ernut pickles are just too lovely!"

The apple-room had a small window in it, so it was not so dark as the
other cellars. Eyebright went straight to a particular barrel.

"These are the best ones that are left," she said. "They are those
spotty russets which you said you liked, Bessie. Now, you take four
and I'll take four. That'll make just one apiece for each of us."

"How horrid it would be," said Bessie, as the two went upstairs again
with the apples in their aprons,--"how horrid it would be if a hand
should suddenly come through the steps and catch hold of our ankles."

"Good gracious, Bessie Mather!" cried Eyebright, whose vivid
imagination represented to her at once precisely how the hand on her
ankle would feel, "I wish you wouldn't say such things,--at least till
we're safely up," she added.

Another moment, and they were safely up and in the kitchen. Alas,
Wealthy caught sight of them.

"Eyebright," she called after them, "tea will be ready in ten minutes.
Come in and have your hair brushed and your face washed."

"Why, Wealthy Judson, what an idea! It's only twenty minutes past
five."

"There's a gentleman to tea to-night, and your pa wants it early, so's
he can get off by six," replied Wealthy. "I'm just wetting the tea
now. Don't argue, Eyebright, but come at once."

"I've got to go out to the barn for one minute, anyhow," cried
Eyebright, impatiently, and she and Bessie flashed out of the door and
across the yard before Wealthy could say another word.

"It's too bad," she said, rushing upstairs into the loft and beginning
to distribute the apples. "That old tea of ours is early to-night, and
Wealthy says I must come in. I'm so sorry now that I went for the
apples at all, because if I hadn't I shouldn't have known that tea was
early, and then I needn't have gone! We were having such a nice time!
Can't you all stay till I've done tea? I'll hurry!"

But the loft, with its rustles and dark corners, was not to be thought
of for a moment without Eyebright's presence and protection.

"Oh, no, we couldn't possibly; we must go home," the children said,
and down the stairs they all rushed.

Brindle and old Charley and the strange horse raised their heads and
stared as the little cavalcade trooped by their stalls. Perhaps they
were wondering that there was so much less laughing and talking than
when it went up. They did not know, you see, about the "perfectly
awful" robber story, or the mysterious rust