Each wrote a name on a leaf and dropped it into a jar of water. Next morning, Margaret, who had misgivings, stole down early and searched for her leaf. Yes, the die was cast! At the sight of its bruised surface, ready tears flooded her eyes. She had written the name of her little grandmother, and the condition of the leaf foretold death within the year. The other leaves were unmarred. She quickly destroyed the ill-omened bit of ivy and said nothing about it, though the children clamored. 'There's one leaf short. Whose is gone?' 'Mine is there!' 'Is it yours, John?' 'Is it yours, Esther?' But Margaret kept her counsel, and, within the year, the little grandmother was dead. Of course, she was old, though vigorous; yet Margaret would never play that game again. It was like gambling with fate. And still the girls kept swinging past. Steadily, all too swiftly, Margaret shot up to a woman's stature; her skirts crept down, her braids ought to have been bobbed up behind. She let them hang, however, and still ran with the boys, questing the bogs, climbing the apple trees, storming the wind-swept hills. Her mother would point to her sister Mary, who, though younger, sat now by the fire with her 'spriggin'' [embroidery] for 'the quality.' Mary could crochet, too, and had a fine range of 'shamrogue' patterns. So the mother would chide Margaret. 'What kind of a girl are you, at all, to be ever lepping and tearing like a redshanks [deer]? 'Tis high time for you to be getting sensible and learning something. Whistles and scouting-guns is all you're good for, and there's no silver in them things as far as I can see.' What fine whistles she contrived out of the pithy willow shoots in the spring! And the scouting-guns hollowed out of elder-stalks, which they charged with water from the brook by means of wadded sticks, working piston-wise! They would hide behind a hedge and bespatter enemies and friends alike. Many's the time they got their ears warmed in consequence or went supperless to bed, pretending not to see the table spread with baked potatoes,--'laughing potatoes,' they called them, because they were ever splitting their sides,--besides delicious buttermilk, freshly-laid eggs, oat-cakes and fresh butter. 'A child without supper is two to breakfast,' their mother would say, smiling, when she saw them 'tackle' their stirabout the next day. How full of verve and life were all these figures! That glancing creature grow old? How could such things be! The sober pace of maturity even seemed out of her star. Yet here she was, growing up, for all her reluctance. An awkward gossoon leaned over the gate in the moonlight, though she was indoors, ready to hide. But nobody noticed her alarm. 'There's that long-legged McMurray lad again; scouting after Mary, I'll be bound,' said her mother, all unawares.