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night blue against a pale-blue sky. It hovered among the branches of a young maple for a breathless moment before Roddy, with a beautiful leap into the air, had it back to Bina. The little blue dress, no longer meek, swirled about Bina as she ran out on the lawn with the blue balloon held high in air for a toss.

All this time the experienced little Pen was tugging at her skirts and shrieking:

"Give it back to me! You'll burst it. You hit it too hard. Oh, I want my balloon, Bina! You and Roddy will burst my balloon, Bina!"

Snap!

He stooped, weeping bitterly, and picked up a scrap of black rubber from the grass at Bina's feet. Bina swooped to him with open arms.

"O Pen, I'm so sorry! I would n't have broken it for anything-not for anything."

"You would play with it!" wailed Pen, loudly. He pulled away from Bina.

Roddy grinned. Little Pen was only five. He did the best he could with his limited vocabulary; but, oh, how the poor child needed a word of three syllables just then! "Stop that howling, son!" called the annoyed Hobson.

"Bina broke my balloon," shrilled little Pen.

"Well, what if she did?" said Hobson, heartlessly, and went on tossing his own apparently unexplodable old balloon for Cousin Polly's return. Little Pen subsided into low, but sustained, laments. "Stow it, Pen!" said Roddy. "I'll bring you a pocketful of balloons when I go to town Thursday."

The pocketful of balloons could not have seemed farther away to little Pen if Halley's Comet had promised to bring them the next time it came around. He flung himself to the ground and sobbed in the most terrific hopelessness.

With a glance at Bina's stricken face, Roddy continued his interrupted progress stableward.

"Where you going?" asked Ivor, meeting him near the river-landing some fifteen minutes later.

Roddy looked funnily self-conscious. "Oh, across," he said.

He

"Girl?" queried Ivor, teasingly. liked to see the big boy blush. But this time Roddy merely looked a bit annoyed. Then he smiled back.

"Yes," he said. Ivor reined in his horse for a moment that he might enjoy the splendid sight of Roddy riding on.

Roddy did not get back until after one. "See here, you," Ivor hailed him from his room off the back porch-“you be in by twelve after this." His tone was sharp.

"Sorry, sir," said Roddy. "All right, sir." He came on in and talked a bit, to show that he was n't sulky about being called down. When he continued up-stairs he paused half-way down the hall and produced from his pocket a small packet, which he hung like a May-basket to Bina's door-knob.

He descended rather late next morning to find the breakfast-table deserted. Outside, Pen played gloriously with a scarlet balloon; within, Bina ran and hugged Roddy.

"You 're choking me," said Roddy. "Do you suppose there are any hot biscuits in the kitchen, Bina?"

Mary glanced up from her sewing as Bina ran off to see.

"You spoil those children dreadfully, Roddy," said Mary. "I never heard of anything so ridiculous as riding twenty miles to buy a toy balloon."

"I did n't," said Roddy, imperturbably, "go to town to buy a toy balloon, Murry." "May I ask what you did go for, then?" inquired Mary, scornfully.

Kathy turned from where she arranged flowers by the bright window.

"Why, to buy happiness, of course," said Kathy, in a charming matter-of-fact tone. She threw Roddy a rosebud, and he threw her back a kiss.

"WHAT a pretty suit!" said Mary.

"Like it?" asked Roddy. He turned about and about.

"Better than any you ever had. I do wish the best-looking boy in the county. was n't my own brother."

"Piffle!" said Roddy, blushing violently. The parlors were also in party trim. A crowd of youngsters was due for a dance. Geoff's call had already echoed across the ferry.

"Roddy 's scrumptious," said Bina. She did the newest dance-step known in her far-away home town as she approached the two. "And so are you, Mary.”

Mary gave her an indulgent smile, examining her appearance the while.

Bina held out her soft white skirts to show herself off the better. She was as brilliant as the rose-flushed moon of the poets emerging from silver river mists. All her edges were filmy ruffles.

"Run up and ask mama to fasten those folds on the shoulder with her pearl pin," said Mary. She added, being in a normal girlish humor over the dance, "You look good enough to eat, Bina."

