the square of serene blue framed by curtains and casing,
small clouds were drifting--clouds dazzlingly white. She pretended the
clouds were fat, snowy sheep that were passing one by one.

Thus had snowy flocks crossed above the trout-stream. Oh? where was that
stream? the glade through which it flowed? the shingled cottage among
the trees?

With all her heart Gwendolyn wished she were a butterfly.

Suddenly she sat up. She had found her way alone to the library. Why not
put on hat and coat _and go to Johnnie Blake's?_

She was at the door of the wardrobe before she remembered the kidnapers,
and realized that she dared not walk out alone. But Potter liked the
country. Besides, he knew the way. She decided to ask him to go with
her--old and stooped though he was. Perhaps she would also take the
pretty nurse-maid at the corner. And those who were left behind--Miss
Royle and Thomas and Jane--would all be sorry when she was gone.

But let them fret! Let them weep, and wish her back! She--

That moment she caught sight of the photographs on the writing-desk. She
stood still to look at them. As she looked, both pictured faces
gradually dimmed. For tears had come at last--at the thought of leaving
father and mother--quiet tears that flowed in erratic little S's between
gray eyes and trembling mouth.

How could she forsake _them?_

"Gwendolyn," she half-whispered, "s'pose we just pu-play the Johnnie
Blake Pretend ... Oh, very well,"--this last with all of Miss Royle's
precise intonation.

The heavy brocade hangings were the forest trees. The piano was the
mountain, richly inlaid. The table was the cottage, and she rolled it
nearer the dull rose timber at the side window. The rug was the grassy,
flowery glade; its border, the stream that threaded the glade. Beyond
the stream twisted an unpaved and carefully polished road.

The first part of this particular Pretend was the drive to the
village--carved and enameled, and paneled with woven cane. A hassock did
duty for a runabout that had no top to shut out the sun-light, no
windows to bar the fragrant air. In front of the hassock, a pillow did
duty as a stout dappled pony.

Her father drove. And she sat beside him, holding on to the iron bar of
the runabout seat with one hand, to a corner of his coat with the other;
for not only were the turns sharp but the country road was uneven. The
sun was just rising above the forest, and it warmed her little back. The
fresh breez