light of the fire and the laughter of our young lips.

We had been having a splendid game of Blind-Man's Buff. That is,
it had been splendid at first; but later the fun went out of it
because we found that Peter was, of malice prepense, allowing
himself to be caught too easily, in order that he might have the
pleasure of catching Felicity--which he never failed to do, no
matter how tightly his eyes were bound. What remarkable goose
said that love is blind? Love can see through five folds of
closely-woven muffler with ease!

"I'm getting tired," said Cecily, whose breath was coming rather
quickly and whose pale cheeks had bloomed into scarlet. "Let's
sit down and get the Story Girl to tell us a story."

But as we dropped into our places the Story Girl shot a
significant glance at me which intimated that this was the
psychological moment for introducing the scheme she and I had been
secretly developing for some days. It was really the Story Girl's
idea and none of mine. But she had insisted that I should make
the suggestion as coming wholly from myself.

"If you don't, Felicity won't agree to it. You know yourself,
Bev, how contrary she's been lately over anything I mention. And
if she goes against it Peter will too--the ninny!--and it wouldn't
be any fun if we weren't all in it."

"What is it?" asked Felicity, drawing her chair slightly away from
Peter's.