Christopher said his good-bye very politely but very briefly.

"Please, grandmother," he said, "will you wait for me a minute? I've got to speak to Bill Carpenter about some very important business."

He bolted around the corner of the house and Jane's lip quivered. She felt suddenly offended. What important business could Christopher have that he had not confided to her?

After their guests had gone, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones drew Letty down to a low stool beside her chair and said:

"My dear, has any one ever told you that you sing very well?"

Letty flushed crimson with surprise and delight.

"Oh, do I?" she cried. "I'd rather be able to sing than anything in this wide, wide world! It is so wonderful! But n.o.body ever told me I could sing. I have never had any lessons, you know."

"And did you never sing to any of your teachers, in school or Sunday-school?"

"There was never any singing at school, except among a few of the bigger girls who took private lessons. And at Sunday-school I did not care for the singing much. They sang 'regular shouters' as Kit calls them," she laughed.

"But sometimes in church-the church I told you about, where the little boys sang-I used to join in a little, sometimes. Once they were singing such a beautiful hymn. It was in the afternoon when there were not very many people in the church and the music was so lovely, all high and sweet and soft! I forgot for a minute where I was and sang out quite loud. The organist turned right around and looked at me. It frightened me terribly for I thought perhaps it was against the rules for any one but the small boys to sing and that some one might come and put me out.

Indeed, I was afraid to go to church again for three or four Sundays, and when I did I always kept at the back of the church and did not sing again. But it could not have been against the rule, for a great many people joined in the singing and the organist did not look at them at all."

Mrs. Hartwell-Jones did not tell her, what was so evident to herself, that the organist had been attracted, not by the child's loud singing, but by the quality of her voice.

"Would you like to take singing lessons when we go back to town?" she asked presently.

"Oh, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, would it be possible?"

"Not only possible, but it could be done very easily, my child. We shall talk about it some other time. Now, I have some plans to suggest for Sally's birthday party. We must invite Anna Parsons and there must be a cake."

"With candles," agreed Letty, bringing her mind away from the singing with difficulty.

"I should like to make Sally a present, too," went on Mrs.

Hartwell-Jones. "Do you suppose we could buy a toy bed at the 'store'?

It would be nice to make a pretty bed for Sally to rest in when she comes to spend the afternoon."

"And I could make the bedclothes. I love to sew," cried Letty. "My mother taught me; hemming, overcasting-a great many things."

"You must have had a very good, sweet mother, Letty."

"Oh, yes!" breathed the girl, and her brown eyes filled suddenly with great tears.

The tears came to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones's eyes, too, and she caught Letty to her arms in a long, close embrace.

"You have no mother and I have no little girl!" she whispered brokenly.

That evening Mrs. Hartwell-Jones wrote a very long letter to the lawyer in the city who had always managed her business for her. She glanced often at Letty as she wrote, but the little girl, busy over a puzzling problem in arithmetic, did not even dream of the wonderful ways in which that letter would change her life.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TULIP'S DREAM

Christopher's request that Jo Perkins might have the use of a horse and wagon for the afternoon to take him and Billy Carpenter on a picnic was granted with some hesitation.

"Jane is going to the author-lady's to have a silly party for her old doll and I don't want to go," he said. "Perk'll look out for Bill and me all right. You've often let me go fishing with Perk, grandfather."

"Yes, but then there was no other boy along to suggest mischief."

Christopher looked a wee bit guilty, remembering the swimming project.

"We aren't going to get into mischief," he exclaimed hastily. "It's just to be a picnic and do the things boys do; roast potatoes in a fire and-and all sorts of things."

"Very well, then," replied grandfather a little absent-mindedly. "Only remember that we've got to hand you and Janey over, whole and sound, to your father and mother in less than a month."

Mr. Baker gave his permission with a little less consideration than he usually gave to the twins' requests, perhaps because his mind was busy with his own affairs. One of the letters which Christopher had brought from the postoffice had been from the city about some business which grandfather was afraid he would have to go into town to attend to himself.

"I can't bear to think of your tramping about those hot city pavements in this August weather," exclaimed grandmother in distress, when he told her about it. "Can't you possibly arrange it by letter?"

"No, I must see two or three men personally. If Kit were home" (he meant his own son, Christopher's father), "he could attend to it for me, but as it is, I can't see anything for it but to go myself. I shall start to-morrow and get back in three days."

Christopher was secretly glad that his grandfather was going away for a few days. When he returned and was told that Christopher had learned how to swim, he would be very glad, the boy felt sure.

Grandmother felt quite dismayed when she was told that the three boys were to go off on a picnic. It seemed like a very great responsibility for her to bear by herself; but as there was no real reason why she should ask Christopher to put off his excursion she said nothing about it.

The day of the party arrived and Jane was so impatient to start that she would have gone without even finishing her dessert if grandmother had permitted.

"But Mrs. Hartwell-Jones said to come early. Oh, dear!" she groaned as Christopher pa.s.sed his plate for a second helping. "If you're going to sit there and stuff all day, Kit Baker, we might as well not go at all.

You won't have any room in your tummy for your picnic, and Huldah has packed an awful big one."

It had been arranged that Joshua was to drive the twins into the village. He had left a horse in the blacksmith's stable overnight, while a certain special shoe was made, and he intended to ride it home. Jo Perkins had not quite finished his work at the stable, so he was to follow on his bicycle and join the others at Billy Carpenter's house.

"Now, remember, Kit, you are to go back to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones's to get Janey, and be sure to be there promptly at half-past five; not a minute later," exclaimed grandmother for about the twentieth time; and she proceeded to give the same instructions and many more to Jo Perkins.

Joshua had harnessed the most reliable old horse in his stable to the wagon that was to be entrusted to Jo Perkins's care for a whole afternoon-a horse that had never been known to look twice at any object and which would have been perfectly content to sleep through the day as well as the night. He lumbered over the country road at an easy trot, and when they were only half-way to the village Christopher looked over his shoulder and spied Jo Perkins speedily overtaking them on his bicycle.

"Oh, I say, Josh, make him go, Perk's coming. Don't let him catch up,"

and he squirmed on his seat with excitement.

Joshua good-naturedly urged the horse into a swifter trot, then into a clumsy gallop as Jo Perkins bore down upon them over the level road.

Jane clasped Sally tight to her breast with one hand while she hung on with the other. The road was still level and Perk was gaining steadily.

He was bent double over the handle bars, pedalling frantically. Soon a long, gently sloping hill gave the horse the advantage, for he kept up his easy gallop, while Perk dropped far behind, laboring hard.

Christopher sent a derisive yell after him, but he rejoiced too soon.

Jane had more foresight. She remembered the down slope on the other side of the ridge.

"Perk's going to beat," she declared calmly, "'cause Josh won't let the horse trot down-hill."