Front matter

Transcriber's note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

MAVIS OF GREEN HILL

BY FAITH BALDWIN

(Mrs. Hugh Hamlin Cuthrell)

BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1921, By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (INCORPORATED)

To JEAN WICK In Gratitude and Affection

MAVIS OF GREEN HILL

CHAPTER I

Green Hill, June

A new doctor has arrived in Green Hill!

Sarah told me so this morning when she brought in my breakfast. She set the tray down with an agitated thump, and after her strong arms had raised me a little higher among the pillows, she stepped back, folded her hands beneath her apron, and fixed me with a portentous eye.

"Now do try and relish your breakfast, Miss Mavis," she coaxed, "there's a good girl!"

An undercurrent of excitement colored her tone. I looked upon her with suspicion. But I know my Sarah. Like Fate, and the village fire-company, she is not to be hurried. Very casually, I reached for my glass of milk. Years of lying comparatively flat on a useless back tend to the development of patience as a necessity.

"What time is it?" I inquired conversationally.

"Past nine."

I set the glass aside, and bit reflectively into a crisp triangle of toast. Since I've become so clever at eating and drinking, there's a sense of adventure about these commonplace functions which no whole person could ever comprehend. Sarah, busying herself with details of window-shades and counterpanes, watching me meanwhile from the corner of her eye, waited until I had turned indifferently to my pillows again, before making the following terse but thrilling remark.

"Your pink rose-bush's come into blossom, Miss Mavis."

Here was news indeed! My unconcern took unto itself wings and flew away.

"Not really!" I cried, "Oh, Sarah, how perfectly darling of her to waken so early!"

Sarah, accustomed to my extravagant fashion of endowing all growing things with distinct personalities, nodded gravely. And then, with all the majesty of Jove—if one may picture that deity as female, fifty, and New England incarnate—she launched her thunderbolt of Green Hill gossip.

"That young doctor—him that was to come from the city to help Doctor McAllister with his patien's—he's here!"

There was more truth than enunciation in Sarah's neglect of that final "t" in patients. Our village doctor is long on wisdom, but short of temper. I reached out for the morning paper, lying on my bedside table, and rustled it in dismissal.

"How interesting!" I murmured, successfully concealing any concern at all.

Sarah swooped down upon my tray and bore it to the door, in a manner which carried conviction. But we can deceive each other so little, Sarah and I.

"Come last night," she volunteered, "from New York. And every girl in Green Hill is furbishing up her Sunday clothes, so Sammy said."

Sammy, surnamed Simpson, the freckled-faced Mercury who delivers the milk, and is in close touch with all the divers heart-throbs of Green Hill, holds a sentimental, if unacknowledged appeal for Sarah. A century or two ago, Sammy's father, in those days a gay and unencumbered spark, courted my Sarah, so runs the story, in the public manner of Green Hill. And Sarah, difficult to believe though it be, showed him no disfavor. There was, however, an obstacle to eventual union, in the person of Sarah's invalid mother, a querulous, ninety-pound tyrant. Upon this rock the frail bark of the Simpson affections shattered. This is of history, the most ancient, but had the far-reaching result that Sarah, whose lot seems ever cast among the stricken, now waits on me heart, hand, and foot, while over the Simpson hearthstone another goddess presides, and rigidly too, if one can judge from the harrassed expressions of Sammy, Sr., Sammy, Jr., and all the other innumerable Simpson olive branches.

But to return to our muttons—the palpitating girlhood of Green Hill.

"Silly geese!" I commented unkindly.

Sarah from the doorway looked as cryptic as is consistent with the features Nature had given her.

"Oh, I don't know!" she answered with spirit, and an unconscious effect of argot, "In Green Hill, Miss Mavis, men is scarce!"

Here was truth! Mentally I echoed, "They is!" and Sarah, reading ratification in my silence, achieved a disappearance of my tray, and returned to the attack.

"Sammy says—he was down to the station last night when the ten-six come in—seems like," she digressed, "he's always hanging around the station since Rosie Allan's been telegraph operator there—"

"Rosie is a very pretty girl, Sarah," I chided gently.

"Pretty is as pretty does!" said Sarah, in irrefutable self-defense. "Limb, I call her—bold as brass! But then," she added in her most pleasant tone, "Sammy was never raised to know better." And she looked at me with that unique light in her eyes which never fails them of the mention of any Simpson delinquency, however slight.

"Sammy says," she continued, bound to pursue the subject to the bitter end, "that the new doctor is a likely-looking young fellow, and seems well off."

At this juncture, I opened my paper with an air of finality.

"If this stranger in our midst is, as you infer, young, handsome, and wealthy," I remarked, "why then, in Heaven's name, has he descended upon Green Hill, Sarah?"

I hate handsome men. They are always so much vainer than women.

Sarah, accustomed as she is to my intemperate habits of speech, regarded me with a somewhat shocked air.

"Sammy says," she quoted—and here the conversational cat leaped from the bag—"that he come down here because he is suffering from nerves!"

The door closed after her, but her contempt lingered, almost tangibly, in the room; and I smothered my laughter in the lavender-scented pillows.

But Sarah had given me something to think about. I have known so few men, young ones, that perhaps I am given to speculating about them even more than the average girl. They're such an unknown quality. And certainly the one or two who have been escorted to my presence have not shown to good advantage. The healthy man reacts unfavorably to invalid feminism. They are bored, or too sympathetic; they speak in whispers, or in too cheery tones; they shuffle their great feet; and escape, eventually, with a sigh of relief. And I am impatient of them, of their bulk and their strength, and the arrogance which is part and parcel of their sex. Perhaps it is because I am handicapped, circumstantially out of the running, so as to speak, that an "eligible" male always arouses in me a feeling of antagonism. And yet with not unremarkable inconsistency, I always wish, wistfully, deep down, that I might make, sometime, a man friend of my own generation. But I can't. Something in me shuts doors and bolts them in any strange, masculine face.

A breeze stole delicately through my open window and ruffled my hair, luring my eyes to the out-of-door world where young Summer goes walking today, clad in blue and green. Not far off, the hills which give our town its pretty name, rise mistily, like altars. Just beyond that tall tangle of oak trees, a little river comes singing from its source. In winter I miss its friendly voice, yet I am more in sympathy with it then, for ice-bound, its bright limbs fettered, its dancing stilled, it seems kin to such as I. But for me there will never dawn a springtide, with the prison keys in her green girdle and rosy hands outstretched to unlock the door.

Year in, year out, my bed is always close to the windows. All of out-doors that I may see and hear, I must have for my own. I love every glimpse and scent and sound of it. Only the aggressive shriek of the train at the distant crossing makes me shrink and shudder. That was the last thing I heard—a whistle at a crossing—before the day coach which was carrying me home from a happy visit plunged over the embankment.

Eleven years ago! It seems like many centuries. Yet I remember it as I remember yesterday—that crash before oblivion. I can remember even the thrill of twelve-year old pride in the dignity of that fifty-mile journey, made quite alone. It was the beginning of a longer journey, where the milestones are the years; a journey painful and rebellious, marked with many stations of weariness, and black tunnels of agony; a journey which, despite all the loving care that surrounds me, I must make in isolation of body and spirit. Oh, little blue diary, it is well that I may shut away my moods and my mutiny between your covers! No one in all this house must be made sadder because of me. Not father, unfailing playmate, and tender; not Sarah, whose silent affection is like protecting arms about me. There's a great shaft of sunlight quivering across what I've just written. Incongruous, somehow. And I'm out of tune with the June weather and the birds just beyond my windows.

I must ask Sarah to bring me my first rose from my Sleeping Beauty bush. First roses are always the sweetest—like the kiss of Prince Charming.

I wonder what the nervous doctor's name is—poor Sarah!

June paid me a visit this afternoon while I slept. She was reluctant to waken me, but left me her prettiest card. The first roses from my bush! They have been happily translated to a vase beside me, as I write. Father brought them upstairs with him when he came in for tea.

"Did you kiss her hands and tell her how sorry I would be to miss her?" I asked him soberly.

Father looked alarmed.

"Whose hands?" he began.

"Who has called on us today?"

"Mrs. Withers!" he answered, suppressing a groan.

Rudely I laughed.

"Surely, Mavis," father continued plaintively, "you could never demand that I kiss—"

I laughed again. Mrs. Withers—ugly name, isn't it!—is the wife of our pastor. She is a good woman, but she possesses little charm.

I just touched my roses, with a cautious finger-tip.

"June has been here, you prosaic person," I said. "Witness these, and then deny it if you can."

Father, relieved, leaned back in my comfortable armchair. At least, I know it looks comfortable.

"I did not see her," he said. "That is, not until I entered this room, and found her wearing my daughter's most becoming face."

Father is so satisfactory! I'm sure I bridled.

"Bring me a mirror, immediately!" I demanded.

Father rose obediently to his lean height, and fumbled among the things on my dresser for the fat silver mirror, adorned with its charmingly ugly cupids, which had been my mother's.

"There, Miss Vanity!" he said. And while I studied my reflection, he studied me from under his bushy brows.

Finally, in silence, I gave him back the glass.

"Well?" asked father.

"Well?" I responded, which was not courteous.

"Do you find yourself prettier than yesterday?"

"Oh! Much!" I answered, with conviction.

After all, there are compensations in the possession of a pointed face, decorated with big dark eyes, and a delightful mouth. My nose has never pleased me; but always, when I am gloomiest, my hair affords me consolation. Sarah makes a household pet of it, and cares for it devotedly. There's heaps of it. So much, that it makes my head ache to wear it piled high. So it generally lies in two long braids across the sheets.

"Father," I asked, "what color is my hair?"

