was happy indeed. I can still see the upturned faces of the watchers below and feel the joy of the moment.

The Civil War had made war games popular in my very early boyhood, and about a great granite rock in the woods near the school, drift from the glacial period, we staged many battles, and in winter built snow forts and fought over again the attacks on Fort Donelson and Fort Fisher. We had a "rebel yell" of our own invention, I remember, the fascinating privilege of using which went a long way in overcoming the partizan reluctance of boys to serve on the Confederate side. Once engaged, however, they fought valiantly too valiantly at times, for in the zest of battle they falsified history by refusing to yield, much to the wrath of the Union troops, who were naturally strong for historical truth.

The harbor, of course, was late in freezing over, and the ice was usually too rough for good skating; but sometimes a period of warm weather or of rain would cover the ice with water, which, freezing, would give us a perfect surface of wide extent. Sometimes we made ice-boats, and once at least the harbor was thronged with sleighs for weeks, and horsemen came from far and near for a great racing

concourse.

Even when the ice was rough, there would often be patches of smooth, thin ice in the lee of large vessels laid up for the winter. Now, fresh water cracks and is brittle, but salt water bends without cracking, and it was always a delight to skate swiftly across these thin places and feel the ice rise and fall beneath one's feet. Often one's skate-blades would cut through the ridges raised by the weight of the body gliding over the thin, but tena

cious, surface, yet still hold one up; sometimes, however, the ice would collapse with a swiftness that was startling. In the uncertainty lay the fascination.

But it would be to the Swamp, on the high ridge south of the village, or to Billard's Pond, to the east, that we would hasten with the first freezing weather. Though I sometimes went to the Swamp to skate, I knew it far better in summer, when I often went there with a gun to watch the woodcock come in to drink at twilight. Billard's Pond was nearer. To reach it we would pass through the woods, and down a narrow valley where the leaves lay deep underfoot, across a stubbled field, then down a steep path by the edge of an amphitheater of steep, wooded slopes that rimmed the oval pond on all sides save the north, toward which we could look out over the meadows and creeks of Mount Sinai Harbor to the far hills of Connecticut beyond the blue sound. The pond was not deep, and, sheltered as it was, the new ice was like glass, and black from the bottom of dead leaves. Going thither on a Saturday morning at the beginning of the season, we always took the steep path on a run when we saw through the trees the glitter of the black ice. I remember the thrill of those moments yet-the first ice of the year!

At first we would try it doubtfully, for with our initial venturing from shore the hollow, cracking sound would run in swift zigzags over the whole surface, with an ominous echo on the steep slopes. But we had an old saying, "As long as she cracks, she holds," and on the strength of that doubtful wisdom we ventured farther and farther, until we skated from end

to end. Along the west bank, because of springs, the ice was always thinner, which, naturally, made it the one spot where we most desired to be. At one point a large tree thrust a bough straight out over the pond, two or three feet above the surface. Once to two of us it looked like a challenge, and presently we were tossing a penny to settle the matter of which should try first to reach it. I lost, and, going back a short distance to gain speed, I turned toward the tree with a rush; but six feet or more from my goal I broke through. I floundered on, and as, cold and dripping, I drew myself up to the limb, I heard a shout and, looking back, saw my companion speeding on over the same path, now, of course, a mass of broken ice, with only a certain wetting before him. Nine boys out of ten would have declared that they had not bet on a certainty, and would have felt themselves free to default; but he was the tenth. He went to sea later, and I have rarely met him since, but nothing has changed my old respect for his act. My respect was not less great because I could not be sure that I should have done the same thing. I thought that I should, but I could not be sure. The doubt troubles me yet.

There were winters, too, when we coasted for weeks, and all the roads leading down to the village would be thronged at night and on Saturdays, though the Long Road, near my father's house, was by far the best. It was a wild and exhilarating flight, and dangerous, too, with sleighs constantly passing on the narrow street at the foot of the hill. A few have been

killed there, and many injured, and I myself was once knocked senseless, and bruised and stiff for weeks. Yet I think that my pride was hurt even more. It seemed woefully lacking in skill to fail at last where for years I had been able to meet every emergency; and to meet every emergency was, in that seafaring community, always the highest test of one's character.

Our sleds were not of the flimsy sort sold in cities, but were stout and often finely constructed. Those of my younger brothers were made by the local carriage-maker, I remember, and were as handsome in their way as his best carriages. My own was made long before my time, and to-day is seemingly as strong as ever, though eighty years or more have passed since the first boy of my family brightened its steel runners for the first time.

But finally there would come days when brown patches would appear on our coasting hills, and the ice on the harbor would look dingy and watery. Sometimes we amused ourselves by poling cakes into the open stretches and drifting before the southwest winds; but it was only the halfhearted sport of those who wait for better things. Presently a warm wind would blow down the smoky valley, the willows grow tawny on the edges of the meadows, the sweet flag lift green spikes, and we would turn eagerly to our boats again, which had wintered high on the beach, and overhaul the sails and spars, which we had stored away from the inclement weather. The real beginning of the year was at hand.

But Rosemary did not seem to hear Patch; her mind was taken up with the absorbing occupation of her breathing. Rosemary murmured:

"Is the night coming or going away, Joy?" She was looking into the light of dawn, but her eyes were growing dim; she could no longer see the familiar things.

