er hand to them and went off laughing to her
wagonette.

CHAPTER II

TREATING OF LARKIN AND HIS COMMISSION

"Well," said Lynn, looking across at "Tenby," "I'm glad it's going to be
lived in at last, poor thing. It makes me quite mis'rable to see it
standing there in the sun with its eyes shut up tight as if it wanted to
wake up on'y it darerunt."

"Like the Sleeping Beauty," said Pauline.

Lynn, in whose composition had run from babyhood a marked vein of
poetry, shook her hair back from her face.

"I made a song about it down at the waterfall the other day," she said.
"Only mamma wasn't here to write it down, and I didn't know if you could
spell all the words, Paul."

"What nonsense!" said Paul, "as if I couldn't spell any word a child
like you could think of."

"Well, write it then," urged Lynn, "and I can send it in my next letter
to mamma; the rhyums in it came quite right this time."

So Pauline, having nothing better to do, and anxious to display her
spelling prowess, fished out of her pocket a bit of pencil and one of
Octavius Smith's trade cards that drew attention to his prime line of
bacon. This last Larkin had pressed upon her that very morning, and
urged her to put it on the mantelpiece, where their visitors could see
it. They owed him a return. Morning after morning did he, after
receiving his orders from Miss Bibby at the kitchen door, ride his horse
to the road at one side of the house, where some well-grown pines made a
kindly screen, and there let the children, one after the other, have all
the delights of a stolen ride. The ever-present dread of Miss Bibby's
discovery naturally added a fearful joy to the proceedings "A judge's
eldest daughter astride a grocer's horse!" Pauline could readily imagine
the lady's tone of horror.

It seemed very easy repayment for the happiest moment of the dull day to
promise to put this advertisement in evidence. But at present it was
only the white back of the card that was pressed into service.

Lynn's eyes grew round and solemn, as they always did when she was
delivering herself of a "song." She stared hard at the shuttered house.

"Call it 'The Very Sad House,'" she said.

"'The Very Sad House,'" wrote Pauline obediently.

"No, cross that out," said Lynn; "I remember I thought of a better name.
It's called 'Forsaked.'"

Pauline grumbled at this. "You mustn't alter any more," she said; "even
writing very small I can't get much in."

"Well,"