, I wonder, a song about--Oh, something about
'my heart'?"

"'My heart's own heart,' you mean," Caroline said importantly; "yes,
indeed. It's her encore song."

"I see," said Peter again.

He looked into the fire, and there was a long silence. After a while
he shook his shoulders like a water-dog.

"Now, Caroline," he said briskly, "here's the way of this business.
You can't wear knickers until you're one of the boys, and you can't
be one of the boys until you wear knickers. Do you see? So you don't
get anywhere."

Caroline looked puzzled. She was suddenly overcome with sleep, and
the old familiar names and ways tasted of home and comfort to her
soul.

"You're too nice to be a boy, Caroline," said Peter, leaning over
her and brushing her azalea-crowned hair tenderly with his lips. "If
you persist in this plan of running away to be a boy, some boy,
growing up anxiously, somewhere, will never forgive you! Take my
advice, and wait--will you? Say 'Yes, Peter.'"

"Yes, Peter," Caroline murmured, drowsily.

"Good girl! Then I'll take you home with my little donkey. I don't
believe they've missed you yet. You've come four miles, though, you
little gypsy!"

He disappeared behind the trees, and Caroline nodded. Later she woke
sufficiently to find herself and Rufus on the blue blanket on the
bottom of a little donkey cart; Peter stood by the gentle,
long-eared head.

"Thank you, Peter," she murmured, half asleep, "and you'll see Aunt
Edith, won't you?"

"I don't believe so," he said, very low. "Not yet. Tell her Peter
brought you back. Just Peter. But he can't come yet. Get up, Jenny!"

They wound out by an old wood road. A cool spiciness flowed though
the green aisles, and as the tiny donkey struck into a dog trot, the
man striding easily at her head, a far-away cock crowed shrilly and
the dawn gleamed white.

IX

THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

"Caroline!" Henry D. Thoreau cocked one brindled ear cannily and
rapped sharply with his tail on the piazza floor, but there was no
other answer to the call. "Caroline!" The insistent voice rang
louder; it was a very determined voice. A sleepy Angora cat scowled
reprovingly at its violence; a gray and pink parrot mimicked its
hortatory note, but after that the midsummer silence settled down
again. Only the bees droned heavily among the heavy August roses.

"Don't nag her, dear; it doesn't do any good," a sleepy contralto,
rich as creamy chocolate, crooned out of a