He leaned forward and lifted one of the braids.

"Exactly the color of cloudy amber," he answered.

I pondered on this for a time, and then: "That," I said, "sounds very nice—but improbable."

We smiled at one another, but suddenly the laughter left his eyes, and he bent to kiss my forehead, perhaps to hide his face.

"You grow more lovely every day, Mavis," he said, gravely.

Could anything be sweeter than a father who says all those little, lover things to one? I think not.

I laid my cheek against his hand. He has nice hands, quick to soothe and caress. Nothing is quite unendurable with father near.

"You should be a poet," I told him. "Sometimes I think you are, instead of a historian. Nothing in the world can ever make me believe that you write deadly-dull books for deadly-dull people to read. Do they read them?" I inquired as an afterthought.

"Mavis!" he shook his finger at me, in mock indignation.

"Well," I answered truthfully, "mediaeval history must be dull. I'm sure I can't remember any of it!"

Here our argument, but half commenced, ceased. For father, with an exclamation, plunged his hands deep into his pockets, and after a time produced a slim, sober volume.

"Here it is!" he cried in triumph.

"Here is what?" I asked in some astonishment. "How you do dash about, father. Your mind turns all sorts of corners. What is it—mediaeval history?"

"Certainly not, minx! Poetry!"

"Poetry!"

He laid the book on the bed, and my hands pounced upon it like two white cats on a small brown mouse.

"I've been starving for some!" I announced, and turned the book over to read the title, The Lyric Hour by Richard Warren.

"Where," I asked, tucking my treasure under my pillow, "did you get it?"

"It came in the morning mail," he answered.

I looked at him searchingly.

"There is," I ventured, "some mystery about this Lyric Hour."

Father laughed, and fished once more in his pockets.

"Here is the letter which came with it," he said.

I opened the envelope, which bore the name of father's publisher and good friend, and read:

New York City June 18th

Dear Carroll:

I'm sending you your delayed proofs, and by way of apology and distraction, the volume of verse which has created such a sensation in literary and critical circles—those two kingdoms which occasionally overlap—but are not always completely allied. I feel certain that you and Mavis will enjoy Richard Warren. Old and sedate as I have grown with the years, I must confess that he has made my pulses quicken and my heart take on something of its youth again.

With warmest remembrances to you both,

Faithfully yours, John Denton

I gave the letter back to father.

"It must be some book!" I remarked with awe, if slangily.

Father raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"Mr. Denton—and 'quickened pulses'?" I quoted with a rising inflection.

"Why not?" interrogated my parent. "A contemporary of mine, and, Mavis, you must admit, an admirer of yours—"

I was flattered into silence, and turned my attention to my roses once more. Father chewed his pipe stem—a reprehensible habit—and made an announcement.

"We've had another caller today," he said.

"You're as bad as Sarah for concealing things until the eleventh hour," I reproached him. "Who was it?"

"Denton's nephew."

This, in Green Hill phraseology, really fetched me. Round-eyed, I stared.

"Didn't know he had one!" I said, somewhat aggrieved. "Who is he, and what is he doing here?"

Father stretched out his long legs, preparatory to explanation.

"It's a long story," he said. "Briefly, this is a prodigal nephew. There has been some family feud in the Denton clan, but recently done away with. When the hatchet was buried, Denton got into touch with his late brother's family, which consists of a wife, and an only son, who is a doctor. He has just recovered from a slight break-down—overwork, I believe. And Denton through me arranged to have him come here to recuperate and at the same time to assist our good friend, McAllister in some of his surgical research."

By this time my mind was putting two and two together and making eight or nine.

"Not Doctor Denton," I asked, "the Doctor Denton?"

Father nodded.

"Perhaps—" he began wistfully. But I shook my head.

"Please not!" I said. And he left me with his sentence unspoken. But I knew! We had both read so much of the young surgeon who had effected wonderful cures in cases similar to mine. It had never occurred to either of us, at the time, that he might be of John Denton's family. But I knew that father often wished, out loud, that he might consult with him about me, deploring the fact that he was in Europe. But for a number of years I have begged so hard that no more doctors be let loose to probe and pound me—a process of infinite torture with no results save deeper hopelessness and white nights, that father promised. So I have been left in peace. Lazily, I wondered why father had not told me sooner of his discovery and subsequent arrangement with Doctor Mac. But I had a bad siege of it, a while back, and probably during that very period the matter had come up. Doubtless, when I had finally struggled up again from my depths, father, once more lost to the world among his books, had forgotten.

I lay silent, watching a bird seesaw on the vine which clambers over my window-ledge in friendly fashion. "Long past your bed-time!" I remarked severely. But it cheeped at me impudently.

I wonder what Doctor Denton looks like. Thin, I fancy, professional, and probably very jumpy. But I cannot condemn his nerves quite as harshly as I know Sarah does. I have had a speaking acquaintance with nerves, myself.

I meant to indulge in The Lyric Hour tonight. But my little blue friend has claimed all of my time. I will save Mr. Warren, therefore, for another day. Like icing on a cake. The book lies under my pillow still, barely peeped at. Perhaps I shall sleep better with that Ship of Song beneath my cheek.

Diary, good night!

Twenty-four hours later.

Oh, Diary, I have found him! And I don't know, and care less, whether he is twenty or ninety, fat or thin, married or single! The only thing in all the world which I am sure of at present is that he is mine! For I have him locked up between two vellum doors, from which he shall never escape. He's here—and never in all my life has anyone so thoroughly belonged to me. I've the heart and brains and beautiful spirit of him, and all day long his name makes a happy spot in my conscience. Richard Warren! Richard Warren! I hold the book that he has given to the world between my hands, in reverence. For all that I have hoped, and dreamed, and lived, in my shut-in life; all that I have ever wanted to be; all, that in my secret soul-shrine I have worshipped in God and Nature and Love of Love, is written down here for me to read and make doubly my own. I don't know who or what he is, Diary, in the outside world. And it doesn't matter. Nothing matters but this one little book to which he has set his name. For everything worth while is here; dust of stars and wine of dreams; essence of youth and joy of living, given word-form. And yet, these are not words so much as they are music, and color, and fragrance. I've just been reading and reading, and now I've laid the book aside, and have been lying here idly, letting broken snatches of purest beauty drift through my mind. And, for the first time I find myself regretting the shade of my eyes, for my new companion sings of "grey eyes as pure as God's first dream of stars." But perhaps it's just that grey lends itself more easily to poetry than common or garden brown.

Diary, I wonder if I have fallen in love with a book! But what a satisfactory state of heart to be in after all! I can banish my lover with so little effort, if ever I am not in the mood for him! I can even cast him into the fire, if he ever bores me! And I am sure that the most lovelorn maiden on earth must have moments when she would envy that faculty! And when I finally relent, as all true lovers must, how simple it has been made for me to buy a new copy of the Beloved!

Good night, "sweet gossip," as the ladies of Shakespeare's time were wont to say. You're such a comfort! And you'll not tell, will you, that Richard Warren and all his words lie once again beneath my pillow?

June 21

It's raining. Silver fingers are tapping at my window pane, and father's morning offering of roses came to me with their darling faces all wet and gleaming. I hated the weather hard when I woke up, but in my Lyric Hour, which holds so many, many lyric hours for me, there's a little verse about the rain, which patters through my mind as soothingly as the drops outside. So I've become almost reconciled to a dull day, devoid of visitors, and with Sarah complaining of "rheumatics." I shall begin to grumble about them myself soon, for I'm aware of warnings in my spine which bode no good. I'm too tired to write more, Diary.

July 1

Since last I set pen to your paper, Blue One, I have descended into Sloughs of Despair. Now, emerged again, I take up my story where I left it. A day or so after the last time I talked with you, I had an attack, of the sort which has mercifully been spared me for over a year. It had been coming on, steadily, but I wasn't going to give in to it—oh, no! So, the first intimation which father and Sarah had of its arrival was late one night, when a moan that I had been biting back for an hour tore its way to freedom past my closed lips, and revealed its presence, surprisingly, in the shape of a scream. Sarah came flying to my bed, and hard on her heels, father. They gave me such remedies as are always at hand, and which generally prove friendly. But this time they failed. My Demon had been in abeyance too long, and was reluctant to loosen his clutches. Once made free of my flesh, he would listen to no reason. Presently there came a period of half-consciousness, through which I dimly heard father at the telephone, calling Dr. McAllister's number. I almost smiled, through the creeping faintness, to think how annoyed he would profess himself to be, "called out of bed at this ungodly hour!" and how once arrived, he would toil to help me.

When I opened my eyes again after what seemed years, it was with a vague sense of amazement that Doctor Mac had grown so young since last I had seen him. For he was slim, where once he had been inclined to rotundity, and ruddy-brown where once he had been sparse and grey. Upon my pulse was an unfamiliar hand, and a strange voice, close to me, was saying quietly.

"She's coming round, Mr. Carroll."

Somehow, this calm disposition of me was annoying.

"I'm not," I heard myself contradict weakly.

Two steel-blue eyes, set in a lean face, met mine. It was not a friendly encounter.

"Please don't talk," ordered this new Doctor Mac briefly.

Father laid his hand upon my forehead.

"Is the pain better, dear?" he asked, with that break in his voice which always comes when he knows that I am suffering.

I tried to flash triumph into the blue eyes, and responded, "Yes." Then, as My Demon's jaws took a fresh hold on my spinal column, "Oh—no—!"

There was a low-voiced consultation, and then father said, reassuringly,

"Don't talk, Mavis dear, and lie quiet. Doctor Denton is going to give you something to relieve you."

