all sorts of good things in the others, so that we can make some
molasses candy here in my room, over the open fire. While it cooks you
can curl up in the big armchair and listen to a fairy tale in the
firelight. Would you like that, little one?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Joyce, ecstatically. "That's what they are doing at
home this minute, I am sure. We always make candy every afternoon in the
winter time."

Presently the saucepan was sitting on the coals, and Joyce's little pug
nose was rapturously sniffing the odor of bubbling molasses. "I know
what I'd like the story to be about," she said, as she stirred the
delicious mixture with the new spoon. "Make up something about the big
gate across the road, with the scissors on it."

Cousin Kate crossed the room, and sat down by the window, where she
could look out and see the top of it.

"Let me think for a few minutes," she said. "I have been very much
interested in that old gate myself."

She thought so long that the candy was done before she was ready to tell
the story; but while it cooled in plates outside on the window-sill, she
drew Joyce to a seat beside her in the chimney-corner. With her feet on
the fender, and the child's head on her shoulder, she began this story,
and the firelight dancing on the walls, showed a smile on Joyce's
contented little face.