Evening lay red in the west as Marmie stood in the and called to Rose and Ruth to come into supper. They were planting seeds in their own little garden-patch, and were as grimy as roots, both of them.  
Rose had been devoting her energies to radishes and . Ruth to pansies and sweet alyssum, for it seemed to her that a vegetable bed ought to have a border of flowers.
 
“Like having flowers on the dinner-table,” she remarked, as she the tiny seeds. “And they’ll go right on blooming long after your radishes have been eaten up,” she added.
 
“Yes, but by that time we’ll have planted peas, and then corn, and then tomatoes and then eggplants—this is going to be one round of good things to eat,” Rose returned with gusto. “What fun planting is! It’s just as magic as getting turned into a swan or a fox or any of those real things ... all right, we’re c-o-o-ming....” This last in answer to Marmie, whose voice had at last reached the girl’s inner consciousness. So they gathered up their tools and ran in to wash up before sitting down to supper.
 
“You little grubs,” said Marmie, “you don’t really need to get into the ground yourselves when you plant. Hurry and dig yourselves out, because Dad wants me to ride to the south with him after supper. He’s got to look over the fences.”
 
“But it’ll be dark, Marmie.”
 
“There’s a full moon, youngster.”
 
“Can’t we go too, please, please?”
 
“Not this time, dears. We’ll be rather late getting back, and I want you to get to bed good and early. But soon we’ll fix up a picnic, when the weather grows more settled. I think we are going to have a very early spring this year ... why, it’s more like the end of April than the end of March right now.”
 
After they had waved their parents out of sight, the two girls turned back into the house a trifle forlornly.
 
“Dear me, I wish we were big enough to do just what we wanted to do,” Rose. “Grown-up people don’t consider enough how we young ones suffer when they don’t let us do things.”
 
They went into the living room and sat down, trying to think of something to do. But the thought of the loping out there in the moonlight with Dad and Marmie drove other ideas away.
 
Suddenly Ruth looked up eagerly.
 
“Oh, Rose, I do wish the fairy would come,” 257she exclaimed. “Then we wouldn’t mind being left behind.”
 
“That’s true. Suppose we wish for her.”
 
“A wish is as good as a smile,” remarked the voice of Honeysqueak. “I’ve been sitting right here some time, but such a pair of faces frightened all the words away—I couldn’t get hold of one.”
 
“We weren’t cross, dear fairy,” explained Rose, “just sort of despairing.”
 
“Well, it’s no use my shaking my head, because you can’t see me,” said the fairy. “But....”
 
And her voice sounded just as though she were shaking it.
 
So Rose and Ruth both laughed rather shamefacedly, and then the fairy laughed too and the air cleared like magic.
 
“And now that life seems worth while again, my dears, suppose we go off on a little trip of our own?”
 
Nothing could be better than that, and when Ruth begged that they might visit Evangeline this time, Rose thought it a splendid suggestion, and the fairy agreed.
 
“There isn’t a lovelier place anywhere than Grand Pré,” she told them, “nor a sweeter girl than Evangeline. So come along, quick, quick, quick!”
 
And in less time than you’d take to get out of 258your chair, the sisters found themselves in Acadie, of a lovely June afternoon.
 
They were strolling along a white and curving road shaded by trees. On either hand the meadows spread, deep in grass, reaching to the blue, calm waters of the Basin of Midas on one side, on the other to the misty-topped mountains, dark with forest. Ahead of them lay the lovely village, with its white, thatch-roofed cottages and big church. Flax in bloom made broad patches of blue, a clearer, blue than the sea-water, but just as beautiful. It was a smiling, lovely scene.
 
Coming to meet them, with a basket on her arm, was a girl of their own age dressed in a blue frock with full white sleeves and opening at the throat over a white . A white cap with broad lappets topped her shining brown hair. She was as a sight as ever the sun shone on, with a sweet and laughing face and a body as as the swaying grain just in the fields.
 
Rose and Ruth were dressed in the same way, and they turned their heads with delight to make their caps wave the white wings that so pleasantly shaded their necks.
 