"You look good enough to kiss," said Bina. She gave Mary a headlong embrace and ran up-stairs.

"Shut the door, darling," said Kathy. "How sweet you are to-night!"

"Mary said to fasten these folds with your pearl pin, Aunt Kathy." As she spoke, Bina took up a trinket from the dressing-table and tried it against her folds, peeping around Kathy in the pierglass. "How would this do?"

vexedly, listening to Bina's soft downward rush.

It was an extremely young crowd. Toward midnight they thought it would be a lark to go down to the island and pretend to raid Roddy's melon-patch.

It must have been in the sand of the island that Bina lost Kathy's beautiful heirloom brooch.

At dawn Roddy and Bina went back and searched until breakfast-time, but Hebe and her god had apparently vanished away forever. After breakfast Kathy hunted with Roddy. She was particularly fond of that cameo for a dozen good reasons. When Kathy, too, gave it up and returned to the house, Bina watched for them, unseen in a porch cor

ner.

"It 's too bad," Roddy was saying as they slowly mounted the steps.

"It would never have happened," answered Kathy, almost vindictively, "if Bina had not been a persistent little fool." She went on in, not noticing that Bina was there. But Roddy deflected his course toward the corner. Bina was hiding her eyes in the crook of her elbow and wetting her little pink gingham sleeve with bitter tears. Somehow she minded Aunt Kathy more than any one else.

"Everybody calls me that," said Bina,

"The catch is n't good, I 'm afraid," gaspingly. said Kathy.

She

It was a fine old cameo, a wedding gift to Kathy's mother, a delicious Hebe offering a vine-garlanded cup to an entrancing young god. Holding it to her shoulder, Bina turned her head sidewise. looked the loveliest of little Greeks. "It just suits," she yearned. "I'd hate to have it lost," objected Kathy, seeking in vain for the pearl pin. "Where can it have got to?" she wondered. "Yes, that suits you, Bina-if only the catch were safe."

"Darling, sweet Aunt Kath, do let me wear it!" begged Bina, dancing out of the room. "I'll be so careful. I'll think of it every single minute." She called this last from the hall.

"Oh, well," said Kathy. She smiled

"I don't call you that," consoled Roddy. "But you will," sobbed Bina. A tearing burst of tears ended speech on her part.

"You be in by sunset with your cousin," said Ivor to Roddy.

"Sure," said Roddy. He gave a final pull to the strap which fastened the lunchbasket to his saddle-bow and called, "Come along, Bina."

They rode off smartly. Morning rides. were tremendously becoming to the two. They lighted Roddy up until he made one think of the line,

And Phoebus 'gins arise,

and they set Bina's rich hair rioting and her eyes shining with some special joy of life.

She halted her mare in the mountain creek, where it was wide and shallow and musical over many-toned stones.

"I feel good as an angel this morning," said Bina.

Roddy felt that way himself, only, being a boy, he was n't so frank about it.

"But we must n't loaf too long," he said, breaking the heavenly silence.

Hanging Rock was truly a place to go to see. The mountain came together as sharply as a shingle roof, with one edge overlapping a lot. Hanging Rock itself overlapped amazingly. You jumped to it across a narrow chasm, and had the thrill of risking your life every time you did it. But risking their lives at Hanging Rock was so old a story to the county people that they made nothing of it. Bina and Roddy sprang lightly over the chasm, splashing up the water in the natural bird fountain hollowed out in the top of the rock by the ages and the ages, and poised carelessly where a misstep would have landed them a mile below on the top of a pine forest, and said how pretty the green-plaided landscape was, and pointed out to each other the houses they recognized-houses which looked near enough to be picked up and small enough to be carried home in Roddy's pocket.

Bina drew her deepest breath yet. "O Roddy, would n't you just love to live up here?"

"I'd just love to have something to eat," teased Roddy.

