The Story Girl

to attend a communion service at Markdale. The Carlisle service was in the evening, a

headache and Uncle Roger stayed home with her. Aunt Janet and Unc

having tortured her hair with curl papers all night, had a rampant bush of curls all about her head which quite destroyed the sweet, nun-like expression of her little features. Cecily cherished a grudge against fate because she had not been given natu

putable patch on his trousers. His face was rosy, his thick black curls were smoothly combed, and his tie was neatly bowed; but it was his legs

th your stockings, Pet

ma hadn't time to darn them this week. So I put on two pairs. The holes don't com

nt for collection?

cent. I s'pose it

ook her hea

Yankee cent on a store keeper or an egg p

r. "I haven't another cent. I only get fifty c

none too lavish of her coppers-rather than have him go without one. Dan, however,

y at this moment and,

hurch-goer, Peter, when all Olivia's gentle persuasions were of no avai

at his quotations meant, but we understood he thought Peter wa

g to church," she said snappishly

of the silent, inward paroxysms of laughter we all found so very ag

ity, you'll be the death of your de

y, and we followed, picking up

eyard surrounded it completely, many of the graves being directly under its windows. We always took the corner path throu

cording his whole history in brief, and finishing with eight lines of original verse composed by his widow. I do not think that poetry was Great-grandmo

hard; but Edith who had kissed the poet lay not with her kindred. She had died

single shaft of red Scotch granite stood between the graves of Aunt Felicity and Uncle Felix. The Story Girl lingered to lay

t in their lives and in their

boys felt as if we might have done so, too, had nobody been looking. What better epitaph could any one wish than to have it said that he was lov

stfully. "I haven't ANYTHING you fellows have. The

But I hope it won't be for a good while yet," he added

square box pews; the pulpit was a "wine-glass" one, and was reached by a steep, narro

otice him at all. The lamps were not yet lighted and the church was filled with a soft twilight and hush.

" whispered Peter reverently. "I didn'

in church. Peter stiffened up and sat at attention during the service. Nobody could have behaved better. But when

e well and liked him; he was Aunt Janet's cousin and often visited her. The contrast between his week-day jollity and the unearthly solemnity of his

y Peter, the shame of his countenance was pitiful to behold. He never lifted his head for the remainder of the service; and he followed us down the aisle and across the graveyard like

ld yo

e no response. Pet

never meant to laugh. It just happened bef

of cold concentrated fury. "Go and be a Methodist, or a Mohammeda

ay, and Peter dropped back

her?" he whispered. "What

t Peter HAD disgraced us-"She's just mad-and no

me to laugh when I see them. When I looked at Samuel Ward I thought of him getting up in meeting one night, and praying that he might be guided in his upsetting and downrising. I remembered the way she took him off, and I wanted to laugh. And then I

shaved them whiskers off. And he wouldn't, just to be stubborn. And one day one of them caught fire, when he was burning brush, and burned off, and every one thought he'd HAVE to shave the other off then. But he didn't and just went round with one whisker till the burned one gr

the next day and told Aunt Janet we had "acted scandalous" on the road home from church. We felt ashamed ourselves, because we

beside him and let him carry her Bible. They talked quite confidentially. Perhaps she forgave him the more easil

nt'resting than I thought, and I like the singing. I wish I could make up my mind whet

city in alarm. "Ministers wouldn't wan

for if they ain't to tell p

sk them things, of course. But it isn't resp

esbyterian minister he'd say I ought to be a Presbyterian, and if he was a Methodist h

stand such things. There must be a great deal of difference, of course, if

own young thoughts. Presently they were scatter

God look li

hat none of u

would prob'ly kn

I wish I could see a picture of God. I

Felicity in a burst of confidence. Even in Felicity, s

looks just like a man, only better and kinder. But now tha

Peter disappointedly. "I saw a picture of the devil once," he added. "It was in a

good book if there was such a

Jane wouldn't have a book that was

disappointment. For we had never seen a picture of the pe

it sometime when he's in a be

ig willow the fragrance of the orchard struck us in the face like a wave. We could see the long rows of trees, a white gladness in the moonshine. It seemed to us that there was in the orchard something different from other orchards that we had known. We

eamily. "It's lovely, but it's different. When I was very small I used to believe the

y n

such things as fairies. I was just seven. He is a minister, so of course I knew he spoke the truth. It wa

ure who first told me there was no such person as Santa Claus? He was a boy, three years older than myself; and he may now, for

eter was by way of skulking shamefacedly past into the shad

e, Peter,"

to him and hel

ou," she sai

hile to offend her, just to be forgiven in such

ar, and I'll say my prayers every night. I want to be like the rest of you. And look here! I've thought of the way my Aunt Jane used to give medicine to a cat. You mix th

of spruces crossed with bars of moonlight. And there was peace ov