re to experiment with, though she always
intended to do so when the mountain should answer her command to be
removed. To be sure it would not make much difference to her if the
mountain should remove into the sea; it probably looked quite as
well where it was, and Marian supposed that no one would care to
have its place changed, but it made a great and mighty difference to
her about this other thing. She had never breathed her ardent wish
to any one, not even to Mrs. Hunt, and now that this fresh test of
faith had failed she would have to gather up a new stock before she
could try again.

The purple and pink and gold were fading; the sea looked gray; the
distant mountain was hidden under a cloud when Marian climbed down
from her perch to answer her grandmother's call: "Marian, Marian,
where are you? Come in out of the night air; the dew is falling."
Dippy was chasing moths in the garden as Marian took her way toward
the house. She watched him leaping up as each soft-winged creature
flitted by. When he failed to catch his prize he opened his mouth in
a mute meow, and looked at Marian as if asking her to help him.

"You mustn't catch moths, Dippy," said Marian. "They might disagree
with you. I should think anyhow, that they would be very dry eating,
and besides it is wicked to destroy innocent little creatures. Come,
you must go in with me." But this was the time of day when Dippy
liked specially to prance and jump and skurry after dusky, shadowy,
flitting things, so before Marian could pounce upon him, he was off
and away like a streak and could not be found. Then Marian went in
obediently at her grandmother's second call to spend the rest of her
evening sitting soberly by, while her grandmother knitted and her
grandfather read his evening paper.

She had tidied up her room, fed the cat and kitten, and darned her
stockings the next morning before she was free to go to Mrs. Hunt's.
Grandpa would go for the mail, and there were no errands to do,
except to return a plate to Mrs. Parker. It had come with some
spicy cakes for grandma, and must be taken back promptly.

The garden did not attract her just then, for it looked much
less mysterious by daylight. There was a fine array of poppies,
larkspurs, phlox and snapdragons; the oleander in its green tub was
all a-bloom, and there were six newly opened buds on the rose-bush.
Dippy was fast asleep in the sunshine, as if he, too, realized that
the garden was not so alluring