answered.
"Mrs. Eaton only waits to tear me limb from limb! I saw it in her
pallid eye. You don't _know_ what I've done! Davy, you and Nonie
carry these flags carefully back to the Sunday-school. And what do you
say--in celebration of this day--to a swim--this afternoon, at the
Cove!"

They exclaimed their approval of the suggestion. Nonie lingered.

"Do you know what I pretended then?" she asked, affectionately gripping
Nancy's arm. "I pretended I was Joan of Arc, all in white, riding on a
big horse with bugles, calling to my army. Miss Denny read to me all
about it. Oh, it was grand!" She sighed, because the moment had
passed. Davy pranced impatiently.

"Oh, come 'long--stop yer actin' lies!" Then, to Nancy, with a
questioning look that said such fortune seemed too good to be true:
"'_Honest?_' 'Bout the swimmin'."

Nancy nodded mysteriously. "Honest to goodness--at three bells!"

She watched the children scamper away, then turned eyes dark with
indignation to Peter Hyde.

"How can _anyone_ be cruel to children?" she cried. "How can anyone
hurt them?"

Peter did not know what she was talking about, but he agreed with all
his heart.

"Kids--and dogs and cats and--little things," he added. "I shot a
rabbit once when I was fifteen, and when I went up to get it, it was
still breathing, and looked so pitiful and small--I couldn't help but
feel that it hadn't had a chance 'gainst a fellow like me. I had to
kill it then. That was enough for me! I haven't shot--any sort of
living things--like _that_--since!"

His step shortened to Nancy's and together they turned their backs upon
Jeremiah's cheering audience and walked slowly homeward. Her mind
concerned with the children, Nancy told Peter all that had happened--of
finding Nonie in the orchard, of the child's "pretend" games, of her
call upon Liz. Then she concluded with an account of the incident of
the morning mimicing, comically, Mrs. Eaton's outraged manner.

"As if it would hurt her or her Archie or--or anyone else in this old
place to make two youngsters happy," Nancy exclaimed, disgustedly.
"I'm going to do everything I can, while I'm at Happy House, to make up
to them," she finished.

Peter assured her that he wanted to help. How much the desire was
inspired by sympathy for Nonie and Davy or by the winning picture Nancy
made, her rebel strands of red-brown hair blowing across her flushed
cheeks, no one could say. And when at the g