y and turned her eyes upon the Southern city. It was
nearly a week since she had been allowed to wander so far afield, and
Camelot seemed more than ever wonderful as it lay in the shimmering
distance gleaming and glistening beyond the hills. Trails of smoke waved
above all the towers, showing where Sir Beaumanis still served his
kitchen apprenticeship for his knighthood and his place at the Table
Round. Thousands of windows flashed back the light.

"I could get there," pondered Mary, "if God would send me that goat and
wagon. I guess there's quite a demand for goats and wagons. I could
dress my goat all up in skirts like the ladies dressed their palfreys,
an' I'd wear my hair loose on my shoulders--it's real goldy when it's
loose--an' my best hat. I guess Queen Guinevere would be real glad to
see me. Oh, dear," she fretted as these visions came thronging back to
her, "I wish Heaven would hurry up."

Between the pasture and the distant city she could distinguish the roofs
of another of the havens of her dear desire--the house where the old
ladies lived. Four old ladies there were, in the sweet autumn of their
lives, and Mary's admiration of them was as passionate as were all her
psychic states. She never could be quite sure as to which of the four
she most adored. There was the gentle Miss Ann, who taught her to recite
verses of piercing and wilting sensibility; the brisk Miss Jane, who
explained and demonstrated the construction of many an old-time cake or
pastry; the silent Miss Agnes, who silently accepted assistance in her
never-ending process of skeletonizing leaves and arranging them in prim
designs upon cardboard, and the garrulous Miss Sabina, who, with a
crochet needle, a hair-pin, a spool with four pins driven into it,
knitting needles and other shining implements, could fashion, and teach
Mary to fashion, weavings and spinnings which might shame the most
accomplished spider. Aided by her and by the re-enforced spool above
mentioned, Mary had already achieved five dirty inches of red woollen
reins for the expected goat. But the house was distant just three
fields, a barb-wire fence, a low stone wall, and a cross bull, and Mary
knew that her unaccustomed leisure could not be expected to endure long
enough for so perilous a pilgrimage.

Her dissatisfied gaze wandered back to her quiet home surrounded by its
neatly laid out meadows, cornfield, orchard, barns, and garden. And a
shadow fell upon her wistful little