I felt six years old again, and resentful to find father going over to the enemy. But I was grateful, that, after all, our own dear Doctor Mac had not been metamorphosed into an ogre with icicle eyes. As the tiny, merciful piston went home, I said feebly, with malice aforethought.

"Hello—Doctor Jumpy!"

And the last thing I saw before I fell asleep was his startled face. And in my first half-dreams, I found myself repeating, childishly, "He did jump! He did. And I made him!"

And that, Dear Diary, was my informal introduction to the nervous nephew of Mr. John Denton.

CHAPTER II

Doctor Denton came in this morning.

He has been in every day since that horror-night, and we preserve an armed neutrality with one another. I had even grown rather to like him, not for himself so much as for the engaging way his hair grows, and for the sensitive, spatulate fingers of the born surgeon. But after his visit of this morning, my little liking has retreated, as those crocuses which leave warm earth prematurely are sent shuddering into nothingness by the breath of an inimical frost. Here's what happened.

The roses started, and finished it. My room is quite full of them today; everywhere I look is just a blur of color. I think that Earth is particularly lavish this season. When father brought Doctor Denton in, and left us to what he fondly termed a "nice chat," the following conversation ensued.

"Good morning, Miss Carroll!"

"Good morning, Doctor Denton!"

After a few professional inquiries as to the state of health in which the morning had found me, and my satisfactory answers,—silence! I watched him stride restlessly about my room, until I could stand it no longer. Then I said briefly,

"Lovely day, isn't it?"

Came a growl, which translated I took to signify, "Hot!"

I know now just how water feels, trying to wear away the proverbial stone. Exhausted by my efforts, I leaned back among my pillows and closed my eyes.

Presently Doctor Denton came, and drew a chair close to the bed.

"Your roses are wonderful," he remarked conversationally.

Here was a subject on which I cannot fail to become eloquent. I opened my eyes. This was a mistake, for in so doing I met that steel-blue glance which always disconcerts me.

"They are," I said, and let the opening pass.

"I'd like to see some there," he continued, very rudely pointing his finger at my face.

I put my hands hastily to my cheeks.

"Now," he announced with satisfaction, "that's more like!"

Diary, it was stupid of me to blush!

"You do not admire pallor?" I asked politely.

"Certainly not the pallor of ill-health," was the professional answer. "It may be poetic, but it is hardly—practical."

"You do not admire poetry?"

Doctor Denton ceased twirling one of my loveliest roses between his fingers, and leaned forward to lay it carefully across my nearest braid. Gravely considering the effect, he replied,

"Not as a steady diet."

I slipped my hand under my pillow and closed it down hard over a certain volume.

"I do not suppose that surgery and poetry are particularly compatible," I volunteered, with indifference.

He lifted the rose from my braid and regarded it silently. When he looked up, I was astonished to see a light in the Alaskan eyes which I never dreamed could live in so cold a climate.

"You're all wrong," he answered; "there's a tremendous amount of poetry in surgery,—beauty, too, and limitless romance."

I didn't know those words were in his vocabulary. A trifle stirred by his tone, I made a little moue of scepticism.

"Instruments—and white coats—and ether," I was beginning, when he interrupted me.

"And beyond them all," he finished, on a deeper note, "the poetry of healing!"

I fell silent. Somehow that view of things had never occurred to me. Where one might see poetry, I saw only pain.

Perhaps my face showed something of what I was remembering, for suddenly he rose and leaned over me.

"Let me make you more comfortable," he suggested. And slipping a steady arm beneath my shoulders—there's more strength concealed in the slim length of him than one would imagine—he held me closely, while with the other hand he pounded my pillows and settled them firmly again. Something slid to the floor and lay there.

"Oh!" I said, as he stooped to recover it.

I put out my hands, but he was turning the book over.

"Poetry?" he said pleasantly, and raised an eyebrow. I didn't care much for his tone.

"Have you read it?" I asked belligerently.

"The Lyric Hour? No. Do you care, then, so much for rhymesters?"

"For this one," I answered, annoyed to confession.

"That explains it!"

"Explains what?"

"The night you were ill," Doctor Denton went on calmly to reveal, "you called me 'Richard.'"

I felt the hot color rise to my cheeks again. "Well?"

"Nothing. Only—my name happens to be Bill."

"It would be," I remarked.

"Just what do you mean by that, Miss Carroll?"

But I only smiled angelically, and asked, "When do you expect Doctor McAllister back again, Doctor Denton?"

I do not know that my tone implied all that I felt, but I saw the steel-blue eyes grow very dark, and,

"Thank you!" said Doctor Denton stiffly.

I felt somewhat ashamed, and tried to make amends.

"Please read The Lyric Hour, Doctor," I urged, in my prettiest party voice. "You will find it really worth while."

The creature is, after all, occasionally understanding. He smiled forgivingly at me and held out his hand for the book. But I hadn't meant that.

"Oh!" I said, hastily. "Not my copy!"

"As precious as all that?" he asked, putting his rejected hand in his pocket.

This I ignored.

"Tell Mr. John Denton to send you out a copy," I suggested. "He sent us this one."

"The devil he did!"

I looked my surprise, and my visitor laughed. He has a very nice laugh, considering.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Carroll. I am apt to be a trifle—," he paused, and considered me narrowly, "eh—jumpy. And I didn't know my Uncle John went in for ethereal chaps."

Ethereal! The word, on those lips, was an insult! I glared at him, rather conscious that I must look like a sick kitten.

Father came in, providentially.

"How is she, Doctor?" he asked. Which was absurd, as I had reassured him concerning my welfare not two hours earlier.

"Rather scrappy—lots of fight left," answered our guest, rising.

I was speechless.

"I think," said Doctor Denton, "we shall have to get her out of doors."

Father and I stared at him.

"Why not?" he continued, looking from one of us to the other. "We'll commence by building her up a bit, and trying massage for those unused muscles. Then a little later it should be quite easy to carry her comfortably downstairs and settle her on a cot under the trees for a little while each day."

"McAllister—" began father, doubtfully.

"Oh, I'll talk with him," cut in Doctor Denton cheerfully. "He will be back next week," he added, turning deliberately to me.

I looked grateful.

"How perfectly splendid!" I said, with a ring of real enthusiasm in my voice. "I've missed him so much!"

Father looked mildly surprised at so much fervor, and I am sure the creature concealed a smile.

As he departed with father to "talk things over," Doctor Denton turned at the door.

"Less poetry, Miss Carroll," he admonished, parentally.

"That's what I tell her," said father, surrendering to the foe. "The child reads too much. It makes her fanciful and—"

"Doesn't take her mind off herself," suggested the doctor, nastily. I wonder, Diary, what he meant?

"We'll take away her books," he went on, "and give her sunshine and fresh air and green trees, in their place."

Against my will I admitted it would be glorious—the outdoors part of the program.

"You see," he turned to father, "doctors are rather like gardeners. I, for one, am interested in roses."

"Roses?" echoed my parent, who seemed to pass from one stage of astonishment to the other as the morning progressed.

"Roses!" repeated Doctor Denton, firmly. "There's a particularly pretty white one that I am anxious to cultivate. I believe with care and sunlight it could be urged to bloom quite deep pink—permanently." He looked at me as he said this last. Then, with a polite "Good morning, Miss Carroll!" he left the room.

I hate him!

But Diary, wouldn't it be altogether wonderful if we could be taken out-of-doors together?

I wonder what that doctor person did with the flower he stole from my vase?

Green Hill July 3

Diary, I dreamed a horrid dream last night. I dreamed that I stood with Richard Warren on some high wooded place—in my dreams, Diary, I can always stand—with my hands close in his. I couldn't see his face, but I knew him, somehow, and his voice was in my ears, just saying my name, over and over. "Mavis! Mavis!" But as the mist cleared before my eyes, someone said far off, "Ethereal!" and laughed. And as I looked, I saw, not Richard Warren, Poet and Dreamer of Dreams, but William Denton, Surgeon and Scoffer. It all sounds so foolish, Diary, written down, but it was really quite dreadful. Sarah, who must have heard me call out, for in my dream I wrenched my hands away and screamed, appeared at my bedside, like a familiar ghost. How I welcomed her, innumerable tightly plaited braids, and all! Breathe it not in Gath, but in this unpleasant fashion does Sarah achieve her crinkled morning coiffure! She tucked me in, secured a flapping shade, forced a potion of hot milk down my unwilling throat, and left me. So, finally, I slept again, to dream no more.

This morning a note came to me from Mr. Denton. So nice a man to have so wretched a relation!

New York City July 2d

My dear little Mavis:

Your good father is so poor a correspondent that I have struck his name from my letter-list. But you are always considerate of a lonely old man. Therefore I write to inform him, through you, that I am leaving this asphalt wilderness presently, for the White Mountains. Perhaps when my vacation there draws to a close, I may drop down to see you before returning to the 'demnition' grind. I shall look forward to a pleasant visit with you, and a quarrelsome time with your father, to whom, despite his neglect of me, I beg to be remembered.

I am sending you some books and some exotic fruit, hoping to tempt your literary and physical palates, respectively.

My nephew writes me that he has seen you. I envy him! But I am more than sorry, my dear, that your first encounter should have taken place under such unfortunate circumstances. I shall be grateful to you for any kindness you care to show him, for he has not had a very happy, albeit successful, career, and he is far from his Western home and his people.

Remember me to your elderly and amiable handmaiden, whose beaten biscuit I recall with such felicity.

Write me now and then, Mavis, and if I can in any way be of service to you, you have but to command me.

Faithfully and affectionately your friend,

John Denton

P.S. How did you like The Lyric Hour?

