gratitude. But she'd come to hate me for it, all the same. Not at
first; after a bit. Because we change. Bound to, aren't we?"

"Perhaps."

"I know I do. We can none of us stay what we were. You haven't either."

"You haven't much to go by," said Helen.

"Seven minutes at the door, wasn't it? This time it's been seven days."

"Yes."

"It's a long time for me," said Peter.

"It's not much out of a lifetime."

"No. But suppose it were more than seven days?"

Helen looked at him and said slowly, "It will be, won't it? You won't
be able to go to-morrow."

"No," said Peter, "not to-morrow, or next day perhaps. Perhaps I won't
be able to go for the rest of my life."

This time Helen looked at him and said nothing.

Peter stroked his bird and whistled his tune and stopped abruptly and
said, "Will you marry me, Helen?"

"I'd rather die," said Helen.

And she got up and went out of the room.

("Oh, the green grass!" chuckled Martin like a bird.

"Nobody asked her you to begin a song, Master Pippin," quavered
Jennifer.

"It was not the beginning of a song, Mistress Jennifer. It was the
epilogue of a story."

"But the epilogue comes at the end of a story," said Jennifer.

"And hasn't my story come to its end?" said Martin.

Joscelyn: Ridiculous! oh, dear! there's no bearing with you. How CAN
this be the end? How can it be, with him on one side of the door and
her on the other?

Joyce: And her heart's breaking--you must make an end of that.

Jennifer: And you must tell us the end of the shell.

Jessica: And of the millstones.

Jane: What did he have in his box?

"Please," said little Joan, "tell us whether she ever found her boy
again--oh, please tell us the end of her dreams."

"Do these things matter?" said Martin. "Hasn't he asked her to marry
him?"

"But she said no," said Jennifer with tears in her eyes.

"Did she?" said Martin. "Who said so?"

"Master Pippin," said Joscelyn, and her voice shook with the agitation
of her anger, "tell us immediately the things we want to know!"

"When, I wonder," said Martin, "will women cease to want to know little
things more than big ones? However, I suppose they must be indulged in
little things, lest--"

"Lest?" said little Joan.

"There is such a thing," said Martin, "as playing for safety.")

Well, then, my dear maids, when Helen ran out of his room she went to
her own, and she threw herself on the bed and sobbed without weeping.
Because e