big press. But
when my sister was married she got a big one."

"Tell them you want a big one too."

"It's no use."

"Try it. I won't marry without that big one."

"I will make them----"

This is a fair sample of what Walter overheard. He was dissatisfied
and slipped away and hid himself, lost in thought. He didn't even know
himself what was the matter with him; but when Emma came and called
him he looked as if he had been thinking of anything else but presses
and vacant flats, for in a tone at once joyous and fearful he cried:

"Could it be she--my little sister?"

It was evening now, and the children were to continue their games
indoors. As the little party was tired, one of the grown-ups was
going to tell a story.

Just what "grown-up" had been requisitioned to narrate the story of
Paradise and Peri, I don't know. Anyway the story hardly harmonized
with Betty's engagement and that love-obstructing clothes-press. But
just as Fortune is said to smile on everyone once in a lifetime, so,
in the midst of the flatness and insipidity of everyday life, it seems
that something always happens which gives that one who lays hold of it
opportunity to lift himself above the ordinary and commonplace. To the
drowning man a voice calls: "Stretch out thy arms, thou canst swim."

"After Peri had begged long, but in vain, at the gates of paradise to
be admitted to the land of the blessed, she brought at last, as the
most beautiful thing in the world, the sigh of a repentant sinner;
and she found favor with the keeper of the gate on account of the
sacredness of the gift she had brought----"

"Let's play forfeits now!" cried Gustave.

"Forfeits! Forfeits!" everybody called out after him.

And they played forfeits. Pawns were redeemed; and of course there
was some kissing done. Riddles were given that nobody could guess;
and who ever knew must not tell--a usual condition in this game.

"Heavy, heavy hangs over your head; what shall the owner do to
possess it?"

"Stand on one leg for five minutes."

"Let him jump over a straw--or recite a poem!"

"No, a fable--la cigale, or something like that."

"Yes, yes!"

It was Walter's pawn.

"I don't know any fable," he said, embarrassed; "and I don't know
French either."

"I will help you," cried Emma. "Le pere, du pere----"

"That's no fable! Go ahead, Walter!"

For some of the party it was a joy that Walter knew no Fable and no
French. If it were only known how often