mirth of
April breezes.

"It's so nice to be alive in the spring," said the Story Girl one
twilight as we swung on the boughs of Uncle Stephen's walk.

"It's nice to be alive any time," said Felicity, complacently.

"But it's nicer in the spring," insisted the Story Girl. "When I'm dead
I think I'll FEEL dead all the rest of the year, but when spring comes
I'm sure I'll feel like getting up and being alive again."

"You do say such queer things," complained Felicity. "You won't be
really dead any time. You'll be in the next world. And I think it's
horrid to talk about people being dead anyhow."

"We've all got to die," said Sara Ray solemnly, but with a certain
relish. It was as if she enjoyed looking forward to something in which
nothing, neither an unsympathetic mother, nor the cruel fate which had
made her a colourless little nonentity, could prevent her from being the
chief performer.

"I sometimes think," said Cecily, rather wearily, "that it isn't so
dreadful to die young as I used to suppose."

She prefaced her remark with a slight cough, as she had been all too apt
to do of late, for the remnants of the cold she had caught the night we
were lost in the storm still clung to her.

"Don't talk such nonsense, Cecily," cried the Story Girl with unwonted
sharpness, a sharpness we all understood. All of us, in our hearts,
though we never spoke of it to each other, thought Cecily was not as
well as she ought to be that spring, and we hated to hear anything said
which seemed in any way to touch or acknowledge the tiny, faint shadow
which now and again showed itself dimly athwart our sunshine.

"Well, it was you began talking of being dead," said Felicity angrily.
"I don't think it's right to talk of such things. Cecily, are you sure
your feet ain't damp? We ought to go in anyhow--it's too chilly out here
for you."

"You girls had better go," said Dan, "but I ain't going in till old
Isaac Frewen goes. I've no use for him."

"I hate him, too," said Felicity, agreeing with Dan for once in her
life. "He chews tobacco all the time and spits on the floor--the horrid
pig!"

"And yet his brother is an elder in the church," said Sara Ray
wonderingly.

"I know a story about Isaac Frewen," said the Story Girl. "When he was
young he went by the name of Oatmeal Frewen and he got it this way. He
was noted for doing outlandish things. He lived at Markdale then and he
was a great, overgrown, awkward fellow, six feet ta