d's solemnity, and would
prefer to believe in the fairies rather than otherwise.

"Well, _you_ ought to know all about them," says Amy, with a transient
but meaning smile: "you belong to them, don't you? Well" (dreamily),
"perhaps some night we shall go out hand in hand and meet them here,
and dance with them all the way to fairy-land."

"Miss Broughton,--there--through the trees! Do you see something
gleaming white?" asks Ethel, the eldest pupil. "Yes? Well, there, in
that spot, is a marble statue of a woman, and underneath her is a
spring. It went dry ever so many years ago, but when Clarissa's great
grandfather died the waters burst out again, and every one said the
statue was crying for him, he was so good and noble and so well
beloved."

"I think you might have let me tell that story," says Amy,
indignantly. "You knew I wanted to tell her that story."

"I didn't," with equal indignation; "and, besides, you told her about
the fairies' ball-room. I said nothing about that."

"Well, at all events," says Georgie, "they were two of the prettiest
stories I ever heard in my life. I don't know which was the prettier."

"Now, look at that tree," breaks in Amy, hurriedly, feeling it is
honestly her turn now, and fearing lest Ethel shall cut in before her.
"King Charles the Second spent the whole of one night in that
identical tree."

"Not the whole of it," puts in Ethel, unwisely.

"Now, I suppose this is my story, at all events," declares Amy,
angrily, "and I shall just tell it as I like."

"Poor King Charles!" says Georgie, with a laugh, "If we are to
believe all the stories we hear, half his lifetime must have been
spent 'up a tree.'"

A stone balcony runs before the front of the house. On it stands
Clarissa, as they approach, but, seeing them, she runs down the steps
and advances eagerly to meet them.

"Come in," she says. "How late you are! I thought you had proved
faithless and were not coming at all."

"Ah! what a lovely hall!" says Georgie, as they enter, stopping in a
childishly delighted fashion to gaze round her.

"It's nothing to the drawing-room: that is the most beautiful room in
the world," says the irrepressible Amy, who is in her glory, and who,
having secured the unwilling but thoroughly polite Bill, is holding
him in her arms and devouring him with unwelcome kisses.

"You shall see the whole house, presently," says Clarissa to Georgie,
"including the room I hold in reserve for you when th