I was afraid to, but I kept looking at
Leon and he smiled back, and we had great fun. Secrets are lovely.
Mother couldn't have eaten a bite if she'd known about that great
shining thing, all full of wonderful sound, standing in our parlour.
When the last slow person had finished, father said: "Shelley, won't
you step into the front room and bring me that book I borrowed from
Frank on 'Taxation.' I want to talk over a few points."

All of us heard her little breathless cry, and mother said, "There!" as
if she'd been listening for something, and she beat all of us to the
door. Then she cried out too, and such a time as we did have. At last
after all of us had grown sensible enough to behave, Shelley sat on the
stool, spread her fingers over the keys and played at the place father
had selected, and all of us sang as hard as we could: "Be it ever so
humble, There's no place like home;" and there WAS no place like ours,
of THAT I'm quite sure.

CHAPTER XVII

In Faith Believing

"Nor could the bright green world around
A joy to her impart,
For still she missed the eyes that made
The summer of her heart."

Soon as she had the piano, Shelley needed only the Paget man to make
her happy as a girl could be; and having faith in that prayer, I
decided to try it right away. So I got Laddie to promise surely that
he'd wake me when he got up the next morning.

I laid my clothes out all ready; he merely touched my foot, and I came
to, slipped out with him, and he helped me dress. We went to the barn
when the morning was all gray.

"What the dickens have you got in your head now, Chicken?" he asked.
"Is it business with the Fairies?"

"No, this is with the Most High," I said solemnly, like father. "Go
away and leave me alone."

"Well of all the queer chickens!" he said, but he kissed me and went.

I climbed the stairs to the threshing floor, then the ladder to the
mow, walked a beam to the wall, there followed one to the east end, and
another to the little, high-up ventilator window. There I stood
looking at the top of the world. A gray mist was rising like steam
from the earth, there was a curious colour in the east, stripes of
orange and flames of red, where the sun was coming. I folded my hands
on the sill, faced the sky, and stood staring. Just stood, and stood,
never moving a muscle. By and by I began to think how much we loved
Shelley, how happy she had been at Christmas the way she