The Green Beads 279
XXIII. Robin's Rescue 292
XXIV. Madame Forsyth Comes Home 305
Epilogue--A Story After the Story 318

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ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE

The Effect Was Very Christmasy Frontispiece
The Beautiful Little Girl Had Not Spoken To Her 20
"Couldn't I Run Away With You?" 56
"It's Like The House of Bread And Cake" 119

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RED-ROBIN

PROLOGUE

A STORY BEFORE THE STORY

On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that
she might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was
about her. There was so very, very _much_ beauty--the sky, azure blue
overhead and paling where it touched the green-fringed earth; the
whispering tree under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like
waves of a sea, the bird nesting above her, everything--

And Moira O'Donnell, who had never been farther than the boundaries of
her county, knew the whole world was beautiful, too.

Behind her, hid in a hollow, stood the small cottage where, at that very
moment, her grandmother was preparing the evening meal. And, beyond, in
the village was the little old stone church and Father Murphy's square
bit of a house with its wide doorstep and its roof of thatch, and Widow
Mulligan's and the Denny's and the Finnegan's and all the others.

Moira loved them all and loved the hospitable homes where there was
always, in spite of poverty, a bounty of good feeling.

And before her, just beyond that last steep rise, was the sea. She could
hear its roar now, like a deep voice drowning the clearer pipe of the
winging birds and the shrill of the little grass creatures. Often she
went down to its edge, but at this hour she liked best to lie in the
grass and dream her dreams to its lifting music.

Her dream always began with: "Oh, Moira O'Donnell, it's all yours! It's
all yours!" Which, of course, sounded like boasting, or a miser gloating
over his gold, and might have seemed very funny to anyone so stupid as
to see only the girl's shabby dress and her bare feet, gleaming like
white satin against the green of the grass. But no fine lady in that
land felt richer t