jutted out among drooping hemlocks, and was carpeted with
pine-needles.

"It would please me very much," said Julia Cloud as she sat down on
the blanket and opened her Bible, looking up wistfully at the two, "if
you two would go to that Christian Endeavor meeting to-night. I hate
to ask you to do anything like that right away, but that minister
begged me to get you to come. He said they were having such a struggle
to make it live and that they needed some fresh young workers. He
asked me if you didn't sing, and he said singers were very much
needed."

There was a heavy silence for a moment while the two young things
looked at each other aghast across her, and Julia Cloud kept her eyes
on the floating clouds above the hemlocks. She still had that softened
look of being within a safe shelter where storms and troubles could
not really trouble her; yet there was a dear, eager look in her eyes.
Both children saw it, and with wonderful intuition interpreted it; and
because their hearts were young and tender they yielded to its
influence.

Leslie swooped down upon her aunt with an overwhelming kiss, and
Allison dropped down beside her with a "Sure, we'll go, Cloudy, if
that will do you any good. I can't say I'm keen about pleasing that
stiff old parson guy, but anything _you_ want is different. I don't
know just what you're letting us in for, but I guess we can stand most
anything once."

Julia Cloud put out a hand to grasp a hand of each; and, looking up,
they saw that there were tears in her eyes.

"Are those happy tears, Cloudy, or the other kind? Tell us quick, or
we'll jump in the creek and drown ourselves," laughed Leslie; and then
two white handkerchiefs, one big and one little, came swiftly out and
dabbed at her cheeks until there wasn't a sign of a tear to be seen.

"I think I'm almost too happy to talk," said Julia Cloud, resting back
against the tree and looking up into its lacy green branches. "It
seems as if I was just beginning my life over and being a child
again."

For a few minutes they sat so, looking up into the changing autumn
sky, listening to the soft tinkle of the water running below, the dip
of an oar, the swirl of a blue heron's wing as it clove the air, the
distant voices of the picnickers farther down the creek, the rustle of
the yellow beech-leaves as they whispered of the time to go, and how
they would drift down like little brown boats to the stream and glide
away to the end. Now and the