This afternoon the fruit and books arrived. Quantities of both. Sammy Simpson, Jr., who adds the arduous duties of expressman to those of milk purveyor, staggered upstairs under the burden of them. Into this very room, with his own hands, ably chaperoned by Sarah, he brought them. We had a little conversation. It ran something like this.

Mavis: "Good afternoon, Sammy!"

Sammy: "Afternoon, Miss Mavis!"

M——;: "How is everyone at home, Sammy?"

S——: "Pretty fair, thank you."

M——: "Anything exciting happen in Green Hill lately, Sammy?"

S——: "Nothin' in perticular, Miss Mavis."

Here Sarah made a remark.

"Why, Sammy, you told me yourself, not ten minutes back, that your folks found old man Thomas hanging to the rafters of his own barn this morning!"

Sammy, in deep disgust, "Oh, him!"

Sarah, sharply, "Suppose you think a hanging aint nothing worth mentioning, Sammy!"

To which the youth, defensively,

"Well, it kinder slipped my mind."

"Why, Sammy," I here ejaculated, with real horror, "that's dreadful!"

Sammy shifted to his other foot for a change.

"Yes'm," he remarked. "Paw found him. That's the third man," he continued with satisfaction, "that Paw's cut down. He never did have much luck."

Sarah looked triumphant. I, making a miraculous recovery, inquired,

"I wonder why he did such a thing—Mr. Thomas, I mean?"

"Wife druv him," volunteered Sammy cheerfully.

I tried to appear shocked, but Sarah answered with bitterness,

"Couldn't stand living with himself any longer, like as not."

But Sammy, ignoring her, turned to me and said with conviction,

"Wimmen, Miss Mavis, is the dickens!"

Here the conversation ended. Sammy departed with a tug of his tow forelock, doubtless a legacy from ancestors who now sleep quietly across the ocean. Sarah bustled him out of the room, as one shoos chickens, and I lay back on my pillows and laughed. There is more to Sammy's melancholy than meets the eye. I seem to see Rosie Allan's fine Yankee hand in this. However, sooner or later I shall solve the mystery, for all Green Hill comes, now and again, to this peaceful room.

I've peeped into my new books, and nibbled at something which starts out by acting like a peach and ends up by becoming an apricot. And now I will write to my Fairy Godfather. For I have a Great Idea, Diary, which I will not confide to you until it has taken shape.

Green Hill July 4

We've been celebrating today! Even unto firecrackers under my window—I am only grateful that they were not under my bed! Doctor Denton, who arrived this morning with Doctor Mac in tow, unbent sufficiently to present me with a small silk flag. I was coldly sweet to him, but warmly so to his companion. It's nice to have Doctor Mac at home—language, beetle-brows, and all! He was led into the room by his younger colleague, and brought to my bedside, with an air of "Eureka! Behold my handiwork!"

Doctor Mac is very much pleased with my appearance—from a medical standpoint—and before the two of them departed, it was practically settled that I should begin the massage so that the out-of-doors campaign might be started.

I informed Doctor Denton that I had a letter from his uncle, to which he remarked.

"Didn't know you corresponded!"

Curiously enough, the news appeared to annoy him.

Diary, here is the letter which went to the White Mountains today. May your covers turn red if ever you divulge it!

Green Hill July 4th

Dear Mr. Denton:

First of all, a thousand thanks for your letter, the books, and the fruit. But how can you prate of 'fruit' in so commonplace a fashion, and then shower me with works of art, full of delicious mystery? Sarah says she fears I shall never be satisfied with Green Hill fare again. I believe she has grounds. The books are most welcome. I've been peering at Wells, and peeking at Bennett, and holding my breath over the Barrie plays. I shall gorge myself on the printed page during the next few weeks. The dearest of all is an old friend who comes to me in a new dress. How in the world did you remember my passion for Alice, and her unchanging Wonderland? My own copy is worn and dog-eared. But this Alice is fresh and smiling—the illustrations are too quaint—and I love her already. Thanks, and again, thanks!

Yes, Doctor Denton has become a frequent visitor at the Carroll Cottage. Father likes him very much and they have lengthy arguments in the study, evenings. Sometimes a detached word or the scent of a pipe drifts up to me through the open door, and, occasionally, the two come and sit with me awhile. It was a great surprise to me to discover your nephew in our new doctor. One would never dream that you belonged together.

I am sure that father is glad to have some one to play with. There is no question of being 'kind.' At all events, Doctor Denton does not appear to me a lonely person. On the contrary.

The Lyric Hour and I are intimates. I have never had a book mean so much to me, not even Alice, who keeps me alive. I wonder if you know the author of these exquisite verses? Please, if you do, do not tell me anything about him, but—do you think I might write to him? I should like to tell him of the pleasure he has given me, and I should like to tell him through you. I'd rather he did not know my name. This may sound very foolish, as I know that writers have many letters from the public, but we shut-in people have moods. I would love to get to know him a little, on paper. Do you think he would mind? Somehow, from his book, I feel he might understand.

Father wouldn't care, I am sure. The Queen can do no wrong! So if you have no objection to playing postman, nothing remains for me save to select a new pen and commence my letter. But I will not do that until I hear from you.

All in this house send love, except Sarah, who, I am sure, would not think it quite proper. But she would tender her respectful regards to you, did she know I was writing.

Gratefully and affectionately, Mavis Carroll

And now, Diary, I have set the wheels revolving and what the next White Mountain post will bring forth, I know not.

Green Hill July 5

Diary, I am afflicted with the morning-after sensation. I wish I had not written to Mr. Denton. What will he think of me? And yet, it seems almost justifiable, after all. For surely I am quite bed-ridden enough not to have my impulses questioned or to be accused of a sentimental, ulterior motive. And it is certainly patent to the most out-and-out sceptic that I shall have to get all my Romance vicariously.

It's a nice day. Peter-who-lives-next-door came in this morning to display an infinitesimal, bandaged thumb. He "sat on a firecracker," he said, which seems to have had an odd reaction. Peter has been so busy growing up of late that every time he hurtles into my quiet room I am convinced that I can see him sprout. He has a cupboard love for Sarah, but I think that his affection for me is simon-pure. Little boys are awfully dear. I have a proprietary interest in Peter. The night he was born I watched the lights of the house next door until my eyes closed of themselves. And ever since he was a round, big-eyed baby, he has had the freedom of this house. Today, he sat upon my bed and informed me that he was "goin' visitin'." I gather that his mother, Mrs. Goodrich, has a school friend who is spending the summer some forty miles away, at a small hotel. I asked Peter if he were eager to go.

"And leave me?" I asked plaintively.

"I'll be home soon," answered Peter, evasively. "An' Aunt Lily's awful nice—but awful old—as old as Mother," added the ungallant child.

Peter is seven. His pretty mother is twenty-eight!

I envy Mrs. Goodrich very much. I envy her Peter with a passion almost pain; and now I find myself envying her a school friend! Girls, young women, are almost as strange to me as men. Those I know in Green Hill are charming creatures and very sweet to me. They come to me with their knitting, their sewing, their love affairs. But a community of interests is not ours. As they chatter on, I can only wonder wistfully what it must be like to golf and swim, ride and play tennis, picnic and dance; to do all the "every day" things which they take so much for granted.

Dr. Denton came in today to see how I had recovered from "the Fourth," and, his call coinciding with the tail-end of Peter's visit, the two, who had hitherto had but a "bowing acquaintance," as the doctor put it, became instantly the best of friends. I wish I liked John Denton's nephew better. I am forced to agree with father that he has many splendid qualities. But only my mind agrees. Once or twice, when father has been particularly expansive on the subject, I have caught him looking at me in a puzzled fashion, and have realized that my tone has been about as enthusiastic as a Yale adherent when Harvard is making a goal. (Yes, Diary, I read the papers and ask quite intelligent questions!) When Dr. Denton is the subject in question between my father and me I am polite, very just, but unemotional. He arouses in me a feeling of rebellion and plain "cussedness." Perhaps it is a case of "Dr. Fell." I do not know, for until recently Dr. Fell has always seemed a rather maligned and misunderstood character to me. But not now. And yet, digging further in the soil of spontaneous antagonism, I am forced to confess that my dislike is deeper and even more illogically rooted. It is not pleasant to meet a strange young man, when one is flat on one's ridiculous back, with no personality other than the ugly, ignominious one of pain.

Let us be frank, Diary. I am irritated to be looked upon as an "interesting case." It hurts my pride, it wounds my vanity, it affronts me. This is not a pretty confession, but, after all, was I not intended for other uses than that one? It is small comfort to consider that my "history" is tabulated and filed in many an imposing medical office, and that one misguided wretch once wrote an article about me for the Medical World.

Other girls have pleasanter publicity to look back upon; thrilling scrap-books of clippings from local papers, little prosaic bits of paper that despite the bored phraseology of a reporter are just so many shining feathers from the wings of Romance. They run something like this: "Miss Ella Smith has returned to college." "Miss Ella Smith was the hostess at a very charming dinner dance last evening in her residence on Elm Avenue. This affair, which marked the debut of one of Green Hill's most popular members of the younger set, was etc., etc." "The announcement of the engagement of Miss Ella Smith to Howard Anderson, son of the president of the Washington Park Bank, was made yesterday at a luncheon given for Miss Ella Smith by Mrs. Arthur Jones." And then, Diary, after half a column for the wedding and the "Voice that Breathed o'er Eden" accompaniment, perhaps some day, this: "Born, to Mr. and Mrs. Howard Anderson (née Ella Smith), a son, Howard Anderson, Junior."

