x which he with his own hands had papered
inside and out from a remnant of gorgeously flowered wall-paper.

When all was ready he went in to break the news to Clytie. She, busy with
her baking, heard him declare:

"Now--I'm going to leave this place!" with the look of one who will not be
coaxed nor in any manner dissuaded. He thought she took it rather coolly,
though Allan ran, as promptly as he could have wished, to tell his
grandfather.

"I'm going to be a regular mean one--_worse'n_ Budd Jackson!" he continued
to Clytie. He was glad to see that this brought her to her senses.

"Will you stay if I give you--an orange?"

"No, _sir;_--you'll never set eyes on _me_ again!"

"Oh, now!--two oranges?"

"I can't--I _got_ to go!" in a voice tense with effort.

"All right! Then I'll give them to Allan."

She continued to take brown loaves from the oven and to put other loaves
in to bake, while he stood awkwardly by, loath to part from her. Allan
came back breathless.

"Grandpa says you can go as far as you like and you needn't come back till
you get ready!"

He shifted from one foot to the other and absently ate a warm cookie from
the jarful at his hand. He thought this seemed not quite the correct
attitude to take toward him, yet he did not waver. They would be sorry
enough in a few days, when it was too late.

"I guess I better take a few of these along with me," he said, stowing
cookies in the pockets of his jacket. He would have liked one of the big
preserved peaches all punctuated with cloves, but he saw no way to carry
it, and felt really unable to eat it on the spot.

"Well, good-bye!" he called to Clytie, turning back to her from the door.

"Good-bye! Won't you shake hands with me?"

Very solemnly he shook her big, floury hand.

"Now--could I take Penny along?" (Penny was an inconsequential dog that
had been given to Clytie by one whom she called Cousin Bill J.)

"Yes, you'll need a dog to keep the animals off. Now be sure you write to
us--at least twice a year--don't forget!" And, brutally before his very
eyes, she handed the sniffing and virtuous Allan two of the largest, most
goldenly beautiful oranges ever beheld by man.

Bitterly the self-exiled turned from this harrowing scene and strode
toward his box.

Here ensued a fresh complication. Nancy, who had chosen the good name of
Lillian May, wanted to go with him. She, too, it appeared, was fresh from
a Sunday-school book--one in which a girl