ow the others."

So Peggy, quite entranced by the importance of her office, took her part
in the ceremony, and Anne Warfield stood on top of the snowy bank above
the river, and cast upon its tumbling surface the bright burden which it
was to carry to the sea.

It was at this moment that there crossed the bridge the only train from
the north which stopped by day at Peter Bower's. The passengers looking
out saw, far below them, sullen stream, somber woods, and a girl in a gay
red scarf. They saw, too, a dingy white dot of a child who danced up and
down. When the train stopped a few minutes later at Bower's, six of the
passengers stepped from it, three men and three women, a smartly-dressed,
cosmopolitan group, quite evidently indifferent to the glances which
followed them.

Anne and Peggy had no eyes for the new arrivals. If they noticed the
train at all, it was merely to give it a slurring thought, as bringing
more Old Gentlemen who would eat and be merry, then hurry back again to
town. As for themselves, having finished the business of the moment,
they had yet to look after Diogenes.

Diogenes was a drake. He lived a somewhat cloistered life in the stable
which had been made over into a garage. He had wandered in one morning
soon after Anne had come to teach in the school. Peter had suggested that
he be killed and eaten. But Anne, lonely in her new quarters, had
appreciated the forlornness of the old drake and had adopted him. She had
named him Diogenes because he had an air of searching always for
something which could not be found. Once when a flock of wild ducks had
flown overhead, Diogenes had listened, and, as their faint cries had come
down to him, he had stretched his wings as if he, too, would fly. But his
fat body had held him, and so still chained to earth, he waddled within
the limits of his narrow domain.

In a cozy corner of the garage there was plenty of straw and a blanket to
keep off draughts. Mrs. Bower had declared such luxury unsettling. But
Anne had laughed at her. "Why should pleasant things hurt us?" she had
asked, and Mrs. Bower had shaken her head.

"If you had seen the old men who come here and stuff, and die because
their livers are wrong, you'd know what I mean. Give him enough, but
don't pamper him."

In the face of this warning, however, Anne fed the old drake on tidbits,
and visited him at least once a day. He returned her favors by waiting
for her at the gate when it was not too co