And after that, of course, the white-bound Baby Book. My mother kept one of me. Absurd pictures are in it, a lock of yellow hair, and all sorts of dear, foolish comments. Even my first word is written there, with, I know, a vainglorious pen. The word is not startling. It is "birdie." Father has often told me that mother declared this initial effort of speech a direct sign of abnormal brilliancy on my part, as the dictionary meaning of my christian name is "European song thrush or throstle."

I wonder if even a throstle would not get out of tune were it sentenced to life-long captivity?

I am terribly restless of late. I think that both father and Sarah have noticed it. But they have said nothing. In winter, I lie almost dormant, but Spring breeds a fever in my blood, and Summer sets me frantic with the longing to be up and out and away. But of all the hours, I love the one, toward twilight, before sunset, when the light is long and level, and a mellow golden. A breeze springs up and whispers gently in the trees, and I come nearest of all then to a sense of peace and quietude. This hour is, I think, of all summer hours the one most significant of her. In winter, one does not find the day entering imperceptibly into that period of lovely transition; in winter, one has daylight and then darkness.

Bedtime, Diary. The stars are thick tonight, and I can see the fireflies on the grass below my window, in pretty competition with the high, still light in the sky. Good-night! If I have been cross and rebellious in this writing, forgive me. It's only in books that a shut-in is angelic all the time! And even if I do write down my revolts and teacup revolutions in a book, I am still very far from being a heroine!

I wonder—will Mr. Denton consent to the alien role of go-between and accomplice?

CHAPTER III

SOME LETTERS

Woodland House Summit, N.H.

Dear little Mavis:

Of course I know Richard Warren. He is a very nice person to know! And he will be more than glad to hear from you, I am sure. By all means write to him. I wish I were twenty-odd and a Poet, instead of fifty-even and a Publisher! However, I shall take the second best, and play go-between.

Whenever you wish, I will further your schemes and preserve your incognito, you Designing Person!

Affectionately John Denton

July 6th

From a Rose-grey Bower July 7th

To you— A Maker of Songs:

With your Lyric Hour close beside me, and a picture of you in my imagination, I can feel little hesitancy in writing to tell you, as best I can, all that your poems have meant to me. I am, briefly, a "shut-in," in whose whole limited life books must necessarily play a greater part than in the active world of the well person.

Not long since, through Mr. John Denton, your verses came to me. Straight into my hands they came, and from there into my heart. They are singing there now. And for this, my little note carries you real gratitude. It must go to you, however, without name or sign. I'd rather that you stayed a little "unreal." For when names and addresses begin to play their part, then convention steps in to lay forbidding hands on the lips of friendly impulse,—even here in my castle, from which the outside world is almost banished, and which I shall never leave.

Thank you more than I can say for the loveliness of your songs.

Very sincerely yours, One Distant Reader

New York City July 12th

Dear Stranger-Lady:

I have your letter, and have asked our mutual friend to forward my reply to you. I am so glad that you did not allow Mrs. Grundy to enter that rose-grey bower of yours, which sounds so attractive. I am sure she would find the color scheme most unbecoming!

I am so glad that you care for my book. It is my first, and I have a weakness for it. I am afraid I do not sing for the many, but for the few. Time was, when I had hoped to be minstrel for all the world, but that is past now. And I am content with what I do, if it can call forth letters like yours.

Will you not write me again, and tell me as much of yourself as you care to? Or am I asking too much? I hope not, for your letter has given me such pleasure. It has made a little happy spot for me along the way, an oasis in that Desert of Loneliness which all of us know so well.

It is hard to think of you as really "shut-in." Somehow, I make a different mental picture of you.

If you will let me write to you, you will have to bear with hearing me tell of my dreams. But I am sure you could not treat them other than gently. And perhaps we can make for each other a little rendezvous of pen and ink, where we may meet and talk awhile.

Yours very gratefully, Richard Warren

From a Secluded Spot July 14th

Dear and Friendly Unknown:

Thank you for your letter. I shall be glad to share my quiet days with you.

You ask me about myself.

Well, first of all, there's Father; and second, there is Sarah. In order to rightly visualize Father, you must imagine all the strength and gentleness in the world, made man. And to be truly aware of Sarah, you must picture an aging fairy, who brings you just what you want on trays and things, before you know you want them; who creeps in to tuck you up before you realize you are about to grow chilly. Father is big and grey and brown; Sarah is like New England, just before spring; very reticent, and most tender beneath a wintry exterior. She has been nurse and servant, mother and friend to me, since that day when, after the doctors had agreed that there was no open door through which I might escape into health again, they brought me back here to live out the rest of my life. And of course no category would be complete without a mention of Peter, who is quite the most delightful lover that ever a girl could have.

Then there's our cottage, a small red edifice, rather weather-beaten. It is close to the hills; I think that they care for it, in so friendly a manner do they regard its very windows. In spring it is very intimate with the apple blossoms, which toss rosy sprays into the crystal air to break about its feet. In summer, as now, the roses pour white and red and golden wine on the doorstep. In autumn, the gayest leaves come drifting by to settle on the verandah, and even the snow seems to like it, so high and white does it heap itself about the doors.

Inside, the very best of the house is in my room. Father calls it the "Heart of the Home." If it is that, it beats in grey and rose, and lovely old blue. Grey in the walls and floor, and rose and blue in the cretonnes of curtains and mahogany furniture. All day long I lie in a four-poster bed, which belonged to a great, great, grandmamma, and is stationed in a big bay-window. I can look out over the hills, which in fancy I am always climbing. Many people come to see me here. They bring me their troubles and their joys, and I suffer and am glad with them, vicariously. One by one you shall meet them as our correspondence continues. For indeed, I hope it will. But with just one condition. Never by hook or crook or dark wiles, must you procure my name from our "postman." For then the spell will break, and I will vanish like the apparitions in the fairy stories.

That blot is where I stopped to look at an absurd cow which wandered slowly across my line of vision, over the road and into the orchard. Such an amusing and defiant tail! So melancholy an eye!

It has been raining this morning, and now there is palest sunlight through veils of mist. Somewhere, a bird is being very happy about something. Through an open window comes the fragrance of growing, rain-wet things. Surely you, city-bound, miss half of life.

I hear Sarah approaching. That means luncheon. So I must leave you, Poet. This is such a charming game, solitaire with an unseen partner, that I am loath to lay aside the cards.

Poet, good afternoon!

Yours loquaciously, Me

New York City July 19th

Enchanted Princess:

Your letters travel so long a route to reach me that I tremble lest sometime they should grow weary and stop off permanently, on the way. Will you not send them direct to the Yale Club? I am in and out of town all week, and will always go there for my mail. I, of course, shall have to stick to the White Mountain itinerary. But your word is law.

I was very glad to hear about the King and the Lady-in-Waiting and the Castle. Yet it is yourself I want a pen-sketch of. On second thoughts, perhaps, unconsciously, you are making it for me.

I live—but no, it would never do to tell you! I shall have to move in order to provide a poet with a less prosaic setting. I am desolate in having no Sarah to anticipate my wants; and—no Father. However, tucked away, where no one can steal her from me, I possess a Mother! A mother with tiny hands and feet, and the prettiest red hair in the world. This is too bewildering a shade for a Mother's hair to flaunt! She has added charm to beauty by acquiring somewhere merry blue eyes, with an Irish twinkle in them. And a kindly angel has set these jewels deftly in the sweetest face. You would love her, I know, and I am generously willing to share her with you if in return I may claim a bit of your Father. Between us we could manage to own a perfectly good pair of parents, couldn't we?

But for the sake of my peace of mind, will you translate, interpret, or explain "Peter" to me?

Do tell me about your visitors! Do they come to see you—I beg your pardon! I mean, do gallant knights ever gallop up to the drawbridge on coal-black chargers, and blow lustily on a silver trumpet, at the postern gate—whatever that is!—for admission? And does a certain lady ever graciously bid her varlets give them entrance? Tell me this, and what you read, and what you think. And if you will whisper to me, just how many years have left you lovelier than the year before, I will confess to you that I am Way-Past-Thirty!

Yours, Richard Warren

The Castle July 26th

Dear Merlin:

He was an aged wizard, you know.

Your letter has been here for several days, but I have not been very well. Now I'm all-better, and the answer goes to you.

First of all, you may indeed have a small interest in Father. This is how much you tempt me with your description of your Mother. Will you give her my love? Mother must be a very precious person. Mine I can hardly remember. But I know she was sweet and good and beautiful. It doesn't seem possible that anyone's mother could be anything else. My Mother was very young when she died, and although the lack of her is sometimes very hard to bear, I am grateful always that her eyes closed on the sight of me, sturdy, laughing, sound! Not as I am now, a bit of human wreckage. I wonder if she knows? There are moments before dawn when I seem to feel her lean over me, and her tears are on my face. But I know that God is merciful, and because of this I think the Dear Dead may not see us. Else, how were it Heaven?

Is it very hard to be Way-Past-Thirty? I am twenty-three—a great old age, if one stops to consider it.

Of course I have "Gentlemen Guests"! I am not too old for that! There's Father, every day; and occasionally Sammy Simpson. Then there is Peter, who lives next door. He would be flattered at your interest. Peter is seven, and the proud possessor of a place where teeth once were. I regret to state that he employs this aperture for an immortal, if not conventional purpose. "It is quite easy," he once earnestly confided to me, "once you get the nick of it!" Peter, his mother, and his baby sister, are away on a visit, and I miss my little friend.

I suppose my doctor comes under the category of Male Visitor. He is sixty, very crusty, but human and dear. There's another Medical Person, too. But he doesn't count.

Good-by for a little, Merlin, Yours, The Princess

New York City July 29th

Your Royal Delightfulness:

I am so sorry you've not been well. I can't bear to think that you should suffer pain. What plucky creatures women are! I wonder that they are created from the same clay as great, blundering, hulks of masculinity!

