When he reached the building, he hesitated for an instant, and then he drew the bolt and threw open the door; but before he had time to turn and head them off, out scrambled a white wave of rabbits; big and little, fat and thin; and with one accord made straight for the opening in the fence.  The boy ran after them, calling excitedly to Marjorie to stand firm and not let them through; and for a moment Marjorie did stand firm before the oncoming army of waving ears and flying feet; but when she felt the first scrambling of paws about her ankles, she lost her nerve, and in a sudden panic she fled wildly across the road and on to the top rail of the fence on the other side; and by the time that the boy reached the opening, the rabbits were scattered in every direction up and down the road and over the fields.  For a few moments he stood, looking after them, and then, without glancing toward Marjorie, he took up in his arms one trembling little white fellow who had failed to find the opening, and turned toward the shed with it.

Marjorie climbed slowly down from the fence and walked along the road, silently and with her head down.

Presently the Dream spoke.  “Was it your work that the boy was doing?” he asked.

“No,” said Marjorie.

“Was he worried and uncertain when you came along?  Did he ask for your opinion or advice?”

“No,” said Marjorie.

“And what did you do?”

Marjorie spoke in a very low voice, but very steadily.  “I criticised him unjustly; I talked about him in the hearing of other people, and some of them will never know that he was right and I was wrong; and I interfered, and now—­” Marjorie stopped and swallowed hard.

“And now—­what?” asked the Dream.

“I am sorry,” said Marjorie humbly.

“So is the boy,” said the Dream.

Marjorie said nothing.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get the habit?” asked the Dream, presently.

“What habit?”

“You’ve said ’I’m sorry,’—­how many times to-day?”

Marjorie shook her head.  “It seems as if I have said it oftener than anything else.  But I ought to be sorry when I make mistakes, oughtn’t I?”

“Yes.  Only don’t hold on to it after you have learned your lesson, that’s all.  The lesson is the only good thing about being sorry;—­and you and the boy, each, had a lesson this time.”

“Yes,” said Marjorie, “and mine is that other people’s work—­”

“Make it short,” said the Dream.  “Call it ‘mind your own business.’”

Marjorie nodded gravely.  “And the boy’s lesson is—­”

    “’Be sure you’re right, then go ahead,
    ‘Don’t mind what people say.’”

hummed the Dream.

Marjorie nodded again.  “But it is so hard to ‘be sure you’re right,’ when other people think that you are wrong.”

“Not if you keep an honest why in sight,” said the Dream.