"Of course," Winifred agreed, and the little girls exchanged a smile of relief as they both turned toward the pantry.

But the candy was not there.

"I'll run and ask her where she put it," said Ruth, and hurried off to find her mother who was busy in one of the upper rooms.

"But I have not been down-stairs, dear child," Mrs. Pennell replied.

"You do not suppose the molds have fallen out of the window?" she asked, and without stopping to answer Ruth ran back to the kitchen, and leaned out of the window, but there was no candy to be seen.

"Oh, Ruth! The box is gone, too! Some one must have come in and taken it!" said Winifred; and, sure enough, the pretty box had disappeared from the table as well as the molds from the window. Both the little girls were ready to cry with disappointment.

They knew that each of the other guests would bring Betty a present, and they knew also that their mothers could not spare any more sugar for candy. Besides this the pretty box was gone, and they had no more bits of paper to make another.

"I shan't go to the party," Ruth declared. "And who could have been mean enough to take the candy?"

Mrs. Pennell was nearly as troubled as Ruth and Winnie. It was evident that some one must have entered the house by the front door, taken the candy, and made off while the girls were in the garden. She feared that other things must have been taken, but a careful search proved that nothing else was missing.

Winifred agreed with Ruth that they did not wish to go to the party without a present for Betty. "And now it is too late to even think of anything," she said as she started for home, leaving Ruth puzzled and unhappy, and wondering to herself if perhaps some ill-natured fairies had not made off with the sweets. The more Ruth thought of this the more convinced she was that it was what had happened. She remembered hearing queer little noises at her window that morning that she had thought were made by the birds nesting in the hawthorn. Now she said to herself that it must have been fairies coming into the house. "And because I did not make them welcome they have taken the candy," she decided, remembering a fairy tale that Mrs. Merrill had once told the two girls in which children had always welcomed fairies who came tapping at the windows of a spring morning, by singing:

"Welcome, fairies good and kind; Come in, come in, and welcome find."

In the story the fairies had brought wonderful gifts, but if they had not been welcomed they would have taken the children's dearest possessions, which could only be recovered by walking around the garden just before sunrise and bowing low three times to the lilac, three times to a robin, and three times with your eyes shut tight, repeating each time:

"Fairies, fairies, here I bow.

Will you kindly pardon now That I did not hear or see When you came to visit me?"

Ruth was glad that she could remember it.

"I'll get up before sunrise to-morrow morning and do exactly as the little girl did in the story when the fairies brought back her silver heart, and then probably when I open my eyes there will be the box and the candy," thought Ruth.

"Why, of course, it was because the box and the candies were heart-shaped," she decided; "that's another reason I'm sure it was fairies. It will be splendid if I can get them back. I won't tell Winifred until after breakfast to-morrow. Won't she be surprised?"

Mrs. Pennell wondered a little that Ruth was in such good spirits the rest of the day, after the disappearance of the candy, and that she was so ready to go to bed at an hour earlier than the usual time.

CHAPTER XV

A FAIRY STORY

When Gilbert took the pan of candy-molds from the open window of Mrs.

Pennell's kitchen, and, reaching in captured the heart-shaped box from the table, his only intention was to keep them just long enough to puzzle Ruth and Winifred and then return them. When the girls came back to the kitchen he had run into the shed, and set box and pan in the open drawer of the work-bench and closed it quickly, and had then gone home to attend to some garden work, meaning to come back in an hour at the longest; but his mother had sent him on an errand, and it was noon before Gilbert remembered the candy; and then Winifred was telling the story of its disappearance:

"You wouldn't think any one would be so mean as to take our candy," she concluded, and Gilbert felt his face flush uncomfortably, and realized that it was going to be very difficult to explain what he had intended for a joke to Ruth and Winifred. In some way he must get that candy and box back to the place from which he had taken it, or else tell the girls what he had done; and this last alternative would be unpleasant. All that afternoon he was on the alert for a chance to slip into the Pennells' garden, enter the shed and rescue the hidden sweets; but the day was warm and pleasant, and Ruth and Winifred with their dolls and Hero were out-of-doors playing about in the shade of the maple tree until it was too late for Gilbert to carry out his plan; so that he was as uneasy and troubled as Ruth or Winifred over the missing candy, and not until evening could he think of any way to recover it.

He was just closing the stable for the night when he noticed the shallow basket of woven gra.s.s and twigs which Winifred had made on the eventful afternoon's journey along the river road. The violets and wild honeysuckle were now only dried up stems; but the basket looked serviceable and attractive. Gilbert smiled as he picked it up. He knew now exactly what he would do: he would get up very early the next morning, gather daffodils and iris and then take the basket to Mrs.