When my letter remained so long unanswered, I began to fear that it had never experienced the joy of coming to you. I began to worry lest I had offended and alienated you. Indeed, Princess, I began to think all manner of dreadful things! This must never happen again, for I am sure I have a brand-new crop of grey hair! Mind now!

Your visiting list is interesting. Sammy Simpson I approve, if only for the euphony of his name. Peter, and your grouchy physician, have charm. But who is the doctor who 'does not count'? I am always suspicious of a man when a girl says so venomous a thing about him! Do tell me! Doctors are all very well, in their way, and sometimes I think we songsters try to doctor, too, just a bit. It is of course not healing of broken bones, of wounds and fevers, that we try to bring the world, but of broken hearts, and the wounds of every day, of fevers of too much earth and restlessness. I do not suppose we can hope to cure, but perhaps we can provide, occasionally, a draught which drugs for a little into Forgetfulness.

No, Princess, I do not think that the Dead can see us. At least, not with the eyes of earth. But they watch over us, perhaps, with a clearer sight than we may know, and see beyond today and beyond the flesh, and are content, knowing with God that all things work toward eventual Good.

Now that we have brought the family into it, please remember me admiringly to your father.

Yours, Richard Warren

The Castle July 31st

Dear Minstrel Man:

Please, do you love Alice? I have been spending such a pleasant hour with her. Peter, returned from his travels, arrived this morning with my breakfast tray, and your letter. After we had exhausted the raptures of welcome, and Peter, his enunciation somewhat impaired by toast, had told me all there is to know about 'Auntie Perkins,' 'Uncle Perkins,' and the 'Fat Boarder,' he demanded a 'story.' So, as my own inventive faculties seem a little out of repair,—I took him with me, a willing captive, to the Rabbit Hole, and beyond. Yes, I am sure you love Alice, Poet. No Poet could be entirely grown-up. I wish you could see my new edition of the House where she lives. It is charming, and came to me from our Fairy-Godfather-Postman.

Last night I saw a shooting star. I suppose it was heralding August, the month of these flying flames. As a child I always thought that the Angels were shoeing the horses which drew the chariot of the sun, and that these were stray sparks from the Heavenly Anvil. I do not know that I was so very wrong, after all! Everything beautiful must be a spark of the Plan which is being forged in that Divine Smithy.

Do you wish on shooting stars? I do! Always the same wish. All my life, I've played at just such silly games. Perhaps we all of us do in different ways. A thousand years ago, when a certain great poet was a child, did ever he refrain from stepping on cracks, as he went whistling to school? If one is careful, you know, and reaches one's destination in triumph, it may mean much. A new hair-ribbon, absolution for a tiny sin, rice pudding for supper. But perhaps you were never naughty. I am sure you didn't wear hair-ribbons, and—but this is hard to believe—possibly you don't like rice pudding! You couldn't resist Sarah's, I am sure!

I—I wish on hay wagons. I adore odd numbers. Particularly do I revel in thirteen. At the same time, my defiance ends there. I cannot spill salt without a shudder, and first stars and baby moons are burdened with my desires. I am sure that every wish would come true, and the veriest pebble turn an infallible talisman in my hand, if only I believed enough.

There's a sunset behaving riotously outside. I am sure that it appears much more sedate in New York!

Whimsically yours, H.R.H. Me

P.S. I forgot to answer your questions about the Other Doctor. He is thirty-two, rather tall, and most particularly exasperating.

M.

New York City August 4th

Dear Princess:

If Denton may send you books, so may I. In this mail three friends of mine go to you: A Romance of the Nursery, Paul and Fiametta, and Grahame's Golden Age. Please be kind to them. I rather think you must be like Fiametta,—a slim, brown child, with oval face, and curious, parti-colored hair dark as the oak-settle in the hall—that the sunshine burnished into brightness.

I dreamed of you last night, an adventurous dream. Some day I will write you about it. Not now!

With the books I am sending you a talisman. I hope it will bring you all you wish. Of course, I do not know, but I have told it to try. There is a secret hidden at its heart. But I do not believe that you can find it out all by yourself. That would take a Poet! Now write me, and tell me how egotistical I am! But remember, after all, I am nothing more or less than Mere Man.

I hope you will care for your added charm, for the books, and a little for

Your friend, Richard Warren

New York City August 7th

Dear Lady:

Have I in any way offended you? I have had no word from you since the 31st. I am praying that you are not angry because I allowed myself the selfish pleasure of adding to your library. Or is it the talisman? I hope not! You see, it was not just a purchased thing. It belonged to my father.

But I would far rather than you were vexed with me than too ill to write.

Anxiously, Richard Warren

The Castle August 7th

How very rude you must think me, dear friend! For several days have passed, and I have not yet thanked you for the books, and for the curiously carven piece of jade, which you assure me will bring me my heart's desire. It lies close in my left hand as I write. I like the cool touch of it. And what a beautiful color it is, like the very heart of Summer! But you should not have robbed yourself of anything so precious.

The books are delightful. I wonder if one reads one's self into every book! Your choice of friends is faultless. I have fallen desperately in love with "Paul," already. But "Fiametta" and I are not alike. For where she is brown, I am white, and where her face is oval, mine is pointed, and where her hair is oak-and-gold, mine is just yellow-and-brown! And you know perfectly well that I am no longer ten. Except perhaps when Peter urges me to be.

And now I have a Something-Lovely to share with you! Also, it is the main reason why I have not let you hear from me before. In a few days I'm to be carried downstairs—and out under the trees, where an ingenious cot awaits my occupancy. For several days I have been preparing. The Disagreeable Doctor insists, and Father and our own Medicine Man aid and abet him. There's been a large Scandinavian Lady here every day. She possesses strong hands and a cloudy accent. And I am informed that she is to be the Witch who will remove certain fetters from my circulation. I have wished on my talisman that she may be successful. You see, I can't be very sanguine about it, for they tried all manner of things of this sort long ago, and to no avail. But, O Poet, if ever I get out under the trees again! Once there, how my spirit will strain at the leash of my body, to be off and away, over the hills!

I've not told you before of our breath-taking plan, lest it not come true!

What did you dream, Poet, and will you not tell me the Secret?

Gratefully yours, An Impatient Invalid

P.S. Paul, Fiametta, Alice, and other of your intimates, wish to be affectionately remembered. And Peter wants to know if you are by chance a Scout. It is the ambition of his life to attain the age of twelve and his modern knighthood.

New York City August 9th

Kind Princess:

Your letter of the seventh has reached me. It must have crossed mine. I began to feel happier directly I had written. So I must have known that you were writing too! Thank you for absolving me!

Your news is good news indeed! But I must know who is to have the joy of carrying you out into the sunshine, which is your birthright. The Old Unpleasant Doctor? The Young and even More Unpleasant Doctor?

I think perhaps you had better arrange to have your father play magician!

I have had a letter from my mother. There's a message for you in it. Obediently, I quote:

"Please tell the Unknown Lady that I have received her love, and am taking care of it. I wish I could run in to visit with her in that rose-grey room. But it wouldn't do at all! Not with my hair! Tell her she must have it done over in blues and browns before I can put in an appearance. The years, thank God, whatever else they take, still leave me my vanity! Give the Princess my love, and ask her if rose-and-grey bedsocks would become her feet. Size, too, please."

There's more to it, only if I should quote further you'd grow aware how much I have written her about you, and just what I have said. And that would never do. But you can see for yourself how well brought up I am. Confiding in my maternal parent! Did you know the verses were dedicated to her?

No! I will not tell you my dream, nor what the Talisman is hiding from you. If I did, you would lose all interest, for I should no longer be a Man of Mystery!

Will you tell an egotistical male just which verse most pleases you? And of course you will let me hear directly you leave the Castle?

Yours Richard Warren

Please congratulate Peter for me on his aspirations. Tell him that although hoary beyond belief, I too have always yearned to be a Scout—a good one!

R. W.

The Castle August 15th

Monster!

How dare you have secrets? Is that not Woman's prerogative? I will not answer any of your questions today, nor, indeed, write to you at all. Instead, I will write to your Mother:

Yours indifferently, Her Royal Haughtiness

(Enclosure) Dear Mother of the Poet:

Your son has written me your message. It is lovely of you to understand. And you do understand, do you not, just how much this pleasant pen-and-ink friendship means to me in my restricted world, bound as it is by walls, north and south, east and west.

The bedsocks sound beautiful. I have some severe gray ones which always make me feel very plain. But Sarah, who fashioned them, has little imagination. It is dear of you to want to knit for me, and when the cold nights come, I shall welcome your gift! About size three, I should say.

Mr. Warren writes me that The Lyric Hour is dedicated to you. I have turned to the page and read it with new eyes. "To the Dearest of All." And I am sure that the poem which is my favorite is your own. It is the one which begins

If only I could say it in verse, what a thankful little poem would go to you now! But I can only sign myself,

Very Much Your Debtor

New York City August 16th

Cruel Princess!

My head is in the dust! Such an uncomfortable place for it, too! Reluctantly, I have forwarded to my mother the letter which should have been mine. I have read it, every word! Surely that snippy little note, in which you call me—me, a perfect stranger—names! cannot be considered a real letter! On second thoughts, the wildest flight of fancy could never claim that your enclosure was intended for me. However, if I cannot knit, I can write poems for you. There are some on my desk now. But I will not send them to you yet. They are very shy.

How is Peter?

Yours despondently, Richard Warren

P.S. What little feet you have!

