hope we are grateful enough. I don't feel as though there were enough of me to be as grateful as I ought to be," Margery responded.

"A full teacup is as full as a full ocean, Margery. I think we're grateful in the best way when we're happy," said Happie, perhaps more wisely than she knew. "Now if you two big girls are ready we'll go and help motherums with the little girls, and be off to our mixed-tea room party, as Bob calls it."

It was an unusual party, "but that was no harm," as Polly sensibly pointed out. In the first place parties are not usually held in tea rooms, nor do they combine the oldest with the youngest child, and all the ages between, flanked by two mothers, as in this case. Mrs. Charleford came with Edith. Mrs. Scollard accepted her invitation with more pleasure than any one else, perhaps, because she "so rarely had a chance to see her flock frolic by daylight," as she said herself.

Mrs. Gordon was asked, but could not come. Ralph and Snigs represented the family, unsuspecting Margery's plot to increase their family joy, or rather to widen it. Happie had caught all three of her E's without an engagement, as it chanced. Little Serena Jones-Dexter came with her nurse, looking very white and pathetic. She had sprained her ankle and could not enjoy the party except as a spectator. She had so strongly set her heart upon coming that her doting grandmother had not had the courage to say her nay, so Serena came in state, borne in by a footman, attended by her nurse. She was ensconced in pillows in the very centre of the room in the biggest of chairs where she could see everything, poor little patient bit of childhood, with the big eyes and the beautiful little white face.

It was a holiday, of course, and the girls had felt sure that no one would try to visit the tea room, but hardly had the guests all arrived when some one did turn the door handle and in walked Hans Lieder. He stopped short as he saw the assemblage and took off his wide brimmed hat with a profound bow.

"A thousand pardons, young ladies," he said. "I see that this room is not this room to-day. I did not know."

"Oh, if he would play!" whispered Laura to Margery.

"We are having a party, Herr Lieder," Margery said, stepping forward, looking so pretty in her pale green gown with the American beauties against her golden hair and nestling close to her fair skin, that Herr Lieder's gloomy eyes lightened involuntarily as they rested on her. "It is a party of all ages and sizes, rather a frolic than a party. Would you care to watch our games?"

"If my music would give you or your guests any pleasure, mademoiselle, I should gladly remain to play to you," said the man who still was a person of mystery to the six maidens.

"Pleasure! It would be more than that, Herr Lieder. Only we could not play games; we could do nothing but listen, if you were playing," said Margery.

"No," said Hans Lieder, throwing his hat down in the corner and following it with his cloak as he divested himself of it. "No. I can be the Pied Piper when I will, and set your pulses throbbing beyond the possibility of doing anything else but frolic."

"This is our mother, Mrs. Scollard, Herr Lieder," said Happie, bringing her mother up to this unexpected addition to the party, "and my brother. You are very kind, but we should be sorry to have you tire yourself for us, or——"

"Fräulein Glücklich," said Hans Lieder, and Happie laughed in pleased appreciation of this variation on her name, "Fräulein Glücklich, there is nothing rests me, nothing interests me, nothing helps me to forget, save music. It will give me pleasure to play for you until you beg me to stop. This piano is a sort of miracle to me, and it is my greatest pleasure to touch it. I once had a piano of this make, this action, this same case; in short, it is identically my piano again, and I play on it wondering at the similarity, and dreaming that the impossible has happened and that all that I have thrown away is restored to me."

Happie glanced around to see who had heard these strange words that thrilled her with a feeling of fear and awe. Her mother had moved away after the bow with which she had acknowledged Happie's introduction; Bob had gone; no one had heard what this singular man had said, and he went immediately to the piano and began to play.

Ralph, Bob and Snigs had never heard him before. "The moment he begins you have to sit up and take notice," remarked Bob to Ralph, who nodded with all his might, being too engrossed in the "notice" he was taking to reply otherwise.

The girls had not intended to have a dancing party, but there was no resisting the waltz into which the long fingers fell, inviting the keys to magic, all feet to motion.

Ralph danced, with Happie first, with Laura, and then with Happie's friends, but as he turned, with Edith Charleford as a partner, his eyes caught little Serena's across Edith's shoulder, so bright, so unchildlike in their beauty and wistfulness that Ralph's big heart went out to her with a bound.

