e my suspicions about that oldest Twin.
I believe he'd be a pirate if he dared. There's really something very
mysterious about him. He swore once and I told him if he ever did
it again he needn't come ashore to talk to me because I'd promised
grandmother I'd never associate with anybody that swore. He was pretty
well scared, I can tell you, and he said if I would forgive him he would
take me to the sunset. So the next evening when I was sitting on the
Striped Rocks the oldest Twin came sailing over the sea in an enchanted
boat and I got in her. The boat was all pearly and rainbowy, like the
inside of the mussel shells, and her sail was like moonshine. Well, we
sailed right across to the sunset. Think of that, teacher, I've been
in the sunset. And what do you suppose it is? The sunset is a land
all flowers. We sailed into a great garden, and the clouds are beds of
flowers. We sailed into a great harbor, all the color of gold, and
I stepped right out of the boat on a big meadow all covered with
buttercups as big as roses. I stayed there for ever so long. It seemed
nearly a year but the Oldest Twin says it was only a few minutes. You
see, in the sunset land the time is ever so much longer than it is here.'

"'Your loving pupil Paul Irving.'

"'P. S. of course, this letter isn't really true, teacher. P.I.'"

XII

A Jonah Day

It really began the night before with a restless, wakeful vigil of
grumbling toothache. When Anne arose in the dull, bitter winter morning
she felt that life was flat, stale, and unprofitable.

She went to school in no angelic mood. Her cheek was swollen and her
face ached. The schoolroom was cold and smoky, for the fire refused to
burn and the children were huddled about it in shivering groups. Anne
sent them to their seats with a sharper tone than she had ever used
before. Anthony Pye strutted to his with his usual impertinent swagger
and she saw him whisper something to his seat-mate and then glance at
her with a grin.

Never, so it seemed to Anne, had there been so many squeaky pencils as
there were that morning; and when Barbara Shaw came up to the desk with
a sum she tripped over the coal scuttle with disastrous results.
The coal rolled to every part of the room, her slate was broken into
fragments, and when she picked herself up, her face, stained with coal
dust, sent the boys into roars of laughter.

Anne turned from the second reader class which she was hearing.

"Really, Ba