Under-the-Trees August 22d

Do I not write you from an incredible address, my friend? Yesterday, the Event took place. It was my Red Letter Day, illuminated with gold. Early in the afternoon, I was carried out of the house, with comparatively little discomfort, on a most ingenious stretcher, by Father and the Very Young Doctor. My dear old Medicine Man was erect in the vanguard, sternly repressing his excitement; while Sarah, visibly jarred out of her usual self, brought up the rear in a flutter of apron strings and ejaculated warnings. We must have made an imposing procession. As long as I live—and I am beginning to hope that it will be for half a century or more—I shall never forget my first sense, after eleven years, of being out in the open. Oh, I've had my windows wide to the four winds, of course, and sunlight across my counterpane and pillows. But how could that be the same? I would have written you, but only one hour of Freedom was granted me. The Family and the Medical Profession had rigged and ready for me, between the two biggest, most friendly trees on the lawn, a comfy and substantial hammock, cushion-flanked. And so, for that hour, I lay and looked and looked, over the hills and across the valleys, and right into our own garden, which riots in bloom these August days. I must confess that the disagreeable and youthful doctor is an understanding person. After the first fifteen minutes had passed in handshaking and congratulations and solicitude, he marshalled my companions and led them away, leaving me alone, in that heavenly air, with the green trees singing all about me. I shall always feel more kindly toward him for that strategic move. But however did the Creature know that even dear Father was a little superfluous?

Will you tell your little Mother of my good fortune? I know you both will be glad for me, but I can't believe anyone can quite grasp my happiness, and my gratitude. Except perhaps, a life prisoner who goes, unexpectedly, free....

By the way, I had hardly been reluctantly settled in the house again, before Father rushed out and wired that amiable go-between, our mutual friend John Denton. He is back in New York again, as no doubt you know, and a return message came from him today, announcing that he will be with us in person on Friday, in order to "celebrate and to see the miracle with his own eyes." Isn't that nice? And won't your ears burn, distant Poet!

This is Monday. Sky-blue Monday. By Friday, perhaps, I may be allowed to spend the whole afternoon in my Green Playground.

Your friend, and so happily,

The Princess

New York August 24th

Princess!

Your letter is here, and so elated me that I put a black cover over my chattering typewriter—it's just like a parrot, you know,—and I must occasionally convince it, by artificial means, that it is night—and left my cave dwelling for the day, in order to fully share your holiday sense. And when I returned, it was not alone. For what do you think? Right in the wilds of Manhattan I found Somebody who fairly begged to be sent to you! He goes to you by Mr. John Denton, and by the time this reaches you I hope he will feel himself very much at home. And I hope, too, that you will care for his companionship. His name is, appropriately, Wigglesworth. Please report to me on his arrival and subsequent behavior.

Lucky dog!

Yours, Richard Warren

CHAPTER IV

MIRACLES AND MISCHIEF

August 21

Diary, I'm out of Doors!

August 28

Diary, you're not to scold. I know I've not honored you with so much as an exclamation point since my very first out-of-doors entry. But Mr. John Denton has been and gone—and Wigglesworth is here to stay! Let me see how it all happened.

Friday last, at exactly three, Sarah arrayed me as a lily of the field in a glorified turquoise and mauve negligée. There were even mauve-and-gold pompomed slippers on my worthless feet, and my newly washed hair was piled high and transfixed with my Mother's tortoise-shell Spanish comb. It was thus festively garbed that Father and Doctor Bill—by which name he shall henceforth be known, as some slight concession to his wizardry—settled me happily under my particular trees, there to await Mr. Denton's arrival. Sarah, at my insistence, smuggled a mirror into my hand and sleeve, and when I heard the smooth purr of the Denton motor, far up the road, I took one little peek. For if I am not allowed to be just an atom vain, what virtue is there in charming color schemes and frothing chiffons? Certainly, the negligée is distractingly pretty, and I am proud of Father's dress instinct. And something or other had brought the faintest tinge of color to my cheeks, the shadow of a sparkle to my eyes. I was hoping that no one would detect me as I lay and admired myself. But the Doctor Bill person did, of course. He has eyes all over his head, that man! And promptly, he settled a lovely rainbow cushion behind my head, remarking very quietly,

"Perhaps this will heighten the effect, Miss Carroll! Poor Uncle John!"

I could have killed him!

As it was, Diary, although I almost blush to confess it, I—Well, as his disgustingly capable hand slid past my cheek, I turned my head, ever so little, and, quite delicately, I bit! Not hard, but in an extremely ladylike manner. There was no occasion for his rude exclamation, and the alarming brick-red which he proceeded to turn. Happily for us both, for I was torn between insincere apology and laughter, Mr. Denton arrived, engrossing his nephew's attention and my own.

As usual he was accompanied by half a dozen baskets of fruit and half a library shelf of the latest, lightest books. Best of all, he brought his own rotund self—and Wigglesworth!

I was prepared for something by Richard Warren's letter, which had come to me Friday morning. But not for this delicious bunch of black-satin, French bull puppy. For Wigglesworth is the acme, the ultimate perfection of dogdom. When, accompanied by gasps from all assembled, he leaped at me out of the chauffeur's restraining arms, I gave a perfectly healthy shriek, and clutched him, chiffons notwithstanding.

"Where did you get him, Denton?" asked Father, vainly endeavoring to part us.

"I didn't get him," answered Mr. Denton, smiling. "He was wished on me by an unknown admirer of Mavis."

Father extricated Wigglesworth, and holding him firmly—he has been well named—read aloud, from the silver and leather collar which adorned his fascinating neck, "Wigglesworth." Then, looking closer, added, "What's this? 'Property of H.R.H.'?"

I am afraid I looked guilty. Dr. Denton whistled, and stepped nearer the initials in question, or, shall I say, the questionable initials?

I was annoyed to see in how friendly a spirit Wigglesworth received the condescending medical hand upon his quivering ears.

Father is anything but slow. And I have long since let him into the secret of my romantic correspondence.

"So that's it," he began. And heaven alone knows what he might have added had I not held up an imploring hand.

Father, well-trained, subsided. But I didn't quite like the little crease between his brows. It was Mr. Denton, bless him, who saved the situation.

"Take me up to the house, Carroll," he said. "I have half an acre of Connecticut soil on my person." And off they went, arm in arm, with Mr. Denton casting a reassuring look at me over his shoulder.

Alone with Dr. Bill and the frantic Wigglesworth, "Well," I said, "isn't he wonderful?"

"Who?" asked the obtuse creature.

I pointed to the puppy, chasing his tail with verve.

"Very," he answered drily. "Do you realize, Miss Carroll, that you almost sat up?"

"When?" I shouted, very rudely, and quite disbelieving.

"About five minutes ago, when the dog jumped into your hammock."

"But," I insisted childishly, "I haven't been able to sit up all by myself since...."

"I know," he interrupted, "It's what you have done, not what you haven't, that is the point. Try again."

Half crying from excitement, I tried. But it was no use, and I sank back, helpless and hysterical.

"You see," I said sorrowfully.

"Yes."

He was looking at me out of those steel-blue eyes.

"We're not going to give up," he said. "But now you must be taken back into the house again. You're tired."

And no amount of pleading or denial could bend his inflexible will.

Wigglesworth came prancing into my room, just as the Doctor was leaving.

"You haven't said how adorable he is," I said, coaxing my new toy to the bed.

"Adorable!" he repeated, emphatically.

But, Diary-dear, the Doctor wasn't looking at the dog!

Quite at Home August 30th

Dear Poet:

By now Mr. Denton has brought you my incoherent note of thanks for the benison of Wigglesworth. Every day I thank you more. He is the dearest little friend one could imagine or wish for. I have taught him to bark loudly when I say your name, and I hope to bring him to an appreciation of poetry, by selected readings! Next week, sometime, I am to have my promised lawn fete to introduce the countryside to the new member of our household. Even Sarah has succumbed. I heard her talking something suspiciously like baby-talk to him this morning, when she came in with my tray and observed Wiggles regarding her brightly and wagging all over, from his basket at the foot of my bed. And Father is a willing captive of his charms, even luring him from me on long, companionable walks. But I believe that he is jealous of you because he has never thought of getting me a dog. I have had birds and goldfish and even an Angora kitten which lived but to run away. But never since childhood a real live dog of my own. Mr. Denton must have worked some magic with Father that he has so inexplicably allowed me to accept so valuable a gift from—a stranger? But no, I cannot call you that!

I regret to report that Wigglesworth has conceived an adoration for the doctor. The one of no consequence, I mean. I cannot understand it, but there seems to be a natural affinity between the two.

Later, I must write you all the things, or, anyway, almost all, which Mr. Denton said about you. For of course we had a little session behind closed doors, and I asked the poor man questions until his grey head rang. Aren't you curious? But before I repeat to you what was, of course, told to me in strictest confidence, I must ask you if those things are true.

Wigglesworth sends his love. He is beside my bed, this minute, on the floor, holding up one paw in greeting.

Very gratefully yours, Wigglesworth's Slave

Green Hill September 5

Dear Diary, I'm sorry that I neglect you so. But you see, with friends calling every day to behold me, royally at home out of doors, and with a week's preparation for my "Come one, come all" tea, which took place yesterday afternoon, and with almost daily letters from Richard Warren to answer—I've so many now that they make far too bulky a book of you and so I have them tied up with ribbon, under my pillow—and with Peter's recent heroic attempt to drink gasoline, and Wigglesworth's brilliant development as a bloodhound—well, I have had but little time for you, Blue Book.

