off,” Grace Mallon asked when her brother Phil would have a vacation? She had shut her teeth together firmly, but being obliged to answer this question, her voice, to her dire surprise and confusion, came forth in a sob! Not one articulate word could she speak; and there was Captain James Hunnicut looking straight at her! Keener mortification the poor child had seldom known. Following so closely, too, upon her evening’s triumph! But at that moment Mr. Garland, who was about driving off with his nephew, stopped his horse and said: “This is too bad! Here, Miss Flaxie, here’s a chance for you to ride with us. We can make room for her, can’t we Stephen? But as for you, Master Fred, I see no other way but you must wait for your horse.”

Mary, utterly humbled, sprang with gratitude into Mr. Garland’s sleigh, without trusting herself to look back.

And Fred did “wait,” with a heart swelling as big as a foot-ball, and saw his cousin bestowed between the two gentlemen, who smiled on him patronizingly, as upon a boy of four in pinafores.

This was hard. And when Mr. Fling appeared at last, laughing heartlessly, and drove the half-frozen boy part of the way home, leaving him at the hotel, the most convenient point for himself, and advising him to take ginger-tea and go to bed,—this oh, this, was harder yet!

But it was Mrs. Gray who suffered most from this little fiasco. Before the children returned she was flushed and nervous, and Dr. Gray blamed himself for having allowed them to go.

“I’m thankful, my daughter, that you’ve got here alive,” said she, sending for Mary to come to her chamber; “Whiz is a fiery fellow, and Fred isn’t a good driver.”

“Was it as delightful as you expected, Mary? And did you spell them all down?” asked her father.

“Yes, sir, it was delightful; and I spelled ever so many hard words, and only missed one; but Fred spells shockingly,” replied Mary, taking up a vial from the stand and putting it down again.

“So, on the whole, I see you didn’t quite enjoy it,” said Mrs. Gray, rather puzzled by Flaxie’s disconsolate look.

“Not quite, mamma; don’t you think Mr. Fling was very impolite? And oh, I must warm my feet, they are nearly frozen,” said Mary, questioning within herself why it was that, whenever she had a signal triumph, something was almost sure to happen that “spoiled it all.”

CHAPTER IV.
THE MINISTER’S JOKE.

The spelling-school, with its triumphs and chagrins, had partially faded from Mary’s memory, to become one of her “old times;” for winter had gone, and it was now the very last evening of March.

You may not care to hear how the wind blew, and really it has nothing to do with our story, only it happened to be blowing violently. Tea was over, and everybody had left the dining-room but Mary and cousin Fred. Mary had just parted the curtains to look out, as people always do on a windy night, when Fred startled her by saying, in a whisper, “Flaxie, come here.”

She dropped the curtain hastily, and crossed the room. What could Fred be wanting of her, and why should he whisper when they two were alone, and the wind outside was making such a noise?

“Put your ear down close to my mouth, Flaxie. You mustn’t tell anybody, now remember.”

“Why not, Fred? It isn’t best to make promises beforehand. Perhaps I ought to tell.”

“Ought to tell? I like that! Then I’ll keep it to myself, that’s all.”

“Now, Fred, I didn’t say I would tell. And, if it’s something perfectly right and proper, I won’t tell, of course.”

“Oh, it’s right and proper enough. Do you promise? Yes or no?”

“Yes, then,” said Flaxie, too anxious for Fred’s confidence, and too much honored by it to refuse, though she knew from past experience that he frequently held peculiar views as to “propriety.”

“Here, see this,” said he, taking a smooth block of wood from his pocket and whispering a word of explanation. “Won’t it be larks?”

She drew back with a nervous laugh. “Why, Fred!”

“And I didn’t know but you’d like to go with me, Flaxie, just for company.”

“But do you think it’s exactly proper? He’s a minister, you know.”

“Why that’s the very fun of it,—just because he is a minister! It’s the biggest thing that’ll be done to-morrow, see if it isn’t?”

Mary looked doubtful.

“I was a goose to tell you, though, Flaxie; I might have known girls always make a fuss.”

“Oh, it isn’t because I’m a girl, Fred! Girls like fun as well as anybody, only girls have more——.” She did not know whether to say “delicacy” or “discretion,” but decided that either word would give offence; “girls are different.”

“Then you won’t go with me? No matter. I believe, after all, I’d rather have one of the boys.”

“Yes, oh yes, I will go with you; I’d like to go,” exclaimed Mary, desperately, throwing discretion to the winds.

“Agreed, then,—to-morrow morning on the way to school. And now mind, Flaxie, don’t put this down in your journal to-night, for that would let it all out.”

“Why, nobody ever looks at my journal! It would be dishonest.—Why, Fred,” in sudden alarm, “did you ever look at my journal?”

“Poh! what do I care for your old scribblings?” The boy’s manners had been falling to decay all winter for lack of his mother’s constant “line upon line.” “Only your journal is always ’round, and you’d better be careful, that’s all.”

Next morning it rained, and Mary walked to school with Fred under the gloom of a big umbrella, Phil having been sent on in advance.

“Pretty weather for April Fools,” remarked Fred, carefully guarding under his arm a neat little package containing a block of wood, with a card, on which were the words, simple but significant, “April Fool.”

Arriving at Rev. Mr. Lee’s door-yard, he walked up the narrow gravel-path with Flaxie beside him, “just for company.”

“Now don’t laugh and spoil it,” said he. And, to solemnize his own face, he tried to think of the horrible time last summer, when he and his brother John went for pond-lilies, and were upset and nearly drowned. Mary looked as if she were thinking of an accident still worse, her face drawn to remarkable length, and her mouth dolefully puckered.

“You don’t suppose Mr. Lee will come himself, do you?” whispered Fred, ringing the door-bell very gently.

“Oh Fred, let’s go away. Just think if he should put you in a sermon? He put somebody in once for stealing watermelons. He didn’t say the name right out, but——”

Two early dandelions by the front window seemed bubbling over with merriment and curiosity; but before they or Fred had learned who stole the watermelons, Fred stopped his cousin by saying contemptuously, “When a man gets nicely fooled he won’t put that in a sermon, you’d better believe.” And then, gathering courage, he rang louder.

Mary was deliberating whether to run or not, when the housemaid appeared.

“Will you give this to Mr. Lee? Very important,” said Fred, handing her the dainty little parcel.

She looked at it, she