spot entirely by
accident and had brought her dolls down here for play, Arethusa had
found congenial occupation in the woodland. And now that she was older,
she spent long hours of reading and dreaming instead of play.

In her favorite position, flat on her stomach with her heels in the air
and her chin propped in her hands (which position Miss Eliza contended
was far removed from the dignity befitting Arethusa's years and had
forbidden in her, Miss Eliza's, presence) she read old-fashioned novels
that she smuggled out of the bookcase in the parlor. When the book was
closed, she invariably added long chapters of her own fancy to the
"lived happily ever after" ending. Yet all that she read did not, by
any means, end thus happily, for she loved sad stories also. She knew
"The Scottish Chiefs" almost by heart. It was foolish, perhaps, to lie
under the trees and read sobbingly until she could hardly see what she
was reading for the tears, and then dab at her eyes with a sopping wet
handkerchief; but ... it was Arethusa. She was most Incurably Romantick.

She kept a few of her greatest favorites here in this hollow tree in
the centre of the woodland, for a story one likes cannot be read too
often, thought this gentle reader.

Here also, for the hollow tree somewhat resembled a treasure chest in
its interior, she had a length of green of the same soft shade as the
lichen of the woods around her. It was a green ribbon so thoroughly
satisfying in its color that only to spread it out on the grass where
her eyes might gaze upon it delighted Arethusa's soul.

Some day.... Some day.... She would have a green dress of just that
identical shade. "And Aunt 'Liza may say all she pleases about my
hair!"

Of which bit of meditated defiance, Miss Eliza remained in total
ignorance.

For Arethusa's hair was an uncompromising red. It was a deep, rich
brown-red in shadow and a burnished coppery-red in the sunlight,
wonderful to behold, but still red. And there was a decided difference
of opinion between Miss Eliza and her niece as to the color most
suitable for the clothes that were to be worn with such a top-knot.
Miss Eliza was horrified at the bare thought of any but the plainest of
shades beside it; generally standing up strongly for blue, a very dark
blue. Arethusa, although she rather preferred other colors of an
infinite variety, would not have minded blue so much had Miss Eliza's
selections been less depressingly somber. Abort