Today, Father is out and Sarah busy below stairs. It is five o'clock of a golden September afternoon, and I am alone, and ready to record the events of the past week. Suppose we begin with Peter, who lives next door, as you very well know, and who is an active and ambitious and altogether charming seven-year old. It seems, Diary, that Peter has, during the summer, become hopelessly enamored of Jimmy Simpson, the ten-year old brother of Sammy, a feckless towhead, tanned as a saddle and twice as tough! From my windows, and more recently also from the nearer vantage point of my hammock, I have observed the progress of their friendship, dating from the early days of summer when Jimmy condescended to aid his older brother in the morning delivery of the Simpson milk. Lately, Jimmy has been seen displaying his ragged blue overalls about the lawn adjoining ours. I have heard, too, blood-curdling shrieks and dire groans which I take to portend that Peter has more than once inveigled Jimmy into his own favorite and histrionic pastime of "Injuns and Tigers." Once, Jimmy in his role of scalper became slightly too realistic, and Peter, bursting through the hedge which separates the Goodrich property from ours, fled to me for protection. With his curly head on my breast, I turned against the aggressor.

"Jimmy Simpson," I cried indignantly, "aren't you ashamed to frighten a boy younger than yourself? Don't you know that isn't manly?"

Jimmy, engaging, brazen, and blue-eyed, stubbed one bare toe against the grass.

"Honest, Miss Mavis," he defended himself firmly, "I didn't hurt him none. He's a baby, he is!" he concluded, with a positively vicious glance at the back of Peter's head.

"I'm not!" shouted the accused, rising up in honest wrath.

"Y'are," repeated Jimmy. "Baby an' telltale."

Here Peter, to my infinite delight, squared two small brown fists, and disengaging himself from my restraining hands, advanced belligerently upon his idol.

"You Jimmy," said Peter. "You take that back—quick!"

I swear I saw a gleam of admiration in the Simpson eye.

"Yes," I begged hastily, "do take it back, Jimmy."

Jimmy shifted uneasily upon his capacious feet.

"Well," he began uncertainly. And then a wholly friendly smile irradiated his freckled face. "I was only funning, Peter," he said generously.

I breathed again. Peter dropped his hands to his sides and said happily, "Got any cookies for us, Mavis?"

I rang my silver bell for Sarah, and presently she appeared from the kitchen, greeted Jimmy in none too friendly accents, and disappearing into her domain returned again with a heaped plate of crisp tan cookies and three glasses of lemonade.

"There," said Sarah, grudgingly, "you young limbs!"

She looked at my two small friends as she spoke, but I am afraid she included me in her remark.

This incident served to show Jimmy the mettle of my seven year old neighbor. It was by way of a delicate tribute to Peter that he was asked, on the following day, to be one of six competitors in a foot race which, starting from his own gate, was to end at the cross roads some five hundred yards distant. Just before the start he came over and exhibited himself to me, clad in vest and drawers, with sneakers on his little feet and a huge red 5 decorating his visibly inflated chest.

Solemnly, I shook his hand and wished him well. Then I lay back in my hammock to await the result of the race.

Half an hour later, Peter, very red in the face, very hot, and manfully trying to suppress his tears, appeared through the gap in the hedge, with Jimmy in close attendance.

"He won!" said Peter, disconsolately, pointing a dusty forefinger at his companion.

"But Pete came in second," hastily put in the victor, standing at the foot of my swinging couch.

"I—I wanted to win," announced Peter, the uncomforted. Then, seeing my eyes fixed in affection and condolence on him, he gave one loud frantic gulp and came into my arms.

"But, Peter darling," I, said to the one small red ear I could see, "you must remember that you are only seven if you are big for your age, and all the other boys are much older, aren't they, Jimmy?" I asked this with my most appealing look over Peter's bowed head toward the Simpson scion.

"Yes, Miss Mavis, ma'am," corroborated Jimmie loudly. "An' Pete, he done awful good to come in second. Why, Josh Watkins was in the race too, and he's eleven an' a terrible swift runner."

"You see?" I said to the Ear.

Peter raised his head and thrust his grimy fists into his eyes.

"It's all right," he said bravely, "only...."

"Never mind, dear," I begged, "next time you'll come in first, won't he, Jimmy?"

"Sure!" agreed Jimmy heartily. And Peter, content with the confidence of his vanquisher, presently made off with him, saying earnestly, "But Jimmy, what makes you go so fast?"

Two days later, swinging lazily between my trees and reading The Lyric Hour to Wiggles, who listened attentively and with cocked, inquiring ears, I was horrified to see Mrs. Goodrich hurtle herself through the hedge, followed by Loretta, her black cook, both of them wringing their hands—Loretta, I swear, almost as white as her mistress—and both demanding,

"Have you seen Peter?"

"Why, no," I answered, "not today. Why?"

Sarah, her sixth sense telling her that something was wrong, appeared simultaneously at the foot of my hammock.

"Oh, Mavis," said Peter's pretty mother, "he's lost! He's been gone two hours, and we've been everywhere!"

Loretta, her apron over her kinky head, rocked to and fro.

I looked at Sarah.

"Have you seen him?" I asked, my heart standing very still.

"No, Miss Mavis."

Except for the sound of Loretta's noisy weeping, we were quite quiet.

"The Black Pond!" said Mrs. Goodrich, in a whisper.

"Don't!" said Sarah and I together.

For the Black Pond, Diary, up the road, is a wicked sheet of water, depthless and sinister.

I have never cursed my helplessness as I did then.

"Perhaps Jimmy Simpson...." I began. But Mrs. Goodrich interrupted me.

"Loretta has been to the Simpsons', Mavis. Jimmy is off with Sammy somewhere. No one has seen or heard of Peter since this morning. And we have not seen him since luncheon."

"Where's Father?" I asked, looking at Sarah.

"Somewhere's with Doctor Denton," she answered. And as she did so, a gay whistle reached me from the direction of our gate.

"Perhaps that's Father now." I said hopefully. But it was only Doctor Bill, hatless, coatless, swinging up the path and cutting across to us.

"Miss Carroll," he said smiling, "your father asked me to tell you...." and then, "Why, what's the matter?"

He looked from one to the other, and it was Sarah who answered.

"It's Peter, Doctor. He's lost."

"Lost! Nonsense. He couldn't get lost here. Every one in Green Hill knows the little chap. Where have you looked?" he asked Mrs. Goodrich.

"Everywhere. And telephoned every house for miles. His father is in town, you know. Oh...." she broke off incoherently, "I can never forgive myself—my baby—"

The doctor's hand was on her, quieting, soothing.

"Mustn't break down, Mrs. Goodrich. Suppose you sit here for a bit with Miss Carroll and get your breath. We'll find the boy, won't we, Wiggles?" The dog jumped at the sound of his name in the beloved voice, and began chasing his tail in an ecstasy of showing off.

Dr. Denton beckoned Sarah, spoke to her in a low voice, and I heard her answer, "Yes sir," before she left the group and went toward the house, taking Loretta with her.

"Who saw him last?" asked the doctor cheerfully, sitting down with Wiggles on his knee.

"Michel, our chauffeur. Peter was with him in the barn right after lunch."

"And where is Michel now?"

"He went with several of the men on the place to search," said Mrs. Goodrich. "I think—they didn't tell me, but I think they mean to drag the pond—" She went to pieces there. But it was only for a moment, for Sarah appeared again, with a glass of something. Dr. Benton took it from her.

"Drink this," he said quietly, his hand on Mrs. Goodrich's shoulder.

Watching him, I suddenly knew that it would be all right; that Peter was not really lost, but only mislaid; that we would all be spared a cruel and terrible sorrow. He seemed to read my mind, for he nodded at me and said, smiling, "That's better, Miss Carroll."

Sometimes I think that the man is really a magician.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that Michel appeared through the hedge. Mrs. Goodrich, rather dangerously calm, I thought, got to her feet.

"Well?" she breathed.

The chauffeur shook his head.

"No trace, ma'am. The boys are still looking...."

"The Black Pond...?" she asked, in a whisper, one hand at her throat.

"They're down there now."

"Ah!"

She was at Dr. Denton's side now, her hands on his arm. "Please help us." Her eyes sought his.

"I'm going to do my best," he answered. "Michel, did Peter say anything to you in the barn about going out to play?"

The Irishman's face corrugated in an effort to remember.

"No, doctor, sor. Not that I mind. He came out, the lad, to ask me what makes cars go fast."

"What?"

It was I who spoke. The foot race of two days before flashed suddenly into my mind, and the last thing I had heard Peter say, "But Jimmy, what makes you go so fast?"

"What did you tell him?" I asked eagerly.

"Well," Michel scratched his red head, "I told him the gasoline, Miss Mavis, just to keep him quiet."

In a word I told the others about the race and Peter's disappointment. "You don't suppose," I finished, hesitating, "that he tried to...."

"Drink gasoline?" concluded Dr. Benton thoughtfully.

We all looked at Michel.

"Well," he said slowly, "seems to me that I did see him foolin' around the tank. But I was busy, and when I looked up again, he was gone."

"I seen him runnin'," interposed Loretta suddenly. "Runnin' down toward the gate. I remember now!"

"Gasoline!" said Peter's mother pitifully, "Would ... would it kill him, Doctor?"

The doctor laughed outright.

"Not by a long shot," he answered cheerfully. "And if he did take a drink of it, I'll wager it wasn't a very long drink. Now, Mrs. Goodrich, you and Loretta go home, and get some water heated, and fetch out a pot of mustard. I'm off with Wiggles to find the young athlete."

And that's all, Diary, except that they did find him. It was Wiggles, really, who discovered him in a deserted barn half a mile up the road, sleeping peacefully and smelling to high heaven of the gas. Home they brought him, and it must go on record that though mustard and warm water had no effect whatsoever upon that cast iron little stomach, every time Peter coughed Dr. Denton swears that the gasoline fumes nearly knocked him over!