“I’m not a bit afraid,” said the Story Girl staunchly.  “Peter knows better than that.”

“Well, all I hope is that he’ll wash behind his ears,” said Felicity resignedly.

“How is Pat to-day?” asked Cecily, by way of changing the conversation.

“Pat isn’t a bit better.  He just mopes about the kitchen,” said the Story Girl anxiously.  “I went out to the barn and I saw a mouse.  I had a stick in my hand and I fetched a swipe at it—­so.  I killed it stone dead.  Then I took it in to Paddy.  Will you believe it?  He wouldn’t even look at it.  I’m so worried.  Uncle Roger says he needs a dose of physic.  But how is he to be made take it, that’s the question.  I mixed a powder in some milk and tried to pour it down his throat while Peter held him.  Just look at the scratches I got!  And the milk went everywhere except down Pat’s throat.”

“Wouldn’t it be awful if—­if anything happened to Pat?” whispered Cecily.

“Well, we could have a jolly funeral, you know,” said Dan.

We looked at him in such horror that Dan hastened to apologize.

“I’d be awful sorry myself if Pat died.  But if he did, we’d have to give him the right kind of a funeral,” he protested.  “Why, Paddy just seems like one of the family.”

The Story Girl finished her turnover, and stretched herself out on the grasses, pillowing her chin in her hands and looking at the sky.  She was bare headed, as usual, and her scarlet ribbon was bound filletwise about her head.  She had twined freshly plucked dandelions around it and the effect was that of a crown of brilliant golden stars on her sleek, brown curls.

“Look at that long, thin, lacy cloud up there,” she said.  “What does it make you think of, girls?”

“A wedding veil,” said Cecily.

“That is just what it is—­the Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess.  I know a story about it.  I read it in a book.  Once upon a time”—­the Story Girl’s eyes grew dreamy, and her accents floated away on the summer air like wind-blown rose petals—­“there was a princess who was the most beautiful princess in the world, and kings from all lands came to woo her for a bride.  But she was as proud as she was beautiful.  She laughed all her suitors to scorn.  And when her father urged her to choose one of them as her husband she drew herself up haughtily—­so—­”

The Story Girl sprang to her feet and for a moment we saw the proud princess of the old tale in all her scornful loveliness—­

“and she said,

“’I will not wed until a king comes who can conquer all kings.  Then I shall be the wife of the king of the world and no one can hold herself higher than I.’

“So every king went to war to prove that he could conquer every one else, and there was a great deal of bloodshed and misery.  But the proud princess laughed and sang, and she and her maidens worked at a wonderful lace veil which she meant to wear when the king of all kings came.  It was a very beautiful veil; but her maidens whispered that a man had died and a woman’s heart had broken for every stitch set in it.