Leaving the Story Girl and Peter to peel their potatoes, the rest of us went home, where Aunt Janet, who had gone to the well and found the fragments of the old blue cup, gave poor Felicity a bitter scolding about it.  But Felicity bore it very patiently—­nay, more, she seemed to delight in it.

“Ma can’t believe to-morrow is the last day, or she wouldn’t scold like that,” she told us; and this comforted us until after dinner, when the Story Girl and Peter came over and told us that Uncle Roger had really gone to Summerside.  Then we plunged down into fear and wretchedness again.

“But he said I must go and stump elderberries just the same” said Peter.  “He said it might NOT be the Judgment Day to-morrow, though he believed it was, and it would keep me out of mischief.  But I just can’t stand it back there alone.  Some of you fellows must come with me.  I don’t want you to work, but just for company.”

It was finally decided that Dan and Felix should go.  I wanted to go also, but the girls protested.

“YOU must stay and keep us cheered up,” implored Felicity.  “I just don’t know how I’m ever going to put in the afternoon.  I promised Kitty Marr that I’d go down and spend it with her, but I can’t now.  And I can’t knit any at my lace.  I’d just keep thinking, ’What is the use?  Perhaps it’ll all be burned up to-morrow.’”

So I stayed with the girls, and a miserable afternoon we had of it.  The Story Girl again and again declared that she “didn’t believe it,” but when we asked her to tell a story, she evaded it with a flimsy excuse.  Cecily pestered at Aunt Janet’s life out, asking repeatedly, “Ma, will you be washing Monday?” “Ma, will you be going to prayer meeting Tuesday night?” “Ma, will you be preserving raspberries next week?” and various similar questions.  It was a huge comfort to her that Aunt Janet always said, “Yes,” or “Of course,” as if there could be no question about it.

Sara Ray cried until I wondered how one small head could contain all the tears she shed.  But I do not believe she was half as much frightened as disappointed that she had no white dress.  In mid-afternoon Cecily came downstairs with her forget-me-not jug in her hand—­a dainty bit of china, wreathed with dark blue forget-me-nots, which Cecily prized highly, and in which she always kept her toothbrush.

“Sara, I am going to give you this jug,” she said solemnly.

Now, Sara had always coveted this particular jug.  She stopped crying long enough to clutch it delightedly.

“Oh, Cecily, thank you.  But are you sure you won’t want it back if to-morrow isn’t the Judgment Day?”

“No, it’s yours for good,” said Cecily, with the high, remote air of one to whom forget-me-not jugs and all such pomps and vanities of the world were as a tale that is told.

“Are you going to give any one your cherry vase?” asked Felicity, trying to speak indifferently.  Felicity had never admired the forget-me-not jug, but she had always hankered after the cherry vase—­an affair of white glass, with a cluster of red glass cherries and golden-green glass leaves on its side, which Aunt Olivia had given Cecily one Christmas.