Meanwhile the overladen canoe went away up the river. “And now, boys,” said Rose, “this is my day, and there must be no quarrels. We are pretty well packed in one canoe, and I will have only sunshine and good temper. And do sit still. Remember what the wise man said:
Three Irishmen of Timbuctoo,
They went to sea in a birch canoe.
They kicked up such a hullabaloo
That they never got back to Timbuctoo.

Remember that, boys.”

“Oh!” said Ned. “I know a better one—
There was a young man of Siam,
As occasionally murmured a damn!
Monotonous virtue
Is certain to hurt you;
So he swallowed a taciturn clam.”

“What nonsense!” cried Rose.

“That’s good about monotonous virtue,” said Jack. “A whole day and no row!”

“Not one,” said Rose.

183“Why, Rose, if a fellow don’t fight somebody, what’s to become of him?”

“I guess we aren’t any less brave than the Romans,” remarked Ned, sententiously. “If you gemini had a hornets’ nest to fight every day, you would let me alone. I hate to fight.”

“Oh! There’s a nice fat fib.”

“I do. I had to eat dinner standing up for two days after that scrimmage.”

“Yes, little peaceful man!” said Jack. “Tell us a story, Rose. It’s an hour to the brook.”

“Very well. Once on a time there was a princess. She was terribly rich, and as pretty—”

“As you,” said Ned.

“No interruptions, sir! She was very beautiful, and very, very hard to satisfy. A great many lovers came to ask her to marry them. None of them pleased her, but so many came that to save trouble she wrote a big ‘No!’ on her visiting cards, and gave every man one as he came in, and this saved a great deal of trouble. When there were no more lovers left in the world but only three, she began to be afraid she would never get married at all. So she tore up her cards, and was polite to these three. Their names were Hurdy-Gurdy and Trombone and Mandolin. At length her father said she must make up her mind. At first she thought she would draw lots, but by and by she resolved to marry the most courageous of the three.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Jack, “I like that.”

“One day they were all four walking by the river, and, as if by accident, she fell in. ‘Oh, dear!’ she 184cried, ‘I shall drown.’ Then Hurdy-Gurdy sat down and began to whittle a shingle; but Trombone jumped in, and, as she flopped about a great deal, he was like to drown himself. Then in jumped Mandolin, and pulled them both out by the hair.

“Then all three spread themselves in the sun, to dry. And the princess said, ‘Now, which is the most courageous?’

“Trombone cried, ‘I! Because I dashed in to save you, without hesitation.’

“‘But,’ said Mandolin, ‘you did not save her. I pulled you both out.’

“‘I was first,’ said Trombone.

“‘Certainly!’ said the princess, which her name was Henrietta, and she was so called because she was fond of algebra, and preferred even an improper fraction to the most virtuous of men. Said she, ‘What good was your courage, if it only served to drown us both? You are neither of you as brave as me.’”

“Oh!” cried Ned.

“They always speak bad grammar in fairy-land, because it is romantic, and because then the young princesses can be sure that the princes are thinking more of them than of the mere choice of words.”

“Guess Jack would have a fine chance!” said Ned.

“Don’t interrupt me. Where was I? Oh!

“‘You are neither of you as brave as me, because I have to marry one of you, and that is an act of courage of which a man is incapable. Also, I can’t swim, but I fell in so as to see which of you is the bravest. I fell in! Trombone jumped in! Mandolin leaped in!’

185“‘But I saved you!’ said Mandolin.

“‘A mere question of brute skill,’ urged Trombone. ‘It is braver to jump in when you can’t swim than when you can.’

“‘It is very puzzling,’ cried Henrietta. ‘The personal equation—’”

“I know what that is,” cried Ned.

“Shut up, old wisdom! Go ahead, Rosy Posy.”

“‘It is a question in the rule of three. As Trombone is to Mandolin, so is me to the answer.’

“‘That leaves me out,’ said Hurdy-Gurdy.

“‘You stayed out!’ cried Mandolin, with scorn.

“‘I don’t see my way,’ said the princess. ‘Let Mandolin be B, and Hurdy-Gurdy C, and I am—’

“‘B, C puts them both out of the question,’ said Trombone. ‘They are dead.’”

“Sancho Panza!” cried Ned. “What fine nonsense!”

“Do keep quiet,” said Jack.

