same but, in view of Sara Ray's tears, admit it I
would not; so I sat in grum silence while the other tongues wagged.

"If I were not going away myself I'd feel just terrible," said the Story
Girl. "Even as it is I'm real sorry. I'd like to be able to think of
you as all here together when I'm gone, having good times and writing me
about them."

"It'll be awfully dull when you fellows go," muttered Dan.

"I'm sure I don't know what we're ever going to do here this winter,"
said Felicity, with the calmness of despair.

"Thank goodness there are no more fathers to come back," breathed Cecily
with a vicious earnestness that made us all laugh, even in the midst of
our dismay.

We worked very half-heartedly the rest of the day, and it was not until
we assembled in the orchard in the evening that our spirits recovered
something like their wonted level. It was clear and slightly frosty; the
sun had declined behind a birch on a distant hill and it seemed a tree
with a blazing heart of fire. The great golden willow at the lane gate
was laughter-shaken in the wind of evening. Even amid all the changes of
our shifting world we could not be hopelessly low-spirited--except Sara
Ray, who was often so, and Peter, who was rarely so. But Peter had been
sorely vexed in spirit for several days. The time was approaching for
the October issue of Our Magazine and he had no genuine fiction ready
for it. He had taken so much to heart Felicity's taunt that his stories
were all true that he had determined to have a really-truly false one
in the next number. But the difficulty was to get anyone to write it. He
had asked the Story Girl to do it, but she refused; then he appealed to
me and I shirked. Finally Peter determined to write a story himself.

"It oughtn't to be any harder than writing a poem and I managed that,"
he said dolefully.

He worked at it in the evenings in the granary loft, and the rest of us
forebore to question him concerning it, because he evidently disliked
talking about his literary efforts. But this evening I had to ask him if
he would soon have it ready, as I wanted to make up the paper.

"It's done," said Peter, with an air of gloomy triumph. "It don't amount
to much, but anyhow I made it all out of my own head. Not one word of it
was ever printed or told before, and nobody can say there was."

"Then I guess we have all the stuff in and I'll have Our Magazine ready
to read by tomorrow night," I said.

"I s'pos