"I hate the thought of growing up," said the Story Girl reflectively, "because I can never go barefooted then, and nobody will ever see what beautiful feet I have."  
She was sitting, the July sunlight, on the of the open hayloft window in Uncle Roger's big barn; and the bare feet below her print skirt WERE beautiful. They were slender and shapely and satin smooth with arched insteps, the daintiest of toes, and nails like pink shells.
 
We were all in the hayloft. The Story Girl had been telling us a tale
 
    "Of old, unhappy, far-off things,
    And battles long ago."
Felicity and Cecily were curled up in a corner, and we boys idly on the , sun-warm heaps. We had "stowed" the hay in the that morning for Uncle Roger, so we felt that we had earned the right to loll on our sweet-smelling couch. Haylofts are delicious places, with just enough of shadow and soft, uncertain noises to give an agreeable tang of mystery. The swallows flew in and out of their nest above our heads, and whenever a sunbeam fell through a chink the air with golden dust. Outside of the loft was a vast, sunshiny of blue sky and air, wherein floated argosies of cloud, and airy tops of and spruce.
 
Pat was with us, of course, prowling about stealthily, or making , bootless leaps at the swallows. A cat in a hayloft is a beautiful example of the eternal fitness of things. We had not heard of this fitness then, but we all felt that Paddy was in his own place in a hayloft.
 
"I think it is very vain to talk about anything you have yourself being beautiful," said Felicity.
 
"I am not a bit vain," said the Story Girl, with entire . "It is not vanity to know your own good points. It would just be stupidity if you didn't. It's only vanity when you get up about them. I am not a bit pretty. My only good points are my hair and eyes and feet. So I think it's real mean that one of them has to be covered up the most of the time. I'm always glad when it gets warm enough to go barefooted. But, when I grow up they'll have to covered all the time. It IS mean."
 
"You'll have to put your shoes and stockings on when you go to the magic lantern show to-night," said Felicity in a tone of satisfaction.
 
"I don't know that. I'm thinking of going barefooted."
 
"Oh, you wouldn't! Sara Stanley, you're not in earnest!" exclaimed Felicity, her blue eyes filling with horror.
 
The Story Girl with the side of her face next to Felix and me, but the side next the girls changed not a muscle. She dearly loved to "take a rise" out of Felicity now and then.
 
"Indeed, I would if I just made up my mind to. Why not? Why not bare feet—if they're clean—as well as bare hands and face?"
 
"Oh, you wouldn't! It would be such a disgrace!" said poor
Felicity in real .
"We went to school barefooted all June," argued that wicked Story Girl. "What is the difference between going to the schoolhouse barefooted in the daytime and going in the evening?"
 
"Oh, there's EVERY difference. I can't just explain it—but every one KNOWS there is a difference. You know it yourself. Oh, PLEASE, don't do such a thing, Sara."
 
"Well, I won't, just to oblige you," said the Story Girl, who would have died the death before she would have gone to a "public meeting" barefooted.
 
We were all rather excited over the magic lantern show which an lecturer was to give in the schoolhouse that evening. Even Felix and I, who had seen such shows galore, were interested, and the rest were quite wild. There had never been such a thing in Carlisle before. We were all going, Peter included. Peter went everywhere with us now. He was a regular attendant at church and Sunday School, where his behaviour was as as if he had been "raised" in the caste of Vere de Vere. It was a feather in the Story Girl's cap, for she took all the credit of having started Peter on the right road. Felicity was resigned, although the fatal patch on Peter's best trousers was still an eyesore to her. She declared she never got any good of the singing, because Peter stood up then and every one could see the patch. Mrs. James Clark, whose pew was behind ours, never took her eye off it—or so Felicity .
 
But Peter's stockings were always darned. Aunt Olivia had seen to that, ever since she heard of Peter's singular device regarding them on his first Sunday. She had also given Peter a Bible, of which he was so proud that he hated to use it lest he should soil it.
 
"I think I'll wrap it up and keep it in my box," he said. "I've an old Bible of Aunt Jane's at home that I can use. I s'pose it's just the same, even if it is old, isn't it?"
 
"Oh, yes," Cecily had assured him. "The Bible is always the same."
 
"I thought maybe they'd got some new improvements on it since
Aunt Jane's day," said Peter, relieved.
"Sara Ray is coming along the lane, and she's crying," announced Dan, who was peering out of a knot-hole on the opposite side of the loft.
 
"Sara Ray is crying half her time," said Cecily impatiently. "I'm sure she cries a quartful of tears a month. There are times when you can't help crying. But I hide then. Sara just goes and cries in public."
 
The Sara presently joined us and we discovered the cause of her tears to be the doleful fact that her mother had forbidden her to go to the magic lantern show that night. We all showed the sympathy we felt.
 
"She SAID yesterday you could go," said the Story Girl indignantly. "Why has she changed her mind?"
 
"Because of the in Markdale," Sara. "She says
Markdale is full of them, and there'll be sure to be some of the
Markdale people at the show. So I'm not to go. And I've never
seen a magic lantern—I've never seen ANYTHING."
"I don't believe there's any danger of measles," said
Felicity. "If there was we wouldn't be allowed to go."
"I wish I COULD get the measles," said Sara . "Maybe
I'd be of some importance to ma then."
"Suppose Cecily goes down with you and your mother," suggested the Story Girl. "Perhaps she'd let you go then. She likes Cecily. She doesn't like either Felicity or me, so it would only make matters worse for us to try."
 
"Ma's gone to town—pa and her went this afternoon—and they're not coming back till to-morrow. There's nobody home but Judy Pineau and me."
 
"Then," said the Story Girl, "why don't you just go to the show anyhow? Your mother won't ever know, if you Judy to hold her tongue."
 
"Oh, but that's wrong," said Felicity. "You shouldn't put Sara up to disobeying her mother."
 
Now, Felicity for once was right. The Story Girl's suggestion WAS wrong; and if it had been Cecily who protested, the Story Girl would probably have listened to her, and proceeded no further in the matter. But Felicity was one of those unfortunate people whose protests against wrong-doing serve only to drive the wrong-doer further on her sinful way.
 
The Story Girl resented Felicity's superior tone, and proceeded to Sara in right good earnest. The rest of us held our tongues. It was, we told ourselves, Sara's own .
 
"I have a good mind to do it," said Sara. "but I can't get my good clothes; they're in the spare room, and ma locked the door, for fear somebody would get at the fruit cake. I haven't a single thing to wear, except my school gingham."
 
"Well, that's new and pretty," said the Story Girl. "We'll lend you some things. You can have my lace collar. That'll make the gingham quite elegant. And Cecily will lend you her second best hat."
 
"But I've no shoes or stockings. They're locked up too."
 
"You can have a pair of mine," said Felicity, who probably thought that since Sara was certain to yield to temptation, she might as well be decently for her .
 
Sara did yield. When the Story Girl's voice it was not easy to resist its temptation, even if you wanted to. That evening, when we started for the schoolhouse, Sara Ray was among us, decked out in borrowed .
 
"Suppose she DOES catch the measles?" Felicity said aside.
 
"I don't believe there'll be anybody there from Markdale. ............