ffie, suffering from her enforced inactivity, soon had the
tantalizing sight of sections of his brown legs displayed through the
lattice work above her head.

Scratch, scratch went Pauline's pen--scratch, scratch along line after
line. Evidently she was not troubled with any lack of ideas.

Twenty minutes, half an hour slipped away. Lynn had long since composed
her tale and had fallen to playing a fairy drama at the end of her bench
with bits of moss and white pebbles from the floor.

Max had tumbled twice through a hole in the lattice roof, and had on
each occasion blotted Pauline's precious MS by the precipitation of his
whole body upon it.

Sore, therefore, about his knees and elbows, he had given up his lofty
perch and betaken himself to his oft-essayed task of digging a hole in
the ground, to reach the fire that the kindergarten governess had
informed him burnt in the middle of the earth.

And Muffie now occupied the seat on the summer-house roof, and did not
lose the opportunity of demonstrating to Max that girls kept their
balance much better than boys.

"I've finished--come and listen," cried Pauline at last.

Lynn sat upright at once and tried to disentangle her drama from her
story. Muffie slid comfortably down from her perch. But Max was not
ready.

"Wait a minte," he cried, "I'm nearly down to the fire--oh, oh, I can
feel it on my hand--I b'leeve my spade's aginning to melt."

But Pauline insisted on his instant attendance within doors.

"'Once upon a time'," she began, "'there was a beautiful mother'."

"As beautiful as ours?" asked Lynn.

"Beautifuller," said Pauline.

Lynn argued the point hotly, with Muffie to back her.

"She _couldn't_ be," they said.

"Yes, she could--in a book," said Pauline. "I'm not talking about really
truly, of course. But in a book they can be as lovely as lovely."

"So is mother," said the little girls stoutly.

"Oh, of course," said Pauline, and her heart softening to the distant
dear one, she said, "Well, 'once 'pon a time there was a mother as
beautiful as our mother, and she died'."

"Oh, oh," said Lynn. "Oh, I wish mamma was here. Oh, I don't like your
story a bit, Paul."

"Silly," said Paul, "this is only a book mother--it doesn't hurt book
mothers to die. Now just stop interrupting me. Well, she died--she's
just got to die or the rest of the story can't happen. The beautiful
mother died, 'and one day when Emmeline was sitting in the spachius
drawin