little rolls on the hay, but the dried clover got into
her hair and mouth and eyes, and she was perfectly sure there was a
spider down her neck; so Gypsy was glad at last to get her safely down
the ladder and out doors.

After that they tried the raft. Gypsy's raft was on a swamp below the
orchard, and it was one of her favorite amusements to push herself about
over the shallow water. But Joy was afraid of wetting her feet, or
getting drowned, or something--she didn't exactly know what, so they
gave that up.

Then Gypsy proposed a game of marbles on the garden path. She played a
great deal with Tom, and played well. But Joy was shocked at the idea.
That was a _boy's_ play!

"What will you do, then?" said Gypsy, a little crossly. Joy replied in
the tone of a martyr, that she was sure she did not know. Gypsy coughed,
and walked up and down on the garden fence in significant silence.

Joy was not to go to school till Monday. Meantime she amused herself at
home with her aunt, and Gypsy went as usual without her.

Saturday afternoon was the perfect pattern of an autumn afternoon. A
creamy haze softened the sharp outline of the mountains, and lay
cloudlike on the fields. The sunlight fell through it like sifted gold,
the sky hung motionless and blue--that glowless, deepening blue that
always made Gypsy feel, she said, "as if she must drink it right
up"--and away over miles of field and mountain slope the maples
crimsoned and flamed.

Gypsy came home at noon with her hat hanging down her neck, her cheeks
on fire, and panting like the old lady who died for want of breath;
rushing up the steps, tearing open the door, and slamming into the
parlor.

"Look here!--everybody--where are you? What do you think? Joy! Mother!
There's going to be a great chestnutting."

"A what?" asked Joy, dropping her embroidery.

"A chestnutting, up at Mr. Jonathan Jones's trees, this afternoon at two
o'clock. Did you ever hear anything so perfectly mag?"--mag being
"Gypsy" for magnificent.

"Who are to make the party?" asked her mother.

"Oh, I and Sarah Rowe and Delia Guest and--and Sarah Rowe and I," said
Gypsy, talking very fast.

"And Joy," said Mrs. Breynton, gently.

"Joy, of course. That's what I came in to say."

"Oh, I don't care to go if you don't want me," said Joy, with a slighted
look.

"But I do want you. Who said I didn't?"

"Well," said Joy, somewhat mollified, "I'll go if there aren't any
spiders."

The two gi