became straightway invested with a glamour of romance.

"I like to hear you talk," said Felix in his grave, stodgy way.

"Everybody does," said the Story Girl coolly. "I'm glad you like
the way I talk. But I want you to like ME, too--AS WELL as you
like Felicity and Cecily. Not BETTER. I wanted that once but
I've got over it. I found out in Sunday School, the day the
minister taught our class, that it was selfish. But I want you
to like me AS WELL."

"Well, I will, for one," said Felix emphatically. I think he was
remembering that Felicity had called him fat.

Cecily now joined us. It appeared that it was Felicity's morning
to help prepare breakfast, therefore she could not come. We all
went to Uncle Stephen's Walk.

This was a double row of apple trees, running down the western
side of the orchard. Uncle Stephen was the first born of Abraham
and Elizabeth King. He had none of grandfather's abiding love
for woods and meadows and the kindly ways of the warm red earth.
Grandmother King had been a Ward, and in Uncle Stephen the blood
of the seafaring race claimed its own. To sea he must go,
despite the pleadings and tears of a reluctant mother; and it was
from the sea he came to set out his avenue in the orchard with
trees brought from a foreign land.

Then he sailed away again--and the ship was never heard of more.
The gray first came in grandmother's brown hair in those months