"Poor little thing! Sitting there so patiently!" he thought. "The girls say she is a fairy dancer! I wonder why I shouldn't be decent to her as I would be to any other forlorn mite? She can't help being my cousin, and she doesn't know she is; she's too little to know about family feuds anyway. She looks as though she were bearing the burden of Mrs. Jones-Dexter's misbehavior. I should think the Jewish scapegoat might have looked like that when it was a kid. I never saw such wistful eyes." Ralph laughed at his fancy about the youthful scapegoat, and Edith stopped dancing imperatively.

"I wonder what you will be when you are an old man?" she exclaimed pettishly, being accustomed to attention whenever her prettiness demanded it. "You are as absent-minded as if you had been vivisected, and your mind taken out. I have spoken to you three times and you haven't heard me! and just how you laughed, when there was nothing to laugh at!"

"There certainly isn't, when a fellow is rude to a girl, and Happie's best friend at that," said Ralph contritely, though his implication that Edith derived part of her importance from Happie was not flattering. "I beg your pardon, but the truth is I was engrossed in that little girl over there, the child that isn't well, and if you will excuse me I think I'll go over and try to get her to look less like sixty and more like six, which is her age, I believe."

He led Edith to a chair with perfect certainty that he was to be released, and Edith stared at him in amazement. "Well, you are an extraordinary boy!" she gasped. "But I don't mind your rudeness at all. I think it is rather nice of you to be interested in that child. Yes, I'll excuse you."

"Thank you," said Ralph calmly, and walked over to little Serena.

"Not much fun sitting still, is it, little lady?" he asked in a way he had which made all children go to him like butterflies to blossoms, the secret of the true child-lover which cannot be imitated nor taught.

"I love to dance," said Serena wistfully.

"Will you dance with me?" asked Ralph.

"I can't, not to-day. I have sprained my ankle," said Serena.

"Ah, but I haven't!" cried Ralph. "Let me take you for a waltz. My feet are so much bigger than yours that one pair like them will take the place of yours and of the little partners you have when you are dancing up-stairs. Come, your Serene Highness!"

Serena looked up with a delighted laugh. "That's my dearest pet name! How did you know it?" she cried, and held up her hands for Ralph to lift her. "I'm going to dance with this nice, this very nice big boy, Mary," she added to her nurse.

Ralph lifted her carefully. "I'll not harm her," he said to the doubtful Mary, and adjusting Serena to his broad shoulder Ralph began to dance with his little cousin, quite unmoved by what the other boys and girls might think of the queer performance. What Margery thought of it would be hard to say. She caught Robert Gaston's sleeve, he being nearest to her as usual, and her eyes shone like stars.

"Look!" she whispered. "Do look at Ralph! It's the most fortunate thing that little Serena happened to be hurt! Ralph can hardly resist a sweet child at any time, but one that is suffering is wholly irresistible to him. And Serena is such a lovely child!"

"Fortune is favoring you, Lady of the Deep-laid Plots," smiled Robert. "I am not surprised. I felt almost sure that the lion and the lamb would lie down together if you led them up."

"Oh, they haven't done that yet, but I can't help hoping!" cried Margery.

"Never try to help hoping, it's the best thing that one can do—I think I hope a little, wee bit myself these pleasant days, Margery."

Margery looked straight before her, trying to hide the tumult of her pulses as she heard her name without the prefix for the first time from Robert's lips, and guessed his meaning—as she easily might do.

In the meantime Ralph circled around the room with his small cousin whose pale face was rosy from laughing at this kind big boy's nonsense. He stopped at last before her chair and deposited Serena in it. She looked up at him from its depths with affectionate admiration.

"I've had a perfectly lovely waltz," she said fervently.

"So have I," echoed Ralph. "I think henceforth I shall never dance with a partner who is too big to be carried—saves all the bother of steering. They're going to play a game—try to cut down George Washington's cherry tree over there. How would you like to play it too instead of watching them? In my arms, you know. You will be blindfolded, and so shall I, and you shall tell me where to go, but you shall make your own chop at the tree and try for a prize as well as the rest who haven't sprained their ankles. What do you say to that idea, your Serene Highness?"

Serena clapped her hands, then her bright face clouded. "I'd love it!" she cried. "But it would be hard for you to carry a great girl six years old, and I wouldn't like to spoil your party—not anybody's party, but specially anybody so dearly good."