“Here you are, and late too,” cried Evangeline. “I had hoped to meet you nearer the village. Come, we’ll return to the farm, and then my father has given permission for us to take the big, kind Alphonse and picnic on Blomidon. Will that not be a fine holiday? And on a day so fair!”
“We only got here this minute,” said Rose. “How sweet you look, Evangeline! We are so glad to meet you. Ruth said she always loved you better than any other heroine in ... in ...” Rose couldn’t quite remember what she had intended saying, so she ended with a skip of joy, and the statement that a picnic on Blomidon was a wonderful idea, and who was Alphonse?
 
“Alphonse is the dog. Father will let me go anywhere with him, so big and strong and wise he is, and so brave and gentle. Do you like dogs?”
 
Of course they did, and all three of them chatting at once, they merrily along the road toward the farm, roomy and generous, with big barns stretching round three sides of a square, with dove-cotes and hen-houses and , and the wide-eaved gracious house in front, facing the sea.
 
As they pushed open the white gate of the house-place, a hearty-looking white-haired man called to them from an open window.
 
“Welcome, mes petites. Evangeline, offer thy friends some milk and a slice of bread and cheese, and then be off with you all, for I do not want you to be late getting home.”
 
A table stood under a great, shady sycamore by the door, with chairs about it, and here Evangeline spread a simple meal of bread and cheese and berries, with a huge of creamy milk. Bees murmured all about them, butterflies flitted past, and the clear air seemed to above 260the meadows and and over the gleaming sea.
 
“I think this is the loveliest place in the whole world,” Ruth, sighing with content. “Oh, are we going to drive?” for in the yard two men were harnessing a pretty sorrel horse to a with two seats, singing as they did so.
 
“Indeed we are. My father has business on beyond among the hills, and he will drive us close to the forest to spend the afternoon, and stop for us on the way back. It would be too far to walk.”
 
What fun it was, climbing so into the wagon, with Father Bellefontaine them settle down, and putting in the baskets of dainty cakes and the bottle of fruit-juice and the basket of great red strawberries on which they were to feast under the murmuring pines, that sang an echo to the stirring waves, endless as time. And that drive!
 
First they went through the village where every one knew them, and waved or called a greeting. Evangeline was a favourite with young and old alike, that was evident. Such a clean, bright little village, with orchards almost up to the cottage doors, these cottages so pretty with dormer windows and huge beams of wood criss-crossing the white or plaster of their walls. Brilliant little gardens bloomed before many, and vines up most. Children played everywhere, and once, coming down a side 261street, Rose caught a glimpse of the pleasant-faced old priest, surrounded by a group of youngsters, who were grasping at his hands and his flowing black robe, while he smiled down upon them.
 
Then came the spreading meadows, protected from the sea by dikes on which grew in long rows. And then the hills, covered with trees.
 
Their way led far out on the , and the song of the sea was always in their ears, while its blue shone between trees or stretched far as they topped some slight rise. Father Bellefontaine out sights of interest here and there. They passed the smithy and were hailed by Basil Lajeunnes who worked there amid a shower of sparks to the merry ring of iron on iron. A slender youth ran out to exchange a word with them as they stopped a moment—Basil’s son, young Gabriel, and Evangeline smiled at him, but said nothing.
 
“If there were room in the wagon we should like to take you too, Gabriel,” said the farmer. “But like enough one boy with so many maids would be too bashful, ... eh, Basil?” and he laughed toward his friend, who had come to the door of the smithy and stood smiling.
 
Gabriel laughed too. “If there were room I would surely forget my bashfulness,” he answered, his eyes dancing.
 
“Then in with you,” cried Farmer Bellefontaine, 262“and you two behind make room somehow. I shall be glad enough to have Gabriel with these maids in the forest, for all Alphonse is here.”
 
So Gabriel climbed in between Ruth and Evangeline, and the little party hastened on toward the cape, Alphonse leaping and barking around the wagon and horse as though he enjoyed it all every bit as much as the rest.
 
“Be wise children and do not wander too deep into the forest,” warned Evangeline’s father as he left the young people in the shadow of the pines, baskets and all, and drove off about his business. “I shall be back by sunset.”
 
They had little trouble taking the baskets farther in among the trees, where a spring bubbled up between moss-covered stones, to wander away in a clear streamlet. The air was redolent of the of the needles, and the shadows and sun played all sorts of fantastic games with each other as the wind stirred the so high above the children’s heads.
 
They took off shoes and stockings and paddled in the clear water, and chased each other laughing over the brown needles, silky soft to their bare feet. They sang and............