We the November day when Peter was permitted to rejoin us by a picnic in the . Sara Ray was also allowed to come, under protest; and her joy over being among us once more was almost pathetic. She and Cecily cried in one another's arms as if they had been parted for years.  
We had a beautiful day for our picnic. November dreamed that it was May. The air was soft and , with pale, aerial mists in the valleys and over the leafless on the western hill. The stubble fields brooded in , and the sky was pearly blue. The leaves were still thick on the apple trees, though they were russet , and the after-growth of grass was richly green, unharmed as yet by the nipping frosts of previous nights. The wind made a sweet, in the , as of bees among apple blossoms.
 
"It's just like spring, isn't it?" asked Felicity.
 
The Story Girl shook her head.
 
"No, not quite. It looks like spring, but it isn't spring. It's as if everything was resting—getting ready to sleep. In spring they're getting ready to grow. Can't you FEEL the difference?"
 
"I think it's just like spring," insisted Felicity.
 
In the sun-sweet place before the Pulpit Stone we boys had put up a board table. Aunt Janet allowed us to cover it with an old , the worn places in which the girls artfully with frost-whitened ferns. We had the kitchen dishes, and the table was decorated with Cecily's three geraniums and leaves in the cherry vase. As for the , they were fit for the gods on high Olympus. Felicity had spent the whole previous day and the forenoon of the picnic day in them. Her crowning achievement was a rich little plum cake, on the white frosting of which the words "Welcome Back" were lettered in pink candies. This was put before Peter's place, and almost overcame him.
 
"To think that you'd go to so much trouble for me!" he said, with a glance of adoring at Felicity. Felicity got all the gratitude, although the Story Girl had originated the idea and seeded the and beaten the eggs, while Cecily had all the way to Mrs. Jameson's little shop below the church to buy the pink candies. But that is the way of the world.
 
"We ought to have grace," said Felicity, as we sat down at the festal board. "Will any one say it?"
 
She looked at me, but I blushed to the roots of my hair and shook my head sheepishly. An awkward pause ensued; it looked as if we would have to proceed without grace, when Felix suddenly shut his eyes, his head, and said a very good grace without any appearance of . We looked at him when it was over with an increase of respect.
 
"Where on earth did you learn that, Felix?" I asked.
 
"It's the grace Uncle Alec says at every meal," answered Felix.
 
We felt rather ashamed of ourselves. Was it possible that we had paid so little attention to Uncle Alec's grace that we did not recognize it when we heard it on other lips?
 
"Now," said Felicity jubilantly, "let's eat everything up."
 
In truth, it was a merry little feast. We had gone without our dinners, in order to "save our appetites," and we did ample justice to Felicity's good things. Paddy sat on the Pulpit Stone and watched us with great yellow eyes, knowing that tidbits would come his way later on. Many things were said—or at least we thought them witty—and uproarious was the laughter. Never had the old King orchard known a blither merrymaking or hearts.
 
The picnic over, we played games until the early falling dusk, and then we went with Uncle Alec to the back field to burn the potato stalks—the crowning delight of the day.
 
The stalks were in heaps all over the field, and we were allowed the privilege of setting fire to them. 'Twas glorious! In a few minutes the field was alight with blazing bonfires, over which rolled great, clouds of smoke. From pile to pile we ran, with delight, to each up with a long stick and watch the of rose-red sparks stream off into the night. In what a whirl of smoke and firelight and wild, fantastic, hurtling shadows we were!
 
When we grew tired of our sport we went to the windward side of the field and perched ourselves on the high pole fence that skirted a dark spruce wood, full of strange, sounds. Over us was a great, dark sky, blossoming with silver stars, and all around lay dusky, mysterious reaches of meadow and wood in the soft, empurpled night. Away to the east a silveryness beneath a palace of aerial cloud foretokened moonrise. But directly before us the potato field, with its wreathing smoke and flames, the gigantic shadow of Uncle Alec crossing and recrossing it, reminded us of Peter's famous description of the bad place, and probably suggested the Story Girl's remark.
 
"I know a story," she said, infusing just the right shade of into her voice, &q............