It has been a most
interesting hour, Miss Leavitt. You say the child's head is full of
this sort of thing? H-mm."

Now the garden was filled with a babble of voices intermingled with the
clinking of spoons and dishes. Someone had overheard the great man's
praise of Nonie's "play-actin'," and the word spread quickly. Mrs.
Brown allowed it was "just spooky the way that child could make you
think she was what she wasn't" and Mrs. Slade's sister's sister-in-law
had seen Maude Adams in a play where she'd "pretended something all the
time--something 'bout Cinderella, and like as not it might have been
'bout fairies, too." Under the stimulation of iced tea and cakes and
caramel ice cream, served from delicate china, praise for Nonie grew
and the fairy leaf that Youth carried, so that "people would be kind,"
began to work its magic in the garden.

It was well toward sunset when the last guest departed. Nancy,
standing in the doorway with the empty house behind her, and before her
the deserted garden, with its chairs and tables in crazy disarray, sent
a wild little prayer down the road after the purple automobile that had
whirled away carrying the great master and her poor little play.

"_Please_ think it's good! I worked so hard."

As her eye caught the gleam of gabled housetops through the trees Nancy
suddenly pictured how, at that very moment, every home in Freedom was
echoing with the story of the party.

It had been a success! All Freedom--through the women's eyes--had been
there to see precious Aunt Milly; now they knew that Happy House was a
happy house. And, wonder of wonders, she had heard Mrs. Sniggs, in a
most friendly way, ask Liz Hopworth to drop in and show her how she
made her "plum jell."

Suddenly Nancy seemed to hear Peter Hyde saying: "I didn't see anything
but you!" How silly he'd been--putting that absurd dandelion stem into
his pocket, as though it really _had_ some magic! Then, with quite
unaccountable haste, as though to run away from her own meditations,
Nancy rushed to the kitchen and begged B'lindy to let her help "clear
up."

CHAPTER XX

A PICNIC

A reaction set in after the party, Miss Milly, over-fatigued, had had
to stay in her room. Happy House, itself, fell back into its old ways;
again the blinds were shut, the flower vases disappeared and the
peacock feathers were returned to their places of honor. B'lindy
developed rheumatism.

Too, a week followed of long hot