ly unfurled in a shop window,
signaling the passer-by and setting him to dream of summer sunshine. It
reminded Adam of a New England apple-tree in full bloom, the outer
covering of deep pink shining through the thin white lining, and a
fluffy, fringe-like edge of mingled rose and cream dropping over the
green handle. All at once he remembered one of Rebecca's early
confidences,--the little pink sunshade that had given her the only peep
into the gay world of fashion that her childhood had ever known; her
adoration of the flimsy bit of finery and its tragic and sacrificial
end. He entered the shop, bought the extravagant bauble, and expressed
it to Wareham at once, not a single doubt of its appropriateness
crossing the darkness of his masculine mind. He thought only of the joy
in Rebecca's eyes; of the poise of her head under the apple-blossom
canopy. It was a trifle embarrassing to return an hour later and buy a
blue parasol for Emma Jane Perkins, but it seemed increasingly
difficult, as the years went on, to remember her existence at all the
proper times and seasons.

This is Rebecca's fairy story, copied the next day and given to Emily
Maxwell just as she was going to her room for the night. She read it
with tears in her eyes and then sent it to Adam Ladd, thinking he had
earned a share in it, and that he deserved a glimpse of the girl's
budding imagination, as well as of her grateful young heart.

A FAIRY STORY

There was once a tired and rather poverty-stricken Princess who dwelt
in a cottage on the great highway between two cities. She was not as
unhappy as thousands of others; indeed, she had much to be grateful
for, but the life she lived and the work she did were full hard for one
who was fashioned slenderly.

Now the cottage stood by the edge of a great green forest where the
wind was always singing in the branches and the sunshine filtering
through the leaves.

And one day when the Princess was sitting by the wayside quite spent by
her labor in the fields, she saw a golden chariot rolling down the
King's Highway, and in it a person who could be none other than
somebody's Fairy Godmother on her way to the Court. The chariot halted
at her door, and though the Princess had read of such beneficent
personages, she never dreamed for an instant that one of them could
ever alight at her cottage.

"If you are tired, poor little Princess, why do you not go into the
cool green forest and rest?" asked the Fairy God