“‘And me—I—oh, bother!’ said Henrietta. ‘It comes out even.’

“‘But,’ said Hurdy-Gurdy, ‘it is heart-rending what I suffered. I alone had the courage not to jump in. I had the courage of my opinion, which was that I should be drowned, and so break your heart. I really couldn’t. There are three hundred and twenty-one kinds of courage.’

“‘Gracious! How numerically interesting!’ said Henrietta. ‘Dry yourselves, and I will reflect.’

“So she left the three seated on the bank, in the sun, and went away. But once a year she sent her maid to see if they were dry, and to say she was 186working it out. The second year Hurdy-Gurdy went away, because he was a person who had a good deal of decision of character.

“There!” cried Rose, laughing. “It’s a little too old for you.”

“Well, of all the stuff!” said Dick.

“I call it bully,” said Jack.

“And whom did she marry?” cried Ned. “Never any one?”

“Never! Like Rose Lyndsay. I am going to live with you all my life at home, and never, never marry.”

Upon this the twins intimated their satisfaction by pulling Ned’s back hair. He howled loudly.

“Seems to answer the bell,” said Jack.

“Oh, stop that—it hurts!”

“Look out there!” cried the sternman. “You’ll upset the birch. There are too many of you, anyways.”

Again Rose called them to order, and they were silent a while. In the mean time she sat gazing up the changing waterway. This home-coming, this abrupt transition, this privilege of abandonment to every light, innocent folly, even to enjoying the mad fun of three clever boys, made for her an immense change, and one which she felt to be both wholesome and pleasant. In Europe she had come fully to understand the sacrifice Anne had made in order to be with her, and at last to see but too clearly that Anne Lyndsay was failing. To none was this so clear as to the sufferer; to none less clear than to her brother. As to Margaret, she was by nature conservative. The word hardly describes what I 187mean. She had an inherent belief in the unchangeableness of things and people. The death of Harry had been the first calamity in a prosperous life. She had so long seen Anne Lyndsay to her mind full of levity that she found it impossible to accept the idea that for this woman, who lowered her crest to no adverse hour, the time could not be very far away when she would cease to smile at pain.

Miss Anne, of her own will, cut short by three months their intended length of stay abroad. She had seen how heavy was the burden of responsibility which this fatal descent placed upon Rose. In fact, to be alone with a woman like Anne was good only if the younger person had intervals of other companionship. Anne made a too strong call upon the apprehending intellect to be as a constancy good for a growing girl, and her matchless cynicism in talk, which found no representation in her acts, was tempting as an example and easily capable of misapprehension.

This long stay with Anne had been for Rose a severe test of character and even of physical power. Without altogether realizing the true cause of her rebound into unusual joyousness, she distinctly felt the relief of her new surroundings.

“There is the brook, Rose,” said Ned. “We’ll fish, and build a big fire, and cook our own fish.”

They were now above the clearings, and on the far side of the river.

“What canoe is that up the stream, near the far shore?” she asked.

“It’s Mr. Carington’s. He’s took a bit of water ’bove Mr. Lyndsay’s upper pool. It ain’t much good.”

188“You are sure it is Mr. Carington?”

“I don’t rightly know. It’s too far.”

After this they went ashore on a broad beach, through which a quick run of brown water from the swamps inland found its way out to the main river.

Rose took a book and sat down, while the boys cast for trout at the mouth of the brook. After a while the twins tired of this and set to work to build a fire on the higher rise of the shore, while Tom cleaned the fish they had captured. By and by came Ned and sat down with his sister. Now and then he called her attention to a salmon, or, at intervals, asked Rose questions not always easy of answer. At last he said, “There is a spring back in the woods,—comes out of the hollow of a big, old balm of Gilead. I found it.”

“Oh, we must go and see it after lunch. I know few things I like better than a spring,—and out of a tree.”

“Yes; mustn’t it be comfortable for the old tree?”

“Rather,” she said, and fell silent.

It was now quiet and warm—no leaf astir—a noonday dreaminess on wood and water. “That canoe’s dropping down,” Ned said. “Is it Mr. Ellett or Mr. Carington, Rose? He doesn’t get any fish.”

“I don’t know. I was half asleep. How nice to be where all the noises are sounds one likes!”

“Do you hear the rapids, Rose? I thought yesterday they were exactly like children laughing&md............