uld earn the money, where could she find the
pitcher? She would not confess to Miss Prudence until she found some way
of doing something for her. Oh, dear! This was not the kind of thing that
she had been wishing would happen! And how could she go down with such a
face to hear the rest about punctuation?

"Marjorie! Marjorie!" shouted Uncle James from below, "here's Cap'n Rheid
at the gate, and if you want to catch a ride you'd better go a ways with
him."

The opportunity to run away was better than the ride; hastening down to
the hammock she laid the Bible in Miss Prudence's lap.

"I have to go, you see," she exclaimed, hurriedly, averting her face.

"Then our desultory conversation must be finished another time."

"If that's what it means, it means delightful!" said Marjorie. "Thank
you, and good-bye."

The blue muslin vanished between the rows of currant bushes. She was
hardly a radiant vision as she flew down to the gate; in those few
minutes what could have happened to the child?

IV.

A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE.

"Children always turn toward the light"

"Well, Mousie!"

The old voice and the old pet name; no one thought of calling her
"Mousie" but Hollis Rheid.

Her mother said she was noisier than she used to be; perhaps he would not
call her Mousie now if he could hear her sing about the house and run up
and down stairs and shout when she played games at school. That time when
she was so quiet and afraid of everybody seemed ages ago; ages ago before
Hollis went to New York. He had returned home once since, but she had
been at her grandfather's and had not seen him. Springing to the ground,
he caught her in his arms, this tall, strange boy, who had changed so
much, and yet who had not changed at all, and lifted her into the back of
the open wagon.

"Will you squeeze in between us--there's but one seat you see, and
father's a big man, or shall I make a place for you in the bottom among
the bags?"

"I'd rather sit with the bags," said Marjorie, her timidity coming back.
She had always been afraid of Hollis' father; his eyes were the color of
steel, and his voice was not encouraging. He thought he was born to
command. People said old Captain Rheid acted as if he were always on
shipboard. His wife said once in the bitterness of her spirit that he
always marched the quarter-deck and kept his boys in the forecastle.

"You don't weigh more than that bag of flour yourself, not as much