Grant my wish and keep it dark."

These rhymes had been chanted with great solemnity, and Timothy sat by
the open window in the sweet darkness of the summer night, wishing that
he and Gay might stay forever in this sheltered spot. "I'll make a sign
of my very own," he thought. "I'll get Gay's ankle-tie, and put it on
the window-sill, with the toe pointing out. Then I'll wish that if we
are going to stay at the White Farm, the angels will turn it around,
'toe in' to the room, for a sign to me; and if we've got to go, I'll
wish they may leave it the other way; and, oh dear, but I'm glad it's so
little and easy to move; and then I'll say Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, four times over, without stopping, as Jabe told me to, and then
see how it turns out in the morning." ...

But the incantation was more soothing than the breath of Miss Vilda's
scarlet poppies, and before the magical verse had fallen upon the drowsy
air for the third time, Timothy was fast asleep, with a smile of hope on
his parted lips.

There was a sweet summer shower in the night. The soft breezes, fresh
from shaded dells and nooks of fern, fragrant with the odor of pine and
vine and wet wood-violets, blew over the thirsty meadows and golden
stubble-fields, and brought an hour of gentle rain.

It sounded a merry tintinnabulation on Samantha's milk-pans, wafted the
scent of dripping honeysuckle into the farmhouse windows, and drenched
the night-caps in which prudent farmers had dressed their haycocks.

Next morning, the green world stood on tiptoe to welcome the victorious
sun, and every little leaf shone as a child's eyes might shine at the