ready to be strung.  Her head was turning, yes, she would see her and then she could not know about dates or have a lesson in reading poetry!  Tiptoing more softly still and holding the skirt of her starched muslin in both hands to keep it from rustling, she at last passed the ordeal and breathed freely as she gained Miss Prudence’s chamber.  The spirit of handling things seemed to possess her this afternoon, for, after finding the Bible, she went to the mantel and took into her hands every article placed upon it; the bird’s nest with the three tiny eggs, the bunch of feathers that she had gathered for Miss Prudence with their many shades of brown, the old pieces of crockery, handling these latter very carefully until she seized the yellow pitcher; Miss Prudence had paid her grandmother quite a sum for the pitcher, having purchased it for a friend; Marjorie turned it around and around in her hands, then, suddenly, being startled by a heavy, slow step on the stairs which she recognized as her grandmother’s, and having in fear those apples to be strung, in attempting to lift it to the high mantel, it fell short of the mantel edge and dropped with a crash to the hearth.

For an instant Marjorie was paralyzed with horror; then she stifled a shriek and stood still gazing down through quick tears upon the yellow fragments.  Fortunately her grandmother, being very deaf, had passed the door and heard no sound.  What would have happened to her if her grandmother had looked in!

How disappointed Miss Prudence would be!  It belonged to her friend and how could she remedy the loss?

Stooping, with eyes so blinded with tears that she could scarcely see the pieces she took into her hand, she picked up each bit, and then on the spur of the moment hid them among the thick branches of hemlock.  Now what was she to do next?  Could she earn money to buy another hundred-years-old yellow pitcher?  And if she could earn the money, where could she find the pitcher?  She would not confess to Miss Prudence until she found some way of doing something for her.  Oh, dear!  This was not the kind of thing that she had been wishing would happen!  And how could she go down with such a face to hear the rest about punctuation?

“Marjorie!  Marjorie!” shouted Uncle James from below, “here’s Cap’n Rheid at the gate, and if you want to catch a ride you’d better go a ways with him.”

The opportunity to run away was better than the ride; hastening down to the hammock she laid the Bible in Miss Prudence’s lap.

“I have to go, you see,” she exclaimed, hurriedly, averting her face.

“Then our desultory conversation must be finished another time.”

“If that’s what it means, it means delightful!” said Marjorie.  “Thank you, and good-bye.”

The blue muslin vanished between the rows of currant bushes.  She was hardly a radiant vision as she flew down to the gate; in those few minutes what could have happened to the child?