every morning, an' not make
any noise round the house, 'cause you know my poor auntie has headaches
all the time. Do you know what's the matter with my auntie?"

"No."

"Well, don't you tell, it's a big secret; she's got the _heartbreak_!"

"The what?" cried Scotty in alarm.

"The heartbreak. Brian told me. Brian's our coachman, an' I heard him
tell Mary Morrison, the cook, and he told me not to never, _never_
tell; but I'll just tell you, and you won't tell, will you, Scotty?"

"No, never. Will it be like the rheumatics Granny has?"

"No-o, I 'spect not; it's when you have headaches an' don't smile nor
eat much; not even pie!" She gazed triumphantly into Scotty's
interested countenance. "That's what my auntie's got."

"Would she be catching it at school?" he inquired feelingly, moved by
recollections of an epidemic of measles that had raged in Number Nine
the winter preceding.

"No, she just got it all by herself. She was going to be married in
the church, 'way over in England, and she had a beautiful satin dress
and a veil and everything, and he didn't come!"

"Who?" demanded Scotty.

"Why, the gempleman; he was a soldier-man with a grea' big sword, an'
he got bad an' went away, an' my auntie got the heartbreak. An' that's
why she's sick an' doesn't want me to make a noise or jump."

Scotty looked at her in deep sympathy. "Won't she be letting you
jump?" he asked in awe.

"Not much," she said with a fine martyr-like air. "She says 'tisn't
lady-like, an' she's going to send me to a school in Toronto when I get
big, where it's all girls, and not one of them ever, ever jumps once!"

They stared at each other in mutual amazement at the conception of a
whole jumpless school.

"I wouldn't be going!" cried Scotty firmly. "_I'd_ jump--I'd jump out
of the window an' run away, whatever!"

Her eyes sparkled. "Oh, p'raps I could do that too! I'd run away an'
come to Kirsty. She doesn't mind if I jump an' make a noise, an'
Kirsty never makes me sew. Oh, Scotty, you don't ever have to sew, do
you?"

"Noh!" cried Scotty in disdain, "that's girls' work."

She sighed deeply. "I wish I was a boy! Harold never has to sew, but
Harold goes to school 'way in Toronto all the time an' maybe they don't
let him jump there. _I'd_ jump!" she cried, springing from the log and
laughing joyously, "oh, wouldn't I! Last tag, Scotty!" and she was
once more off into the woods and Scotty after her.

Such a happ