Friday was a comfortable day in the household of King. Everybody was in good humour. The Story Girl sparkled through several tales that ranged from the afrites and jinns of Eastern myth, through the piping days of , down to the of Carlisle workaday folks. She was in turn an Oriental princess behind a silken veil, the bride who followed her bridegroom to the wars of Palestine disguised as a page, the lady who her diamond necklace by dancing a coranto with a highwayman on a moonlit heath, and "Buskirk's girl" who joined the Sons and Daughters of Temperance "just to see what was into it;" and in each impersonation she was so the thing impersonated that it was a matter of surprise to us when she emerged from each our own familiar Story Girl again.  
Cecily and Sara Ray found a "sweet" new knitted lace pattern in an old magazine and spent a happy afternoon learning it and "talking secrets." Chancing—accidentally, I —to overhear certain of these secrets, I learned that Sara Ray had named an apple for Johnny Price—"and, Cecily, true's you live, there was eight seeds in it, and you know eight means 'they both love' "—while Cecily admitted that Willy Fraser had written on his and showed it to her,
 
    "If you love me as I love you,
    No knife can cut our love in two"—
"but, Sara Ray, NEVER you breathe this to a living soul."
 
Felix also that he heard Sara ask Cecily very seriously,
 
"Cecily, how old must we be before we can have a REAL beau?"
 
But Sara always denied it; so I am inclined to believe Felix simply made it up himself.
 
Paddy himself by a rat, and being intolerably about it—until Sara Ray cured him by calling him a "dear, sweet cat," and kissing him between the ears. Then Pat off, his tail . He resented being called a sweet cat. He had a sense of humour, had Pat. Very few cats have; and most of them have such an appetite for flattery that they will swallow any amount of it and thrive thereon. Paddy had a finer taste. The Story Girl and I were the only ones who could pay him compliments to his . The Story Girl would box his ears with her fist and say, "Bless your gray heart, Paddy, you're a good sort of old rascal," and Pat would purr his satisfaction; I used to take a handful of the skin on his back, shake him gently and say, "Pat, you've forgotten more than any human being ever knew," and I vow Paddy would lick his chops with delight. But to be called "a sweet cat!" Oh, Sara, Sara!
 
Felicity tried—and had the most gratifying luck with—a new and complicated cake recipe—a gorgeous compound of a plumminess to make your mouth water. The number of eggs she used in it would have shocked Aunt Janet's soul, but that cake, like beauty, was its own excuse. Uncle Roger ate three slices of it at tea-time and told Felicity she was an artist. The poor man meant it as a compliment; but Felicity, who knew Uncle Blair was an artist and had a poor opinion of such fry, looked indignant and retorted, indeed she wasn't!
 
"Peter says there's any amount of raspberries back in the clearing," said Dan. "S'posen we all go after tea and pick some?"
 
"I'd like to," sighed Felicity, "but we'd come home tired and with all the milking to do. You boys better go alone."
 
"Peter and I will attend to the milking for one evening," said Uncle Roger. "You can all go. I have an idea that a raspberry pie for to-morrow night, when the folks come home, would hit the right spot."
 
Accordingly, after tea we all set off, armed with and cups. Felicity, thoughtful creature, also took a small basketful of jelly cookies along with her. We had to go back through the maple woods to the extreme end of Uncle Roger's farm—a pretty walk, through a world of green, whispering and spice-sweet ferns, and shifting patches of sunlight. The raspberries were , and we were not long in filling our receptacles. Then we foregathered around a tiny wood spring, cold and under its young , and ate the jelly cookies; and the Story Girl told us a tale of a haunted spring in a mountain glen where a fair white lady dwelt, who pledged all comers in a golden cup with jewels bright.
 
"And if you drank of the cup with her," said the Story Girl, her eyes glowing through the emerald dusk about us, "you were never seen in the world again; you were whisked straightway to fairyland, and lived there with a fairy bride. And you never WANTED to come back to earth, because when you drank of the magic cup you forgot all your past life, except for one day in every year when you were allowed to remember it."
 
"I wish there was such a place as fairyland—and a way to get to it," said Cecily.
 
"I think there IS such a place—in spite of Uncle Edward," said the Story Girl dreamily, "and I think there is a way of getting there too, if we could only find it."
 
Well, the Story Girl was right. There is such a place as fairyland—but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.
 
As we sat there the Awkward Man passed by, with his gun over his shoulder and his dog at his side. He did not look like an awkward man, there in the heart of the maple woods. He strode along right masterfully and lifted his head with the air of one who was of all he surveyed.
 
The Story Girl kissed her fingertips to him with the which was a part of her; and the Awkward Man plucked off his hat and swept her a stately and bow.
 
"I don't understand why they call him the awkward man," said
Cecily, when he was out of earshot.
"You'd understand why if you ever saw him at a party or a picnic," said Felicity, "trying to pass plates and dropping them whenever a woman looked at him. They say it's pitiful to see him."
 
"I must get well acquainted with that man next summer," said the Story Girl. "If I put it off any longer it will be too late. I'm growing so fast, Aunt Olivia says I'll have to wear ankle skirts next summer. If I begin to look grown-up he'll get frightened of me, and then I'll never find out the Golden mystery."
 
"Do you think he'll ever tell you who Alice is?" I asked.
 
"I have a notion who Alice is already," said the mysterious creature. But she would tell us nothing more.
 
When the jelly cookies were all eaten it was high time to be moving homeward, for when the dark comes down there are more comfortable places than a maple wood and the precincts of a possibly spring. When we reached the foot of the and entered it through a gap in the hedge it was the magical, mystical time of "between lights." Off to the west was a daffodil glow hanging over the valley of lost sunsets, and Grandfather King's huge rose up against it like a rounded mountain of . In the east, above the maple woods, was a silvery sheen that hinted the moonrise. But the orchard was a place of shadows and mysterious sounds. Midway up the open space in its heart we met Peter; and if ever a boy was given over to sheer terror that boy was Peter. His face was as white as a sunburned face could be, and his eyes were brimmed with panic.
 
"Peter, what is the matter?" cried Cecily.
 
"There's—SOMETHING—in the house, RINGING A BELL," said Peter, in a shaking voice. Not the Story Girl herself could have invested that "something" with more of creepy horror. We all drew close together. I felt a crinkly feeling along my back which I had never known before. If Peter had not been so............