"And so goodly dear," said Ralph. "Little Serene Highness, don't you worry over that. I'd be playing the game double, twice blindfolded, twice chopping, with you in my arms, so I'd have twice as much fun, don't you see?"

"You must be fond of children, sir," said the nurse, looking curiously at Ralph.

Ralph caught the suspicious note of the lower order of mind, which is apt to doubt the motives of unusual kindness, as well as the jealous note of the nurse for her nursling.

He smiled at Mary, and Ralph's smile generally inspired confidence. "There isn't anything much nicer than little people, is there?" he asked. "And this little person has a look that seems to make one want her to have as good a time, for as long a time, as she can. I'm glad to carry her around and let her get into things."

Mary's eyes suddenly filled. "I know the look; they don't see it," she said very low. "You're a fine boy, whoever you are, and I hope you'll be sent good times of your own for the interest you take in this darling."

"Thank you," said Ralph. "Why, here's my Polly!"

"She's my Polly too," cried Serena. "And Penny's my Penny, but most of all Miss Margery's my Miss Margery."

"I didn't know you knew our Ralph, Serena," cried Polly, running up to take possession of Ralph's hand. "Happie sent me to tell you she wants you to help stand the tree up, Ralph."

"I'll be back for you, little Serene Highness, when we've propped the tree," said Ralph hastening to obey.

They put the tree into its place and distributed hatchets to all the company. "First, the national parade!" shouted Bob, under an inspiration. "Shoulder arms!"

Everybody shouldered his tiny hatchet, Herr Lieder began to play a medley of national airs in march time. Ralph rushed over, caught Serena up on his left arm, fell into place, and all the company, large and small, marched around and around the tea room, brandishing hatchets and trying to sing familiar words that no longer fitted familiar airs when played in marching time, regardless of the original tempo.

"The first chop is Auntie Cam's!" cried Happie. "Come and be blindfolded, auntie. And next motherums!"

Mrs. Charleford submitted to the bandage over her eyes, while Herr Lieder played the queerest sort of music, so humorous that everybody laughed at it just as they would have laughed at funny words. When Mrs. Charleford was safely blindfolded and Bob turned her around three times to the left, and thrice to the right Herr Lieder played something that Laura correctly described as "dizzy." It was full of hints of tunes, none of which developed. "Don't you see?" cried Laura in ecstasy. "It means you don't know where you are!"

Then to the accompaniment of soft running arpeggios Mrs. Charleford went slowly forward, hesitated, turned, went in the opposite direction, raised her hatchet, put out her other hand gropingly, stopped when everybody cried, "No fair; no fair feeling!" and struck—to a crashing chord of Herr Lieder's—a valiant blow directly at Elsie Barker's head, who dodged it by throwing herself on Eleanor Vernon. "She thought you were a cherry, Elsie!" cried Edith amid the applause that greeted this first blow. Elsie was so proud of her red hair that there was no danger in teasing her about it.

Mrs. Scollard walked without a moment's hesitation to the portière and struck her hatchet deep into its folds. "Mother is trying to bury the hatchet," said Bob, untying the handkerchief that hid her eyes. "Come, Eleanor! you might bear in mind that it is the tree, and not the tea room or its friends that we are after."

Eleanor seemed to heed the warning, for a shout of applause greeted her as she aimed a blow at the tip-most top of the little tree, and Robert Gaston pinned on the spot the first numbered slip the tree had received.

Margery followed. She walked directly to the book-shelf and struck her blow on the back of "Lady Baltimore."

"Oh, come now, Margery! You don't want to hit anything that is stamped Baltimore!" protested Snigs.

"I don't know about that special kind of cake, the Lady Baltimore of the novel, but Margery thinks Baltimore things take the cake," said Elsie Barker.

There were some of the players who could keep their bearings, or were more lucky than the first ones. Gradually the little cherry tree began to blossom with white strips, and the Scollards were reassured by seeing that some one could take a prize, which seemed doubtful at first while everybody was aiming wide of the tree.

Ralph came up with Serena to be blindfolded. He had played for himself and had deposited his record on a table nearest to the window and farthest from the tree. Now he had to be blindfolded again, to be sure that he was really guided by Serena and playing fair, and Serena herself had a handkerchief bound around her fair hair, hiding her excited eyes.

