“It’s called by some people Spy Pond,” Maida answered, “but I call it the Magic Mirror. It’s our pond and I think I ought to be allowed to call it what I want.” “I think so too,” agreed Laura. “What do you mean by _our_ pond?” Arthur asked. “Just what I say,” Maida replied promptly. “It’s our pond. It belongs to my father and it’s a part of the grounds of Maida’s Little House. We can go swimming in it every day. That is if we don’t prefer--” She broke off in a little embarrassed laugh. “Oh Maida you are so full of secrets I could _kill_ you,” Rosie threatened. Maida only laughed. They passed the pond which stretched for a considerable distance, long and crescent-shaped between its tree-hung banks, and now they were in the real forest. The road was smooth as always and beautifully-kept, but on both sides, the forest had been left to grow as it pleased. It was filled with underbrush. The tree trunks were obscured by great bushes. Here and there through openings, the children could see gigantic rocks thrusting great heads and shoulders out of the masses of rusty-colored leaves. “Oh isn’t it lovely!” Rosie said in a perfect ecstasy. “Lovely, lovely, lovely!” she went on repeating dreamily as though caught in a trance of delight. She ended with a scream. “Did you see that? What was it Maida?” “A woodchuck,” Maida answered smilingly. Timmie awakened by Rosie’s scream, asked if there were any lions and tigers about. Much disappointed at Maida’s _no_, he fell asleep again. And now they seemed to be going up hill, slowly but steadily up. Up, up, up. The car had begun to speed a little. Ahead was another rounding curve. Botkins took it with a flash. The car came out in front of-- It was one of the little colonial farmhouses a story-and-a-half in height; weather-colored, slant-roofed; to which addition after addition has been added by succeeding generations. It was set in an expanse of lawn, cut cleanly in two by a path of irregularly-shaped, sunken stones, dominated, one on either side, by twin elms of enormous girth and amplitude. The house faced the east. The additions, which now merged into one long structure, had gone off to the right and the north where they joined a big barn. This barn was the same velvety, gray weather-color as the house but with great doors painted a strange deep old blue which had faded to an even stranger, deeper blue. The sun struck into the open door and shot over the shining sides of half-a-dozen brilliantly colored canoes lying face-downwards on the floor; glittered in the bright-work of half-a-dozen bicycles, drawn up in a line. The front door of the house opened as the automobile came in sight and a colored man and woman, young and smiling, came out to meet them. The automobile seemed to explode children, who started over the lawn of the house. What a house it was!