ted whatever was offered him.

He did not fare so badly either, for being plump and rosy he was
allowed to personate the jolly Friar Tuck. Robin Hood fell naturally
to Carl as the oldest and the leader, Bess became Little John, Louise
appeared by turns as Allan-a-Dale and the sheriff of Nottingham, and
little Helen was occasionally pressed into service as Maid Marian. Who
first thought of turning the deserted garden into Sherwood forest no
one could ever remember, but as they sat on the fence that morning
with the waving sea of grass below them, somebody began

"One for the money,
Two for the show,..."

and away they all went. Some minutes later, Mrs. Ford, glancing from
her window, wondered what had become of the children.

So the fun began and continued through the long summer days, when
grown people stayed indoors and wondered what the children found to do
out in the heat from morning till night. But in that distant corner of
the garden, where, under the shelter of a crooked apple tree, the
forest rovers had their trysting place, the weather was never too
warm. The unoccupied house became transformed into Nottingham castle,
and was never approached without delicious thrills of terror.
Excitement ran high on the day when Robin was released from the
jail--otherwise a small rustic arbor--by his trusty followers.

There was simply no end to the fun, and the secrecy with which it was
carried on helped to deepen the interest. The climax was reached when
preparations were begun for King Richard's banquet.

As usual, it originated with Bess, when she heard that a favorite
cousin, a boy about Carl's age, was coming to visit them for a few
days.

"Aleck will make a very good King Richard," said Louise, when the
matter was under discussion, "and we can pretend that he is just back
from the Holy Land."

It was decided that this must be a real feast, not merely an occasion
of pepper grass and cookies, so their combined funds were carefully
laid out at the corner confectionery. Many articles supposed to be
necessary to the comfort of the royal guest were smuggled into the
garden, and everything was in readiness for his arrival on the next
day, when Ikey made his startling discovery.

It had never occurred to them that some one might come to live in the
Brown house; they were quite overwhelmed by it, and for more than an
hour they sat under the syringa bushes peeping through at their lost
domain. No one had much