"That way, Ralph, walk that way!" she cried, pointing directly to the tree. Ralph obeyed. The child pushed and pressed him from side to side; it was a hard matter to be certain what she wanted him to do, but Ralph patiently did his best, and stopped when Serena gave the order. "Now!" she whispered, drawing in her breath.

She struck a mighty blow, using all her strength as if it had been a veritable tree chopping, and her blow went home, right above the mark on the tree which had been made to designate the spot used as the standard for prize winning.

"Hurrah for little Serena!" shouted Bob hurrying up to uncover the child's eyes and her bearer's. "Nobody else has come near you, Serena, and I'm sure nobody will. You're the one who has done it with your little hatchet; you've won the prize, sure thing."

Serena turned and hugged Ralph frantically. "Oh, you dear, dear, darling big boy!" she cried, to everybody's amusement. "I love you and I love you! I never won a prize in all my life, and I'm six. I'm going to give half of it to you!"

There were not many more to try their skill after Serena, and the interest in the game flagged a little with the certainty that the best possible blow had been struck. Serena had won the first prize, Robert Gaston the second, with a mark to his credit on a short lower limb, near the test mark on the trunk of the tree.

The consolation prize had to be drawn for by five, Mrs. Charleford and Ralph among them. Mrs. Charleford won it, a little Japanese hen standing on a card bearing the inscription "A hatch it you may count on."

Serena was given a candy box in the shape of a tree trunk, tied with red, white and blue ribbon, finished with a bunch of artificial Japanese cherry blossoms, and filled with candied cherries.

She beamed at it and at Margery who brought it to her.

"I'm so glad it's something I can divide with my nice boy," she said. "I'm going to give him 'most all the cherries. Maybe he won't mind if I keep the box and the flowers and the ribbon? Oh, he's right here! Will you, Ralph, care if I keep what's outside and give you the inside?"

"Not a bit, little Serene Highness! I don't want more than one bite of a cherry from the inside. I'm just your horse that you drove to win the race, you know."

"Didn't we have fun?" sighed Serena contentedly. "I never went to so nice a party, Miss Margery, and I'm six. Grandma said, 'What's the use of going, Serena, when you can't move about one bit?' But I was crazy to come. She didn't know Ralph was here. Neither did I. We didn't know there was a Ralph. Isn't it funny how you don't know people till you do know them, and then you love them?"

"It's wonderful, little Serena!" Margery assented with fervor. "And then you can't imagine how your old world used to look without them! I'm glad that you had such a happy time, dear. I'm very glad Ralph gave it to you!"

She smiled on Ralph, and he turned away. "I'm not feuding on my own account, you know, and anyway it wouldn't be this child's fault," he murmured.

"I must take you home, Miss Serena," said Mary. "Mrs. Jones-Dexter said not later than five."

"I don't believe she knew how early five would be here," sighed Serena, submitting to the decree meekly. "I wish you'd come and see me, my nice Ralph."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, little Serene Highness, but maybe we'll meet again. Life is long and very queer in its ways. Good-bye, sweet little lady."

Serena said good-bye wistfully and watched Ralph walk away with longing in her eyes. Not because life is long, but because it is short, Serena was soon to see again the cousin whom she did not know.

The frolic broke up by seven. It had been a pleasant afternoon to everybody who had accepted Margery's peculiar invitation. Even Herr Lieder seemed to have enjoyed making music for the young people, and watching the fun. Certainly he had added a great deal to the success of the afternoon.

Margery, walking down the street behind the rather long procession of her family and guests, with Robert Gaston beside her, sang in her heart as she brooded over the real success which she believed she had attained.

It could not be, she felt sure, that Ralph's kindness to little Serena, given without a thought of consequences beyond making the ailing child happy for a few hours, could be without fruit. Some day, she felt sure, his goodness of heart would win him further friendship from Serena, who would not forget "her kind, big boy."

Margery knew how hard it was going to be for Mrs. Gordon to send Ralph to college the coming year and yet how certainly she was going to struggle to do so, and how Ralph was planning to help himself through the course. "If only Serena should beg to see the 'big boy' again, if she should grow deeply fond of him, if for her sake Mrs. Jones-Dexter should do what she easily could do for her niece and her grandnephew, if as years went by Serena, growing fonder and fonder of Ralph——"

"What are you dreaming of, Margery? I have spoken to you twice, and you did not hear me!" complained Robert Gaston at her elbow.

