supposed Mrs. Wiley had sent her to her cousin near Charlottetown as she had said she was going to do.  The cousin didn’t come to the funeral and so nobody ever knew that Mary wasn’t with her.  The people Marshall talked to told him some things about the way Mrs. Wiley used this Mary that made his blood boil, so he declares.  You know, it puts Marshall in a regular fury to hear of a child being ill-used.  They said she whipped her mercilessly for every little fault or mistake.  Some folks talked of writing to the asylum authorities but everybody’s business is nobody’s business and it was never done.”

“I am sorry that Wiley person is dead,” said Susan fiercely.  “I should like to go over-harbour and give her a piece of my mind.  Starving and beating a child, Mrs. Dr. dear!  As you know, I hold with lawful spanking, but I go no further.  And what is to become of this poor child now, Mrs. Marshall Elliott?”

“I suppose she must be sent back to Hopetown,” said Miss Cornelia.  “I think every one hereabouts who wants a home child has one.  I’ll see Mr. Meredith to-morrow and tell him my opinion of the whole affair.”

“And no doubt she will, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan, after Miss Cornelia had gone.  “She would stick at nothing, not even at shingling the church spire if she took it into her head.  But I cannot understand how even Cornelia Bryant can talk to a minister as she does.  You would think he was just any common person.”

When Miss Cornelia had gone, Nan Blythe uncurled herself from the hammock where she had been studying her lessons and slipped away to Rainbow Valley.  The others were already there.  Jem and Jerry were playing quoits with old horseshoes borrowed from the Glen blacksmith.  Carl was stalking ants on a sunny hillock.  Walter, lying on his stomach among the fern, was reading aloud to Mary and Di and Faith and Una from a wonderful book of myths wherein were fascinating accounts of Prester John and the Wandering Jew, divining rods and tailed men, of Schamir, the worm that split rocks and opened the way to golden treasure, of Fortunate Isles and swan-maidens.  It was a great shock to Walter to learn that William Tell and Gelert were myths also; and the story of Bishop Hatto was to keep him awake all that night; but best of all he loved the stories of the Pied Piper and the San Greal.  He read them thrillingly, while the bells on the Tree Lovers tinkled in the summer wind and the coolness of the evening shadows crept across the valley.

“Say, ain’t them in’resting lies?” said Mary admiringly when Walter had closed the book.

“They aren’t lies,” said Di indignantly.

“You don’t mean they’re true?” asked Mary incredulously.

“No—­not exactly.  They’re like those ghost-stories of yours.  They weren’t true—­but you didn’t expect us to believe them, so they weren’t lies.”

“That yarn about the divining rod is no lie, anyhow,” said Mary.  “Old Jake Crawford over-harbour can work it.  They send for him from everywhere when they want to dig a well.  And I believe I know the Wandering Jew.”