Marian wanted to play Hansel and Gretel. "But Gram is too nice to be the witch, isn't she, Muvver? And we must have a witch." "Miss Kelly could be witch," said Spencer. "She's too nice, too!" "She could pretend not to be." Spencer peered at Catherine, and suddenly giggled. "That isn't funny," protested Marian. "When your mother was a little girl," began Mrs. Spencer, "I took her to see Uncle Tom's Cabin." The children listened, entranced, to the account of Catherine's impersonation of Little Eva. Catherine, amused, went back to Spencer's giggle. He hadn't accepted Miss Kelly, as Marian had. His laugh was a secret declaration of his withholding of himself. But he no longer protested outwardly. "And just then, I went out of the kitchen door," said Mrs. Spencer, "and saw Catherine in the loft window of the barn. She had on one of my best white sheets, and she was leaning forward, way out of the window, and waving her arms." "Oh, Muvver!" Marian sighed in delight. "I said, 'What are you doing!'" "You tell us what you said, Muvver," begged Marian, her eyes darkly shining. "Please." "I said"--Catherine laughed--"that I was going to fly to Heaven." "Did you think you were, Mother?" asked Spencer. "Perhaps. I was playing Little Eva so hard that I expected the angels to pick me up, you know." "An' then, Gram?" "I called to the hired man. He was in the barn. And he ran upstairs up the ladder and caught your mother by the sheet. So she didn't jump out." "Would you really of jumped, Mother?" Spencer, in his eagerness, came around to Catherine's chair. "I don't know. I was a silly little girl, wasn't I?" "Oh, Spencer was silly to-day," cried Marian. "He wanted to come home right in the middle of the play. He said you were going away to-day, and Gram had to take right hold of his arm." A wave of color rushed up to Spencer's hair, and his nostrils trembled. "Wasn't that silly?" "I did think so, Mother." He gulped. "I got mixed up. If you think so, it feels true, doesn't it?" "We told him it wasn't to-day. But he kept thinking so." Catherine remembered the dash he had made through the hall to her bedroom, his halt at the door, his long stare at her. Poor boy! "You better sit down, son," she said. "Here comes dessert." Later, when she bade them good night, his arms tightened about her neck. "You said to-morrow," he whispered, "and I thought maybe it was to-morrow. Because to-morrow is to-day, always, when it gets here." "We can write letters to each other," said Catherine, rubbing her cheek softly against his hair. "Won't that be fun? We never wrote to each other." "With my own name on the envelope?" "Yes, sir." Catherine felt him relax into pleased contemplation of envelopes with his own name. "It's queer Charles doesn't come." Mrs. Spencer laid aside her magazine as Catherine entered the living room. "Do you know what dentist he goes to?" "Dr. Reeves, I think. He had to wait until the doctor came in from dinner."