"Oh, I beg your pardon! I was dreaming of the possible fruit of the little tree at which we have all been vainly chopping this afternoon," Margery answered. "I do think it's heavenly to fancy you see a sweet story working itself out, and to feel as though you had contributed one tiny page of it yourself!"

CHAPTER XV
"'MONGST THE HILLS OF SOMERSET, WISHT I WAS A-ROAMIN' YET!"

The house party in the Ark—especially because it was to be composed only of the household—seemed so desirable as the time for it grew nearer that the party to see the Midsummer Night's Dream paled before its beacon light.

Yet Robert Gaston gave his guests a blissful evening! Margery, Gretta, Happie and Mrs. Charleford sat in the first box, with Ralph and Robert himself for the black-coated background to their brightness. Edith, Laura, Bob and Snigs were in the second box under Mrs. Scollard's care. Of course there was no real division of the party.

"We just happen to have a fold in the middle, like a big birthday card," said Happie, laying her hand on the plush-covered railing of the next box as she leaned over to speak to Edith.

Margery settled into her chair, half hidden by the curtain, with a long breath of satisfaction. Gretta sat serenely in the middle, lost in admiration of the handsome theatre, the well-gowned women, the rustle of anticipation, secure in her sense of being unknown and of no consequence. She did not guess that many a glass was turned upon her face, with its brilliant tints of red and white skin, dark eyes, and heavy masses of dark hair. Margery and she were rare foils for each other, like a jasmine blossom and a Jacqueminot rose. No one could claim for Happie regular beauty, but she was alight with life, fun, eagerness to enjoy and to give pleasure. Her hair, always lawless, gleamed like tarnished copper, her eyes danced, her dimples came and went, her lips curved and quivered—she was like an incarnate electric current. Margery was lovely, Gretta was handsome, but Happie was charming, and on the whole that is the greatest gift of the three.

It did not take long for the audience around the boxes to discover and grow interested in the theatre party. It was not often that one could see so many winsome creatures together as Robert was entertaining that night, with a keen sense of the fact and no little pride in his guests.

Not Laura alone enjoyed the music of the Mendelssohn overture, but Laura did enjoy it, leaning far over the edge of the box, her pale face responsive to its spell. Then the curtain went up and the girls were admitted to fairyland, to the realm of visions, under the domain of sleep-like trance in which the actual world was no more a reality. Shakespeare's poetry, aided by the skill of to-day, wrought the spell. Electric fire-flies flitted through the forest, stung Bottom's sleepy poll, flew hither and yon at Puck's behest, while the owl in the hollow tree winked his electric eyes as the elf teased him. Fairies lifted their arms and then flitted across the stage and disappeared among the trees as Titania or Oberon commanded them; it was hard to believe they were mortals, so perfectly managed was the illusion of their flight. Happie put a hand over one of Margery's and one of Gretta's, giving herself up to the fun of the grotesque players of Pyramus and Thisbe, yielding her imagination to the forest elves, perfectly happy and unconscious of real life, as Happie always could be when she read or saw or heard. Not till the curtain fell on the last act in the palace of the duke, with the fairies flitting through the gathering darkness shedding wedding blessings on the reunited lovers to the softly sung music of Oberon, did Happie stir, sighing. The lights blazed up in the body of the theatre, on every side there was a rustle of preparation for the street. The illusion was over, and Broadway, with its roar of trolley and its stream of varied types of life, waited to swallow up the mortals who for three hours had been transported to the kingdom of dreams.

Robert Gaston had taken Mrs. Scollard for a walk in the lobby between two of the acts. As she put on her hat Happie fancied there was between them an air of understanding. Her mother seemed stirred, while Robert looked blissful. He helped Margery into her coat carefully, and laughingly disentangled Gretta's heavy braid of hair from Happie's obtruding hook.

"I have had the best birthday I remember, and I'm a thousand times grateful to all of you who helped make it that," he said, forestalling the thanks which they were all ready to pour out to him.

The tea room claimed the girls for two more days, and then came the longed-for Friday when they were to go to Crestville.

Mrs. Scollard, alone, was not to be of the party. She and Jeunesse Dorée, she said, would look after the Patty-Pans, for she could not well be spared from her duties at that time.

"Well, you take good care of yourself while we go out of the Patty-Pans into the mire," said Bob, hunting around for a mislaid blacking brush.