"It's going," said Joy, breathlessly; "the night 's nearly gone, Rosemary." The little life snapped softly like a worn thread; there was no struggle. A breath came and shook her for a moment, and then passed with her beyond the reach of pain.

"O Miss Joy, Miss Joy!" sobbed Patch, "the blessed innocent is gone!"

Joy still held the child in her arms, but she was aware that the silence, which came from nowhere and filled the room, had robbed her.

"There, there, my dear, put her down! Put her down!" urged Patch. "You can't do no more for her now. You 've done all you could for her always, the praper lamb!"

Joy was quite submissive about it. She laid the little figure back on the pillow and walked to the open window. The garden was full of mist. A thick, white blanket lay over the valley and hid the waterfalls. On the little lawn streamers and folds of mist moved lightly in the dawn wind. The silly little tune repeated itself in Joy's mind:

Three blind mice, see how they run!

She had been afraid of Rosemary's death. The thought of its approach had haunted her for weeks, night and day, as a thing ominous and terrorstriking, an experience more awful than pain. And now it had come and gone as lightly as the wind moving

aside a little shape of mist; and there was nothing left but love.

Rosemary's death made very little difference to the life of Rock Lodge. Mrs. Featherstone hardly seemed to notice it, but people who knew her best said it was curious, but that from the day the child died they never saw her laugh again. Mr. Featherstone prefaced nearly all his remarks with, "Since the terrible loss of my little daughter-" daughter " The rest of the family were quite normal about it.

Even Joy was normal. She felt so much happier and freer, and as if her heart had suddenly expanded to meet everybody else's. She wanted to see Nicolas again, but it was a long time before she saw him properly. He had been at Rosemary's funeral. Joy had suddenly realized that he was standing close to her at the grave-side, and she had been very glad of his presence.

She had not minded the funeral; it did not seem to have anything to do with Rosemary. It was a blowy autumnal day, with spaces of lightblue sky blue sky between white, polished clouds. The dead leaves ran across the graves, and far below them the sea plunged playfully in and out of the rocks. The clergyman's white surplice blew up all round him like a toy balloon, and Joy thought she must be sure to tell Rosemary how funny it looked; and then something very sharp went through her like the prick of a needle, and she remembered that she would never tell Rosemary anything funny any more.

Julia wrote to her afterward, and said that Nicolas had been given leave to attend the staff college for a year's course, so that he would n't be going back to India for a long time. She wrote as if she were a little hurt with

Joy about something, but she did n't explain what it was. A very few weeks later Julia married Owen, and went to live far away in Surrey.

It was nearly a year before Nicolas came back from the staff college. He ran across Joy unexpectedly at the churchyard gate.

"Hello," he said. "I was just coming up to see you."

Joy had a basket of roses on her arm. She was going to put them on Rosemary's grave. She would n't have gone on doing it with any one else, but it seemed quite natural to go into the churchyard with Nicolas. After she had put the roses all round the green little mound and Nicolas had fetched the water for her, she went and sat with him on a bench by the church.

Joy scolded Nicolas a little for not having written to her or been for such a long time to see them.

"Has it seemed long?" said Nicolas. "Years and years," said Joy, sadly. Nicolas thought she meant that the time had seemed long because she had been unhappy about Rosemary, but he was n't quite sure. He began to play with a ribbon on Joy's dress.

"It seemed long to me, too," he said in a shy voice, "but I did n't want to bother you."

"As if you could have bothered me!" said Joy, reproachfully. "Why, Nicolas, I don't think there 's anybody I know as well as I know you."

"Still, I suppose you may know a person too well," said Nicolas, tentatively "too well to be interested in them, I mean."

"O Nicolas!" exclaimed Joy, indignantly, "how horrid of you to think such a thing! The more you know a person, the more you love them."

Nicolas did n't say anything at all to that; he seemed quite extraordinarily interested in Joy's ribbons.

"You did n't seem to want me last time I was here," he went on after a pause. "I expect it was because you were upset, but I felt badly-as if you did n't want me to share it with you. You were rather sick with me for some reason or other, were n't you?"

Joy thought for a moment. She remembered dimly that she had had a queer, unkind feeling about Nicolas, but it had n't lasted, and she could n't remember now why she had had it.

"I expect," she said thoughtfully, "it was because I was so upset and I could n't share it. It was like waiting for something that was going to happen. I could n't stop it happening however hard I tried, but it seemed as if I had to keep waiting for it, and I did n't want to have to attend to anything else while I waited."

"Well, I didn't get much attention," said Nicolas, with a rueful laugh. "D' you think you could give me a little more now, Joy?" He had stopped playing with her ribbon, and took hold of one of her hands, tentatively at first, and then, as she made no effort to withdraw it, with firmness.

It was a curious feeling being held like that by Nicolas, very protecting and kind. Joy liked it; she made no effort at all to take her hand away.

"Of course I'll attend to you," she said quickly; "I want to hear everything about you."

Nicolas gave a gave a contented little sigh, but he did n't seem to have anything more to say. He just sat there, with his shoulder touching hers, looking down at her hand.

"Begin at the beginning and end at the end," Joy, said "as in fairy-tales."