ng but thunder and lightning, rain, snow, and hail, in
their family history for twelve or fifteen years, perhaps it is only
natural that they should enjoy a little spell of settled weather. If it
really turns out to BE settled, now that Aunt Jane and mother are strong
again I must be looking up one of what Mr. Aladdin calls my cast-off
careers."--"There comes Emma Jane Perkins through her front gate; she
will be here in a minute, and I'll tease her!" and Rebecca ran in the
door and seated herself at the old piano that stood between the open
windows in the parlor.

Peeping from behind the muslin curtains, she waited until Emma Jane
was on the very threshold and then began singing her version of an old
ballad, made that morning while she was dressing. The ballad was a great
favorite of hers, and she counted on doing telling execution with it in
the present instance by the simple subterfuge of removing the original
hero and heroine, Alonzo and Imogene, and substituting Abijah the Brave
and the Fair Emmajane, leaving the circumstances in the first three
verses unaltered, because in truth they seemed to require no alteration.

Her high, clear voice, quivering with merriment, floated through the
windows into the still summer air:

"'A warrior so bold and a maiden so bright
Conversed as they sat on the green.
They gazed at each other in tender delight.
Abijah the Brave was the name of the knight,
And the maid was the Fair Emmajane.'"

"Rebecca Randall, stop! Somebody'll hear you!"

"No, they won't--they're making jelly in the kitchen, miles away."

"'Alas!' said the youth, since tomorrow I go
To fight in a far distant land,
Your tears for my absence soon ceasing to flow,
Some other will court you, and you will bestow
On a wealthier suitor your hand.'"

"Rebecca, you can't THINK how your voice carries! I believe mother can
hear it over to my house!"

"Then, if she can, I must sing the third verse, just to clear your
reputation from the cloud cast upon it in the second," laughed her
tormentor, going on with the song:

"'Oh, hush these suspicions!' Fair Emmajane said, 'So hurtful to love
and to me! For if you be living, or if you be dead, I swear, my Abijah,
that none in your stead, Shall the husband of Emmajane be!'"

After ending the third verse Rebecca wheeled around on the piano
stool and confronted her friend, who was carefully closing the parlor
windows:--

"