oo tired," Janet asked, "for--for a story?"

"No," he answered, "stories come easily for a man who has had training
as Polly's father. I thought there was no one like her for demanding
stories, but you are just such another."

They sat down on the grass with the broad shadow of the oak tree lying
all about them and stretching farther and farther as the afternoon sun
moved down the sky. They had chosen the steeper slope of the hill so
that they could look down upon the whole length of the winding
stream, the scattered house-tops, and the wide green of those
gardenlike stretches that still lay, safe and serene, ripening their
grain beside the river. The Beeman's eyes moved up and down the
valley, resting longest upon the slope opposite, where the yellow
farmhouse stood at the edge of its grove of trees and showed its wide
gray roof, its white thread of pathway leading up to the door, its row
of broad windows that were beginning to flash and shine under the
touch of the level rays of the sun.

"Poor Anthony," he said slowly at last, "to be banished from a place
he loved so much. And yet a person thinks it a little thing when he
first confuses right with wrong!"

He drew a long breath and then turned to the girls with his old cheery
smile.

"A story?" he repeated. "It will not be like the others, a tale from
old dusty chronicles of Medford Valley, to tell you things that you
should know. We have lived the last chapter of that tale and now we
will go on to something new."

Oliver leaned back luxuriously in the grass, to stare up at the clear
sky and the dark outline of the oak tree, clear-cut against the blue.
Its heavy branches were just stirring in the unfailing breeze that
blew in from the sea, and its rustling mingled sleepily with the
Beeman's voice as he began:

"Once upon a time----"

* * * * *

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