ese rooms, send for a painter,
and have them painted white from floor to ceiling, as you see. He had no
use for them at that time, but he has told me that he did not like to be
in the same house with anything black. Everything burnable was
burned,--for your grandfather, as long as he lived, kept Aunt Phoebe's
belongings just as she left them,--the brown crockery was smashed--"

"Oh, that was a pity!" cried Margaret. "Just for the curiosity--"

"I have a piece, my dear!" said Mrs. Cheriton. "Elizabeth Wilson--good
Elizabeth--saved a piece for me; and she kept one of the black silk
gowns (she has been in the house ever since she was a child), to put in
the family chest. So there, Margaret, you have the story of Aunt Phoebe
from beginning to end. And now you must go out and play."

"Oh, just a moment!" pleaded Margaret. "Aunt Faith,--Uncle John must be
_very_ nice."

"My dear, he is the best man in the world. There is not a doubt about
it."

"Shall we see him at all, Aunt Faith?"

"You shall see him. I cannot say exactly when, but you shall see him,
Margaret; that I promise you on the word of a centenarian. Now will you
go, or shall Janet--"

"Oh, I will go! I will go! Good-bye, dear Aunt Faith. I have had the
most delightful hour," and Janet came and closed the white door softly
after her.

CHAPTER XI.

HEROES AND HEROINES.

"Oh for a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear!"

"How to support life on such a day as this?" demanded Rita, coming out
of her room, and confronting her cousins as they came upstairs. She had
been asleep, and her dark eyes were still misty and vague. The others,
on the contrary, had been running in the rain, and they were all
a-tingle with life and fresh air, and a-twinkle with rain-drops. The
moment was not a good one, and Rita's straight brows drew together
ominously.

"You have been--amusing yourselves, it appears," she said, in the old
withering tone that they were learning to forget. "Of course, here
nothing matters; one may as well be a savage as an _elegante_ in the
wilderness; but I should be sorry to meet you in Havana, my cousins!"

Peggy hung her head, and tried to keep her muddy feet out of sight.
Margaret only laughed, and held up her petticoats higher.

"You ought to have been with us, Rita!" she said. "We have had great
fun. The garden is one great shower-bath, and the brook is roaring like
a baby lion. I am really beginning to learn how to wa