have in thy best singing teeth.' The maid
is always full of merry conceits. And over our teacups thou shalt tell
me about the Henrys."

Primrose repeated all but her last interview with Rachel. Delicacy
forbade that. And then Patty helped her into a furbelowed gown of china
silk that had been made from Madam Wetherill's long-ago treasures and
had a curious fragrance about it.

The young people came, a merry company, and first they had a game of
forfeits and some guessing puzzles. Then Pamela, who had quite bewitched
her cousin with tales of Primrose's singing, insisted that she should go
to the spinet. She found a song.

"Oh, not that foolish one," cried Primrose, blushing scarlet.

"It is so dainty and no one sings it as you do. And in the print store
on Second Street there was a laughable picture of such a pretty, doleful
Cupid shut out of doors in the cold, that I said to Harry, 'Mistress
Primrose Henry sings the most cunning plaint I know, and you shall hear
it.'"

Mr. Henry Beall joined his persuasion and they found the music. Primrose
had a lovely voice and sang with a deliciously simple manner.

"As little Cupid play-ed,
The sweet blooming flowers among,
A bee that lay concealed
Under the leaf his finger stung.
Tears down his pretty cheeks did stream
From smart of such a cruel wound,
And crying, through the grove he ran,
Until he his mammy found.

"'Mammy, I'm sorely wounded,
A bee has stung me on the plain,
My anguish is unbounded,
Assist me or I die with pain.'
She smil-ed then, replying,
Said, 'O my son, how can it be?
That by a bee you're dying,--
What must she feel who's stung by thee?'"

There was a burst of eager applause.

"It was a quaint old song when I was young," said Madam Wetherill. "Then
there are some pretty ones of Will Shakespere's."

"This is what I like," began Primrose.

"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkinde."

She sang it with deep and true feeling, Lovelace's immortal song. And
she moved them all by her rendering of the last two lines in her proud
young voice--

"I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more."

Then Mistress Kent would have them come out for curds and cream and
floating islands, and they planned a chestnutting after the first frost
came. They were merry and happy, even if the world was full of sorrow.

Yet it seemed so mysterious to Primrose tha