and jest, getting parted and delightfully lost in that little pathless
wilderness, and finding each other unexpectedly in nooks and dips and
sunny silences, where the wind purred and gentled and went softly. When
the sun began to hang low, sending great fan-like streamers of radiance
up to the zenith, we foregathered in a tiny, sequestered valley, full
of young green fern, lying in the shadow of a wooded hill. In it was a
shallow pool--a glimmering green sheet of water on whose banks nymphs
might dance as blithely as ever they did on Argive hill or in Cretan
dale. There we sat and stripped the faded leaves and stems from our
spoil, making up the blossoms into bouquets to fill our baskets with
sweetness. The Story Girl twisted a spray of divinest pink in her brown
curls, and told us an old legend of a beautiful Indian maiden who died
of a broken heart when the first snows of winter were falling, because
she believed her long-absent lover was false. But he came back in the
spring time from his long captivity; and when he heard that she was dead
he sought her grave to mourn her, and lo, under the dead leaves of the
old year he found sweet sprays of a blossom never seen before, and
knew that it was a message of love and remembrance from his dark-eyed
sweet-heart.

"Except in stories Indian girls are called squaws," remarked practical
Dan, tying his mayflowers together in one huge, solid, cabbage-like
bunch. Not for Dan the bother of filling his basket with the loose
sprays, mingled with feathery elephant's-ears and trails of creeping
spruce, as the rest of us, following the Story Girl's example, did. Nor
would he admit that ours looked any better than his.

"I like things of one kind together. I don't like them mixed," he said.

"You have no taste," said Felicity.

"Except in my mouth, best beloved," responded Dan.

"You do think you are so smart," retorted Felicity, flushing with anger.

"Don't quarrel this lovely day," implored Cecily.

"Nobody's quarrelling, Sis. I ain't a bit mad. It's Felicity. What on
earth is that at the bottom of your basket, Cecily?"

"It's a History of the Reformation in France," confessed poor Cecily,
"by a man named D-a-u-b-i-g-n-y. I can't pronounce it. I heard Mr.
Marwood saying it was a book everyone ought to read, so I began it
last Sunday. I brought it along today to read when I got tired picking
flowers. I'd ever so much rather have brought Ester Reid. There's so
much in the histor