Pennell's shed,--take the candy from the molds, fill the box, and setting the box in Winifred's gra.s.s basket cover it with flowers; then he would hang it to the knocker of the Pennells' front door.

"The girls will think the fairies did it for a May-day surprise," he chuckled to himself, remembering that Winifred could never quite decide about fairies: if there really were such wonderful little people or not.

So Gilbert was up before sunrise the next morning, and with a friendly word to Hero, found it an easy matter to enter the shed quietly and take the candy and box from the bench drawer. In a few moments he had filled the box skilfully without breaking one of the tiny hearts, set it in the basket and covered it with the spring blossoms. He was just about to leave the shed when he heard a voice, and peering out saw Ruth bowing to the lilac tree and saying in a low voice:

"Fairies, fairies, here I bow.

Will you kindly pardon now That I did not hear or see When you came to visit me?"

"Jiminy! It's that old fairy story Mother tells; and Ruth believes it,"

thought Gilbert, as he watched Ruth bowing low to a startled robin, which flew up to a higher branch in the hawthorn tree. She was so much absorbed in what she was doing that she did not hear the stealthy step behind her on the soft gra.s.s as Gilbert swiftly set down the mold pan and the basket, and flew back to the shop. He had just reached its shelter when Ruth turned to go back to the house and saw the basket.

She looked at it for a moment as if she could hardly believe her eyes; and as she stooped to pick it up Ruth fully expected that basket, pan and tin molds would all vanish from sight. But no! They were real; and, quite as Ruth expected, the box, filled with candy hearts, was under the flowers.

"Oh! what will Winifred say?" she whispered to herself. And then she bowed to the lilac tree and to the robin, and said, "Thank you, kind fairies. I will always know now that you are true and kind," and then Ruth ran into the house to wake up her mother and tell her this wonderful story, and show her the basket in proof of the fairies' visit.

Gilbert hurried home. He was delighted with the success of his plan, but a little troubled that Ruth should believe so implicitly that fairies had first taken and then returned the candy.

Mrs. Pennell listened to Ruth's story and looked at the basket with as much wonder and surprise as even Ruth could expect. Although she did not deny that fairies had a hand in the return of the candy, she endeavored to explain to herself just how it could have occurred. But she remembered how much happiness she herself had had as a small girl in believing in good fairies, and was quite willing that her own little daughter should have the same pleasure.

The Merrills were just sitting down to an early breakfast when Ruth came over to tell Winifred that the candy had been found, but she did not tell all the story, for she knew Gilbert laughed at fairies.

"I'll tell you all about it on the way to Betty's," she said, for it had been arranged that Betty's guests should all meet at her house, where the wagons would be in readiness to take them to a favorite picnic ground, a green sloping field on the banks of the Schuylkill River, where there were groups of wide-spreading elms and where many spring flowers grew.

Winifred was so eager to hear about the return of the candy that she could hardly wait to finish her breakfast. Ruth had not lingered after telling the great news, but had run home to make ready for the picnic.

Gilbert continued to feel uneasy about his part in the fairy story, and after Ruth and Winifred had started for the May party he followed his mother into the garden and offered to help her transplant the young seedlings.

"Mother, do you think there is any harm in believing in fairies?" he asked, and before his mother could reply Gilbert was telling her the story.

"Ruth seemed more pleased about the fairies than she did to get the candy back," he concluded, "and I don't think there is any harm in fairies, do you?"

"Why, no, Gilbert! I am always hoping that they really are true,"

replied his mother smilingly.

"Oh, Mother! You are as bad as Ruth," laughed Gilbert; "but do you think I ought to tell Ruth that I hid the candy, and then brought it back?"

"No, not at present. Some time in the future you can tell Ruth about it, if you wish, but I think it would be too bad to spoil her pleasure to-day. But perhaps you had better ask Mrs. Pennell, and then do whatever she thinks best," replied his mother.

The thought of telling Mrs. Pennell of his mischievous act made Gilbert rather uncomfortable, but he responded promptly:

"All right, Mother. I'll go now," and ran toward the house to wash his hands before presenting himself at Mrs. Pennell's door.

"So that was it. I could not imagine how it happened," said Mrs. Pennell when Gilbert had told of hiding the candy, and of meaning to return it as a May basket. She agreed with Mrs. Merrill that Ruth could be told the facts later on, and did not seem to feel that Gilbert's joke had been anything but natural and harmless, so Gilbert returned home with an untroubled mind.

Betty had asked her little guests to be at her house at half-past ten o'clock, and when Ruth and Winifred came down the street they saw a big wagon with two big brown horses standing in front of Betty's house; just behind the big wagon was a smaller one which Dinah was helping to load with baskets and packages.