ke a
ribbon of rose-red silk shot with gold; and he coiled it lightly three
times round his head and dropped it over his left shoulder. And as
suddenly as bubbles sucked into the heart of a little whirlpool, the
milkmaids ran to get a look at the letter. But Martin looked first, and
when the ring of girls stood round about him he put his foot quickly on
the apple-peel and rubbed it into the grass. And without even tasting
it he tossed his little Lady Apple right over the wicket, and beyond
the duckpond, and, for all the girls could see, to Adversane.

Then Jane and Jessica and Jennifer and Joyce and little Joan, as by a
single instinct, each climbed to a bough of the center apple-tree, and
left the swing empty. And Martin sat on his own bough and waited for
Joscelyn. And very slowly she came and sat on the swing and said
without looking at him:

"We're all ready now."

"All?" said Martin. And he fixed his eyes on the Well-House, where it
made no difference.

"Most of us, anyhow," said Joscelyn; "and whoever isn't ready
is--nearly ready."

"Yet most is not all, and nearly is not quite," said Martin, "and would
you be satisfied if I could only tell you most of my story, and was
obliged to break off when it was nearly done? Alas, with me it must be
the whole or nothing, and I cannot make a beginning unless I can see
the end."

"All beginnings must have endings," said Joscelyn, "so begin at once,
and the end will follow of itself."

"Yet suppose it were some other end than I set out for?" said Martin.
"There's no telling with these endings that go of themselves. We mean
one thing, but they mistake our meaning and show us another. Like the
simple maid who was sent to fetch her lady's slippers and her lady's
smock, and brought the wrong ones."

"She must have been some ignorant maid from a town," said Jane, "if she
did not know lady-smocks and lady's-slippers when she saw them."

"It was either her mistake or her lady's," said Martin carelessly. "You
shall judge which." And he tuned his lute and, still looking at the
Well-House, sang:

The Lady sat in a flood of tears
All of her sweet eyes' shedding.
"To-morrow, to-morrow the paths of sorrow
Are the paths that I'll be treading."
So she sent her lass for her slippers of black,
But the careless lass came running back
With slippers as bright
As fairy gold
Or noonday light,
That were heeled and soled
To dance in at a we