“I always did think that was the most charming anecdote ever related about Marie Antoinete,” observed Migwan.  “She must have been a very sweet and lovable young girl; it doesn’t seem possible that she grew up to be the kind of woman she did.”

“Another one who lost her head!” remarked Miss Amesbury, laughing.  “Aren’t there going to be any who live to grow old?  Let’s see who Hinpoha’s favorite heroine is.”

Hinpoha moved back a foot or so from the fire, which had blazed up to an uncomfortable heat at the addition of Katherine’s log.  “I see a Puritan maiden, seated at a spinning wheel,” she commenced.  “The door opens and a young man comes in.  He apparently has something on his mind, and stands around first on one foot and then on the other, until the girl asks him what seems to be the trouble, whereupon he gravely informs her that a friend of his, a most worthy man indeed, who can write, and fight, and—­ah, do several more things all at once, wants her for his wife.  Then the girl smiles demurely at him, and says coyly—­”

“Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” shouted the other six girls, with one voice.

“You don’t need to ask Hinpoha who her favorite heroine is,” said Migwan laughing.  “Ever since I’ve known her she’s read the story of Priscilla and John Alden at least once a week.”

“Well, you must admit that she was pretty clever,” said Hinpoha, blushing a little at the exposure of her fondness for love stories.  “And sensible, too.  She wasn’t afraid of speaking up and helping her bashful lover along a little bit, instead of meekly accepting Standish’s offer and then spending the rest of her life sighing because John Alden hadn’t asked her.”

“That’s right,” chimed in Sahwah.  “I admire a girl with spirit.  If Lady Jane Gray had had a little more spirit she wouldn’t have lost her head.  I’ll warrant Priscilla Mullins would have found a way out of it if she had been in the same scrape as Lady Jane.  Now, your turn, Migwan.”

“I see a girl living in a bleak house on the edge of a wild, lonely moor,” began Migwan.  “All winter long the storms howl around the house like angry spirits of the air.  To amuse themselves in these long winter evenings this girl and her sisters make up stories about the people that live on the moors and tell them to each other around the fire, or after they have crept into bed, and lie shivering under the blankets in the icy cold room.  The stories that my girl made up were so fascinating that the others forgot the cold and the raw winds whistling about the house and listened spellbound until she had finished.”

“I know who that is,” said Gladys, when Migwan paused.  “Mig is forever raving about Charlotte Bronte.”

“The more I think about her the more wonderful she seems,” said Migwan warmly.  “How a girl brought up in such a dead, cheerless place as Haworth Churchyard, and knowing nothing at all about the world of people, could have written such a book as Jane Eyre, seems a miracle.  She was a genius,” she finished with an envious sigh.