.

"Ted wishes somebody would sing a song," he said.

His mother glanced at Mabel. Poor Mabel's face grew very red again. It
would be worse than telling a story.

"If we all sang together," she said timidly, "I wouldn't mind trying to
begin."

So in a minute or two her clear young voice sang out--like a lark's it
seemed to mount higher and still higher, gathering strength and courage
as it grew, and then softly dropping again as if to fetch the others,
who joined her in the old familiar chorus of the simple song she had
chosen--"Home, sweet home."

Ted listened entranced, and his little voice here and there could be
distinguished. But suddenly, as Mabel stopped and a momentary silence
fell on them all, he turned to his mother, and throwing himself into her
arms, burst into tears.

"Muzzer," he said, "I can't bear it. It's _too_ pitty," and though his
mother and Mabel soothed the excited little fellow with gentle words and
caresses, there were tears in more eyes than Ted's as they all thanked
Mabel for her singing.

It was the next day that they had the rest of the story. The children
were all in the garden together, not far from Ted's favourite "bridge."
They could hear the babble of the little brook as it chattered past in
the sunshine, and now and then the distant cry of a sea-bird would sound
through the clear air, making Cheviott prick up his ears and look very
wide-awake all of a sudden, though in reality, being no longer in the
first bloom of youth, he was apt to get rather drowsy on a hot
afternoon.

"We'se all ready, Mabel," said Ted, settling himself down comfortably in
his favourite rest at her side. "Now go on p'ease. I can see the top of
the mountain kite nice from here, and zen I can sink I'll see the old
diant poking his head out," evidently the child's fear of the mountain
was fast becoming a thing of the past, and Percy felt quite pleased.

"Well," began Mabel, "I was telling you that Sunny had lived with her
old grandfather and grandmother since she was quite little. They were
very kind to her, but they were very poor, almost the poorest of all in
the forest. And yet their cottage never seemed quite so dull and sad as
the others. How could it, when there was always Sunny's bright head
flitting about, and her merry voice sounding like a bird's?

"The old people looked at her half with pleasure and half sadly.

"'It can't last,' the old man said one day, when the little girl was
running and