"That's what we did when we went up the first time, but there's no mire now, Bobsy; only 'the snow, the beautiful snow!'" cried Happie in high feather. Their libations to Jack Frost, which Aunt Keren had suggested, had not been in vain. The ground was white, the streets were vociferous with the Italian drivers of tip-carts, as the "white-wings" gangs labored to clear the snow away in the least possible time.

It was an early start that the eight o'clock train necessitated, but there was no other train until twenty minutes of two, and that would not get them to Crestville until nearly half past five—too late and too dark for pleasure-seekers. Besides, what was the use of wasting the valuable afternoon which might be gained by taking what Crestvillians called "the mail train"? This arrived at noon, in the sunniest, brightest part of the day. Nevertheless, catching it meant leaving the Patty-Pans at not much past seven. Not that there was any doubt of getting off. The Scollard family was stirring before six, and the first sound it heard was a pounding on the dumb-waiter, announcing that the Gordon boys were ahead of them.

Mrs. Scollard bundled her youngest into an extra coat as a protection against the mountain wind that she would face driving up from the station, and kissed her children all around with fervor enough to make up for the two days in which she should not kiss them. She clung to Margery and kissed her repeatedly.

"Good-bye, little Margery, good-bye, best of daughters. You're such a comfort to me, dear, and no one will ever love you quite as mother does," she whispered.

Margery looked at her, guessing, perhaps, the reason for this tenderness.

"I'm never going to be less than your eldest daughter, mother dear. I couldn't care for anything that took me from you," she whispered back.

Then the joyous crowd started out noisily, all the Scollards, flanked by Ralph and Snigs, who joined them in the hall.

They had allowed more time than they needed to get down to the station, and sat watching the crowd of incoming suburbanites hurrying through the outer gates as if New York were a mammoth kinetoscope which they were barely in time to see.

After a short wait a personage in brass buttons with a voice of marvelous volume and monotony aroused the occupants of the waiting-room with what sounded like a recitation from the gazeteer, a long list of stations at which this mail-bearing train stopped. The Scollard party hurried through the gates, and lengthened down the car aisle, ten strong.

"Let's divide up our crowd and sit on both sides of the car. If we're all on one side we'll have to telephone if the first pair should wish to communicate with the last pair," said Snigs. "I sit with Happie!"

"Not this trip, little brother!" observed Ralph, elbowing up to take that place.

"Happie sits with Gretta," announced Happie. "And Mr. Gaston must be one of the right-side people, because that side has a better view of the Water Gap. All the rest of us have seen it before."

Margery slipped into a seat on the right side of the car, Robert Gaston beside her. Bob dropped down behind them beside Gretta, and defeated Happie accepted Ralph's presence and crow of victory without perceptible regret. Laura on the other side of the car welcomed Snigs as a traveling companion, with a gracious smile, and Polly and Penny settled down together behind them, immediately to unsettle with excited bounces on the seat, kneeling up to look out of the window, then flouncing down for two minutes in which they tried to convey the impression that they were seasoned and somewhat blasé travelers.

"We look like a bridal party, with Margery in that gray suit ahead, and Gaston so beautiful to behold in his new top-coat—— I'm sure it's a new one!" Ralph whispered to Happie. "Bet you what you will the people in this car think Margery's a bride, and Bob and I are bridesmaids."

"And Snigs and I the stern parents!" added Happie. "Rather a young bride, I should think. It's years before Margery will be old enough to marry. What do you suppose they think Polly and Penny are?"

"Grains of rice," said Ralph promptly. "As to 'years before Margery's old enough,' she's eighteen, and after that danger signals are flying."

"Humph!" ejaculated Happie with more sincerity than politeness.

The three hours and a half journey up to Crestville is pretty for the first half of the distance, and beautiful the last half. At eleven o'clock the jolly young group from the Patty-Pans was looking out of the windows with twenty eager eyes to see the approach to the Delaware Water Gap. Laura and Snigs were perching on the arms of the seats of those on the more favorable side, and Polly and Penny had crowded, one in with Happie and Ralph, the other with Gretta and Bob.

The train curved around the shining track like a snake, the locomotive plainly to be seen as it tugged along the bend that brought it into view from the rear cars. The river, swollen by snows, ran swiftly down its rocky bed and on either hand rose the dark mountains, snow-patched and pine-clad, through which in countless ages the Delaware had cut its way to the sea.

