Three girls sat on the Wishing-rock, beating their heels against its mossy side. And the world stretched before them. It was the end of a momentous day--momentous because so many things had been decided and such nice things! First, Uncle Johnny had said that he'd "fix" it with Mrs. Westley that Isobel and Gyp should remain at Kettle a month longer, then Mrs. Allan had driven over from Cobble and announced that she was going to have a house-party and her guests were going to be Pat Everett, Renee La Due and her brother, and Peggy and Garrett Lee, and Garrett Lee was going to bring Dana King. And Jerry and Uncle Johnny had prevailed upon Little-Dad to accept an automobile.

"You can keep Silverheels for just fun and work in the automobile and then we can go over to Cobble and to Wayside and----"

Little-Dad had not liked the thought at first. Somehow, to bring a chugging, smelling, snorting automobile up to Sunnyside to stay seemed an insult to the peace and beauty and simplicity of his little tucked-away home. But when Jerry pleaded and even Mrs. Travis admitted it would be nice and reminded him that Silverheels was growing old, he yielded, and Uncle Johnny promised to order one immediately--he knew just the kind that would climb Kettle and run as simply as a sewing-machine.

But the best of all that had been "decided" since sunrise was that Jerry should go back to Highacres----

"Pinch me, Gypsy Editha Westley--pinch me hard!" she cried as she sat between Gyp and Isobel. "I don't believe I'm me. And really, truly going back to Highacres! I can't be Jerauld Clay Travis who used to sit on this rock and watch the little specks come along that silver ribbon road down there and disappear around the mountain and hate them because they could go and I couldn't. But it used to be fun pretending I knew just what the world was like."

Isobel stared curiously at Jerry. "Hadn't you really ever been anywhere?"

"Oh, yes, in books I'd been everywhere. But that isn't the same as being places and seeing things yourself."

Gyp laid her fingers respectfully on the rough brown surface of the great rock.

"Do you suppose it really is a 'wishing-rock'?"

"Goodness, no. But when I was little I used to play here a lot and I pretended there were fairies--fern fairies and grass fairies and tree fairies. We'd play together. And when I grew older and began to wish for things that weren't--here, I'd come and tell the fairies because I did not want my mother to know, and, anyway, just telling about them made it seem as nice as having them. So I got to calling this my wishing-rock. Sometimes the wishes came true--when they were just little things."

"Well, it's funny if it wasn't some sort of magic that made Uncle Johnny get lost on Kettle and slip right down here in the glade when you were wishing! And your wish came true. And if he hadn't--why, you'd never have come to Highacres and we'd probably never have found that secret stairway nor the Bible nor the letter and wouldn't have known that you were really Jerauld Winton. Oh, it has magic!"

Neither Isobel nor Jerry answered, nor did they smile--after all, more than one name has been given to that strange Power that directs the little things which shape our living!

"So, I say, girls, let's wish now, each one of us! A great big wish! It's so still you could 'most believe there were fairies hiding 'round. I'll wish first."

Gyp sprang to her feet and stood in the exact centre of the flat top of the rock. She stretched her arms outward and upward in ceremonial fashion. She cleared her throat so as to pitch a suitably sepulchral note.

"I wish," she chanted, "I wish to make the All-Lincoln basketball team--I wish that dreadfully. I wish that I can get through the college entrance exams.--I don't care how much. I wish to get through college without "busting." Then I wish that I'll have a perfectly spliffy position offered to me somewhere which I shall refuse because a tall man with curly yellow hair and soulful, speaking gray eyes has asked me to marry him. Then I'll marry............