Roddy's watch had provokingly stopped, and they got started home a trifle late on that account. Bina continued as good as an angel until, one third of the way down, she insisted on exploring an unfamiliar road. She danced her impish little Dolly mare just ahead of Roddy's heavier mount. He reached forth a restraining hand, and Dolly broke into a lope. Now Dolly ran if she thought another horse was trying to catch up with her, and horsemanship was not Bina's strong point. Roddy was afraid to pursue. He followed in angry, sober-gaited silence. It is astonishing how time flies in these fooleries. When Bina tired of mocking at Roddy it really was

late. The road had long since ended. It was not even a path now, or, rather, there were multitudinous paths stretching in every direction. A cloud-shadow menaced the forest. Faint thunders reverberated. Bina and Roddy gazed at each other.

"I've not the least idea where we are," said Roddy. He added coldly, "I hope it's not anywhere near the Drop."

To ride over the Drop would be not unlike riding off Hanging Rock. Bina gazed fearfully about her.

One

"I'd better lead the horses," said Roddy, peering into the darkening woods, trying to get the right direction. might wander all night among those folded ridges rippling along the backbone of the mountain. They wandered until ten o'clock or thereabout, Roddy guessed. It was pitch dark, a cloudy dark without stars, when he halted and looked back at the blur that was Bina on Dolly.

"We'll have to camp for the rest of the night," said Roddy. He said it with careful kindness of manner, but if he had known the truth about Bina he might not have been so considerate. Bina had always wanted to spend a night in the mountains. under thrilling conditions. Despite her conscious guilt, she could not help humming happily as she helped gather twigs for a fire. When it blazed up, she sat by it and thought contentedly that it would n't be daylight for hours and hours. And she had all that time, with the romantic, leaf-embroidered darkness clasping them about, in which to have a confidential talk with Roddy. She meant to tell him of her ambitions, meant to listen to his. Perhaps he would even confide in her concerning the beautiful Miss Marye, who had treated him so badly the summer before; she had had hints here and there as she hovered on the edges of family conclaves. She glanced across the firelit space at Roddy, clasping his knees and staring off into the forest. It might have been a mere effect of light, but she had never before noticed how much alike Roddy and Mary really were.

"Roddy," she began timidly.

He gave a start. "I'll tell you what," he said as Bina failed to follow up her opening, “I 'll just pull together a lot of these dry leaves, and make you up a bed, Bina. You'll go to sleep in a jiffy in this air, and it will be morning before you know it."

Bina said not a word. She merely watched Roddy with a hopeless feeling. He heaped the leaves very neatly. Robins could not have arranged them in a more professional manner. Over the heap, which horridly suggested a woodland grave to Bina, he spread the gay saddleblankets. He then pulled off his coat and tossed it to her.

"Button that around you, Bina," he said in the tone of a conscientious nurse. "It gets cold toward morning."

There ensued half an hour of intense silence, bewildered on Bina's part. Roddy merely did not feel like talking, and was grateful to Bina for keeping quiet.

As he stared so steadily ahead, he was neither admiring the stars, which now glinted through an opening in the clouds, nor the effects of firelight among the leaves. He was reflecting on the scrape Bina had got him into with Ivor, who in an old-fashioned way was exigent where the women of his family were in question. He knew perfectly well how he was going to appear to his father as a stupid fellow who did n't know his own mountains and who could n't take decent care of a little girl. Wincing inwardly, Roddy bent to throw more twigs on the fire.

"Better try to sleep, Bina," he advised. "I-I don't want to go to sleep," said Bina in a grieved voice. Her eyes brimmed. Two tears rolled heavily down her cheeks.

"What do you want, then?" asked Roddy in a puzzled way.

"To-to t-talk," quivered Bina.

"All right," said Roddy, making the effort of his life to be reasonable and kind. "All right." And after a wait he added, "Why don't you go ahead?"

"I don't want to," said Bina, almost violently. She lay back on the bed of leaves and gazed up at the chilly stars,

which seemed not quite so far away as Roddy.

Roddy kept casting thoughtful glances at Bina. He concluded that she was tired, and nervous about being lost, and that the sooner she got off to sleep the better for them both. He drew a long breath of relief when her soft, regular breathing convinced him that she was off at last. He went back to his own thoughts, and for the most part forgot the little curled-up figure opposite. Toward morning he must have dozed, head on arms, for he roused at some breaking of bushes, and looked, to find his horse gone. As he stood glancing about him, a barking of dogs assailed his ears. He climbed a small ridge to the right and saw that it came from a cabin close at hand-old Chittum's cabin. Roddy got red all to himself there in the stealing dawn. Had they ridden on for ten minutes they would have reached the cabin and have been put in their way. Everything was conspiring to make him. look like a perfect fool.

