it, and wondering what the important question would be, although she knew perfectly well.  I would have.  And the next day she dressed herself beautifully in her best pale blue muslin and sleeked her curls and went smiling to the birches.  And while she was waiting there, thinking such lovely thoughts, a neighbour’s boy came running up—­a boy who didn’t know about her romance—­and cried out that Malcolm Ward had been killed by his gun going off accidentally.  Emily just put her hands to her heart—­so—­and fell, all white and broken among the ferns.  And when she came back to life she never cried or lamented.  She was changed. She was never, never like herself again; and she was never contented unless she was dressed in her blue muslin and waiting under the birches.  She got paler and paler every day, but the pink butterfly grew redder, until it looked just like a stain of blood on her white cheek.  When the winter came she died.  But next spring”—­the Story Girl dropped her voice to a whisper that was as audible and thrilling as her louder tones—­“people began to tell that Emily was sometimes seen waiting under the birches still.  Nobody knew just who told it first.  But more than one person saw her.  Grandfather saw her when he was a little boy.  And my mother saw her once.”

“Did you ever see her?” asked Felix skeptically.

“No, but I shall some day, if I keep on believing in her,” said the Story Girl confidently.

“I wouldn’t like to see her.  I’d be afraid,” said Cecily with a shiver.

“There wouldn’t be anything to be afraid of,” said the Story Girl reassuringly.  “It’s not as if it were a strange ghost.  It’s our own family ghost, so of course it wouldn’t hurt us.”

We were not so sure of this.  Ghosts were unchancy folk, even if they were our family ghosts.  The Story Girl had made the tale very real to us.  We were glad we had not heard it in the evening.  How could we ever have got back to the house through the shadows and swaying branches of a darkening orchard?  As it was, we were almost afraid to look up it, lest we should see the waiting, blue-clad Emily under Uncle Alec’s tree.  But all we saw was Felicity, tearing over the green sward, her curls streaming behind her in a golden cloud.

“Felicity’s afraid she’s missed something,” remarked the Story Girl in a tone of quiet amusement.  “Is your breakfast ready, Felicity, or have I time to tell the boys the Story of the Poet Who Was Kissed?”

“Breakfast is ready, but we can’t have it till father is through attending to the sick cow, so you will likely have time,” answered Felicity.

Felix and I couldn’t keep our eyes off her.  Crimson-cheeked, shining-eyed from her haste, her face was like a rose of youth.  But when the Story Girl spoke, we forgot to look at Felicity.