In a ship's hatch,
An inn, a castle,
A brown paper parcel'--

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Joscelyn.

"For the sake of the rime," begged Martin. But the girls were not
interested in houses. Yet the rest of the morning they went searching
the orchard for the grass of fortune, and not telling. But once Martin,
coming behind Jessica, distinctly heard her murmur "Thatcher!" and
smile. And at another time he saw Joyce deliberately count her blade
before beginning, and nip off a floret, and then begin; and the end was
"Plowman." And presently little Joan came and knelt beside him where he
sat counting on his own behalf, and said timidly, "Martin."

"Yes, dear?" said Martin absentmindedly.

"Oh. Martin, is it very wicked to poach?"

"The best men all do it," said Martin.

"Oh. Please, what are you counting?"

"You swear you won't tell?" said Martin, with a side-glance at her.

She shook her head, and he pulled at his grass whispering--

Jennifer,
Jessica,
Jane,
Joan,
Joyce,
Joscelyn,
Gillian--"

"And the last one?" said little Joan, with a rosy face; for he had
paused at the eighth.

"Sh!" said Martin, and stuck his blade behind his ear and called
"Dinner!"

So they came to dinner.

"Have you not found," said Martin, "that after thinking all the morning
it is necessary to jump all the afternoon?" And he got the ropes of the
swing and began to skip with great clumsiness, always failing before
ten, and catching the cord round his ankles. At which the girls plied
him with derision, and said they would show him how. And Jane showed
him how to skip forwards, and Jessica how to skip backwards, and
Jennifer how to skip with both feet and stay in one spot, and Joyce how
to skip on either foot, on a run. And Joscelyn showed him how to skip
with the rope crossed and uncrossed by turns. But little Joan showed
him how to skip so high and so lightly that she could whirl the rope
twice under her feet before they came down to earth like birds. And
then the girls took the ropes by turns, ringing the changes on all
these ways of skipping; or two of them would turn a rope for the
others, while they skipped the games of their grandmothers: "Cross the
Bible," "All in together," "Lady, lady, drop your purse!" and
"Cinderella lost her shoe;" or they turned two ropes at once for the
Double Dutch; and Martin took his run with the rest. And at first he
did very badly, but as the day wore on improved, until