"Dolt!" he muttered to himself. "Chump!"

He turned at a sound to see Bina peeping at him like a dryad newly emerged from her oak.

"What in the world are you talking to yourself for, Roddy?" asked Bina.

Without replying, Roddy descended the little ridge and saddled Dolly and put Bina into her saddle.

"My horse got loose," he told her then. He added, "See if there is n't an apple for your breakfast in one of my pockets there."

Bina found the apple, broke it in half, and proffered one of the halves to Roddy. He colored with annoyance and made a vexed gesture of rejection. With a swing of the arm which expressed many emotions, Bina flung both halves high and far. One fell short of the world's edge and rolled back toward them. Roddy picked it up and gave it to Dolly.

As they neared the highway, they sighted Roddy's white horse a mile ahead. Beyond him appeared some sort of procession of which they failed to sense the significance. They slid on down, Roddy lead

ing Dolly at arm's-length. At the opening into the main road they met the procession. Roddy flared scarlet as he took it in.

Ivor headed it, in the cart, with his gun between his knees; there had been tales of bears seen in the mountains not long before. Behind rode half the neighborhood, it seemed to Roddy, though there were only a few youngsters who had ridden over to Cedarcliff the evening before for an impromptu frolic. The dogs and Roddy's captured mount made a tail to the procession, which dissolved and gathered about Bina and Roddy.

A look from Ivor brought Roddy to the side of the cart.

"I thought you could be trusted to take care of a girl," said Ivor. His contemptuous tone carried cruelly.

Roddy turned away, white to the clamped lips, from which wild horses could have dragged no explanation after that injustice from Ivor. Every one talked. kindly and loudly and all together. Roddy's eyes were hard as he watched them put Bina into the cart and give her a spectacular and totally unnecessary sip of brandy. He held his head high as he went to get his horse from Geoff.

"It was every bit my fault, Uncle Roderick," Bina was saying. Her voice came clearly.

"That's all very well now," said Geoff, scornfully. But Roddy was n't going to tell Geoff anything. Not even when they had quite separated themselves from the procession and fallen far behind. was he going to tell Geoff anything.

Geoff glanced at Roddy's profile. He had never before noticed how much alike Roddy and Mary were.

"Still," said Geoff, "what 's a fellow to do about it?"

Roddy did look at him then gratefully and jeeringly.

"First aid to an idiot," said Roddy. "Thank you, Geoff."

Late that evening, as he wandered in the back way from having a solitary row on the creek, his father hailed him.

within Ivor's door. His hard look had been replaced by a patient one.

"I thought I told you to be in by twelve every night," said Ivor, glancing up at his old clock, always the best part of an hour fast, to put it without exaggeration. "Staying out all night seems to be getting a habit with you.'

If Roddy had been a girl his lips would have quivered at this shameless unfairness. There was a perceptible pause before he answered:

"Sorry, sir. It sha'n't happen again." He went on out, disdaining the slightest glance at the lying, leering clock-face.

At the head of the steps Bina rose up before him, and clasped his arm with both her eager hands.

"Roddy," said Bina, "I would n't blame you a bit for saying-it-to me now." Her voice quivered.

"I don't want to say it to you, dear," said Roddy. "You meant no harm, I know. For goodness' sake, go to bed!"

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LITTLE Pen was lonesome that hot, windy August afternoon. His father, never a person to be depended on for companionship, pounded away on the type-writer in the office. Bina sat in the office door, and read her great-grandmother's love-letters, taking them one by one from an inexhaustible yellow bundle on her knees. Into her absorption Pen could pry no wedge of a plea to come and play. Uncle Rod was off somewhere. Aunt Kathy and Mary had driven to town that morning. Miss Lizzie had gone visiting.

But even as little Pen stood in the middle of the lawn and looked hopelessly about him he caught sight of the orange edges of Roddy's jersey under the willows.

Roddy came and stood at attention just by the creek.

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