flock of young wild ducks, and that she had made a raft and chased
them about up and down the river, until the raft had proved
unseaworthy, and she had fallen through into the water. Later in the
day somebody came from the Jake and Martin homesteads to say that
there must be no more pulling down of the ends of the pasture fences.
The nails had easily let go their hold of the old boards, and a stone
had served our heroine for a useful shipwright's hammer, but the
young cattle had strayed through these broken barriers and might have
done great damage if they had been discovered a little later,--having
quickly hied themselves to a piece of carefully cultivated land. The
Jake and Martin families regarded Nan with a mixture of dread and
affection. She was bringing a new element into their prosaic lives,
and her pranks afforded them a bit of news almost daily. Her
imagination was apt to busy itself in inventing tales of her unknown
aunt, with which she entertained a grandchild of Martin Dyer, a little
girl of nearly her own age. It seemed possible to Nan that any day a
carriage drawn by a pair of prancing black horses might be seen
turning up the lane, and that a lovely lady might alight and claim her
as her only niece. Why this event had not already taken place the
child never troubled herself to think, but ever since Marilla had
spoken of this aunt's existence, the dreams of her had been growing
longer and more charming, until she seemed fit for a queen, and her
unseen house a palace. Nan's playmate took pleasure in repeating these
glowing accounts to her family, and many were the head-shakings and
evil forebodings over the untruthfulness of the heroine of this story.
Little Susan Dyer's only aunt, who was well known to her, lived as
other people did in a comparatively plain and humble house, and it was
not to be wondered at that she objected to hearing continually of an
aunt of such splendid fashion. And yet Nan tried over and over again
to be in some degree worthy of the relationship. She must not be too