cityish way, and Sarah and Delia were so much
astonished thereat that they forgot to bow at all, and Delia stared
rudely at her black dress. There was an awkward silence.

"Why don't you talk, somebody?" broke out Gypsy, getting desperate.
"Anybody'd think we were three mummies in a museum."

"I don't think you're very perlite," put in Winnie, with a virtuous
frown; "if you don't let me be a dummy, too, I'll tell mother, and that
would make four."

This broke the ice, and Sarah and Delia began to talk very fast about
Monday's grammar lesson, and Miss Cardrew, and how Agnes Gaylord put a
green snake in Phoebe Hunt's lunch-basket, and had to stay after school
for it, and how it was confidently reported in mysterious whispers, at
recess, that George Castles told Mr. Guernsey he was a regular old fogy,
and Mr. Guernsey had sent home a letter to his father--not Mr.
Guernsey's father, but George's; he had now, true's you live.

Now, to Joy, of course, none of this was very interesting, for she had
not been into the schoolroom yet, and didn't know George Castles and
Agnes Gaylord from Adam; and somehow or other it never occurred to Gypsy
to introduce some subject in which they could all take part; and so
somehow it came about that Joy fell behind with Winnie, and the three
girls went on together all the way to Mr. Jones's grove.

"Isn't it splendid?" called Gypsy, turning around. "I'm having a real
nice time."

"Ye--es," said Joy, dolefully; "I guess I shall like it better when we
get to the chestnuts."

Nothing particular happened on the way, except that when they were
crossing Mr. Jonathan's plowed field, Winnie stuck in the mud tight, and
when he was pulled out he left his shoes behind him; that he repeated
this pleasing little incident six consecutive times within five minutes,
varying it by lifting up his voice to weep, in Winnie's own accomplished
style; and that Joy ended by carrying him in her arms the whole way.

Be it here recorded that Joy's ideal of "cherubic childhood," Winnie
standing as representative cherub, underwent then and there several
modifications.

"Here we are!" cried Gypsy at last, clearing a low fence with a bound.
"Just see the leaves and the sky. Isn't it just--oh!"

It was, indeed "just," and there it stopped; there didn't seem to be any
more words to say about it. The chestnut-trees were clustered on a
small, rocky knoll, their golden-brown leaves fluttering in the
sunlight, their gre