"We begin to be proud about here," Bob explained to Robert over the latter's shoulder. "From this point up we consider our feet upon our native heath and our name is MacGregor, of the purest Gregorian—if you doubt it, look at Gretta."

Robert laughingly turned. Gretta's eyes were dilated, they were darker than ever, and looked ready to leap across the intervening mountains to behold Crestville. Her cheeks were crimson, her lips parted by her quick breathing; joy radiated from her very hands.

"It's a beautiful country, Gretta," said Robert. "How you do love it! I don't quite see how you stay away, when it makes you feel like this to get back."

"I never was away to get back to it before," said Gretta. "I couldn't stay away with any one but these dear people. There isn't any one up here that really cares a bit what becomes of me, yet it seems as though all these trees knew me, and the mountains—oh, I can't tell you how the mountains look to me! Not a bit the way they look to any of you, I'm sure of that. I see the mountains, too, and how splendid they are, but I see them something as you see your mother—something that I saw when I first opened my eyes."

"Yes, I understand," said Robert gently. "Strange, and beautifully strange, the kinship we all feel for our mother bit of earth!"

The ride up the steep grade from the Water Gap to Crestville seemed long to the hungry and impatient "Archaics," as Bob had called the Ark occupants the previous summer. It took three-quarters of an hour for the train to wind up the fifteen miles, ascending sharply, and with the track curved and inclined so that the locomotive came in sight often, as it labored to get its charge up the grade.

"There's the solitary pine, Hapsie!" cried Bob, pointing to a landmark that stood out alone on a summit which they passed in the drive from the station over to the Ark.

"I see!" Happie's voice echoed Bob's pleasure, and Gretta caught her breath.

"Crestville! Crestville!" shouted the guard. But the party for the Ark was on its feet before the announcement, and Penny had bolted for the door, to the dismay of careful Polly, burdened with responsibility for her successor who lacked all of her own steadiness.

Drawn up beside the station platform as the Archaics came around, was Jake Shale's team. The horses were as discouraged-looking as ever, but the children had learned that their gauntness and melancholy were rather habits than the proof of actual discomfort. They were harnessed to a bright blue wagon body, set on two sleds. The wagon was filled with straw, and Jake sat on the seat smiling helplessly, with no change of expression on his cadaverous face to indicate the pleasure that he really did feel on seeing the Scollard young folk again.

Beyond Jake stood Don Dolor, fairly shining with prosperity and grooming, harnessed to a pretty dark green sleigh with a removable second seat, which none of the newcomers had ever seen before. Mahlon Gruber held the reins. He was just as limp, just as near falling to pieces, apparently, as ever, but he grinned with inane joy as Bob shouted to him: "Hallo, Mahlon!" and responded "Hallo," with an approach to animation.

Margery and Robert, the latter because he was the guest of honor and Margery because he was largely her guest, got into the back seat of the sleigh, and Polly and Penny were tucked in beside Mahlon, with some regret for the straw-filled wagon body and the majority.

"Do they let you drive alone, Mahlon?" asked Bob, tucking in his large and his smaller sisters, and patting Don Dolor—dolorous no more—on his handsome black nose.

"Ye-e-ah!" said Mahlon in a long drawn note of triumph, ending with a staccato snap. "Yep! Yes, sirree! I kin drive that there horse anywheres. He knows me good."

"He looks fine, Mahlon. You take every bit as good care of him as I did," said Bob, turning away to join the waiting Shale party.

"I bet ye!" said the proud Mahlon emphatically, and with the thin giggle that the children remembered so well.

"She couldn't come over," said Jake Shale, turning his long vehicle with its long squeak on the frozen snow. "She sent word yesterday I'd got to be over till to-day fer the mail train. She was afraid she hadn't the dare to come, fear of cold. I didn't see how I was goin' to make it—I'm haulin' fer a man that's lumberin' a piece he's took over the other side. He's cuttin' mine props and ties. But I told him I'd have to do it a while, to oblige her, and I come. If I hadn't a went Aaron could, but I was using the team. So you was to the city, Gretta. You look good."

"I am good, Jake," said Gretta, as keenly alive now as any other distinguished stranger, to the dialect of her native village.

"Miss Bradbury isn't ill, is she? She's able to be out?" asked Happie, rightly construing Jake's feminine pronoun to apply to her godmother.