Two hours later, a happy little party was established on the borders of the lake. Ruffie lay in a nest of cushions under the shade of the acacia tree. Josie and Georgie had pulled the boat out, and as it was tightly moored to its post, Anstice allowed them to get into it, but she had prohibited them from having the oars in the boat, and there had been at first a great commotion over that. Anstice looked at them with a twinkle in her eye. "I know how you would be tempted," she said, "and I'm going to save you from temptation, if I can. When I would be deep in my story, one pair of hands might softly steal up and unfasten the painter, the other pair of hands would slip the oars over into the water, and away you would go, laughing at my helplessness. I should have helped you to disobey your father." This was so exactly in accordance with the children's intention, that they stared at her in angry dismay. "You're a kind of witch," muttered Josie, giving up the argument. "No, but I'm not a fool," said Anstice, "and when I was a little girl, I was rather like you, a bit of a tomboy. I had a boy chum and we were up to every kind of mischief. That's why I shan't be hard upon you. Because I understand and remember." "And I can't do nothing, never at all!" exclaimed Ruffie plaintively. "Well now, we'll settle down, and read about some children who did a good deal." The story-book proved enchanting. It was an old-fashioned book, an allegory of children who started on a pilgrimage somewhat after the style of "Pilgrim's Progress." As the children had never seen or read the latter book, the idea was quite a fresh one to them. Josie's comment on it, as Anstice closed the book, and said it was time for tea, was: "There, you see! How well those children managed for themselves without any grown-up person to interfere with them! And we could do alone, I know we could. We don't want governesses to bother our lives out." "Or me," put in Anstice, laughing. "But, Josie, see how much trouble these children got into, until they got hold of and held on to the golden thread. And you know who held the other end of that thread? It was the King Himself, the King of the Golden City. We ought to be all travelling with our fingers on that thread. Heaven is the city, and prayer is the golden thread which keeps us in touch with our Saviour and King. We cannot and ought not, any of us, to travel through life entirely on our own." There was silence; Josie was rocking the boat to and fro, but she was thinking, and Ruffie's beautiful eyes were dreamily gazing over the lake to the opposite hills, which were tinged with gold from the sun behind them. "I'd like to have a message to me to set out there," he said very softly. Anstice could not reply. A lump came in her throat. Could she, had she the knowledge and the power to place his tiny fingers on that golden thread? Was she reading and talking of what she herself had not experienced? She sprang to her feet.