Only her dreams remained to her. She could still look forward to the glorious time of "when I'm big." She could still unbind her dun-colored hair and shake it in the sun. She could still quiver with anticipation as she surveyed her brilliant future. A beautiful prince was coming to woo her. He would ride to the door and kneel upon the front porch while all his shining retinue filled the front yard and overflowed into the road. Then she would appear and, since these things were to happen in the days of her maturity, perhaps when she was twelve years old, she would be radiantly beautiful, and her hair would be all goldy gold and curly, and it would trail upon the ground a yard or two behind her as she walked. And the prince would be transfixed. And when he was all through being that--Mary often wondered what it was--he would arise and sing "Nicolette, the Bright of Brow," or some other disguised personality, while all his shining retinue would unsling hautboys and lyres and--and--mouth organs and play ravishing music. And when she rode away to be the prince's bride and to rule his fair lands, her father and her mother should ride with her, all in the sunshine of the days "when I'm big"--the wonderful days "when I'm big." Meanwhile, being but little, she served the flannel bundle even as Sir Beaumanis had served a yet lowlier apprenticeship. But she still stormed high heaven to rectify its mistake. "And please, dear God, if you are all out of goats and wagons, send rabbits. But anyway come and take away this baby. My mamma ain't well enough to take care of it an' I can't spare the time. We don't need babies, but we do need that goat and wagon." And the powers above, with a mismanagement which struck their petitioner dumb, sent a wagon--only a wagon--and it was a gocart for the baby, and Mary was to be the goat. With this millstone tied about her neck she was allowed to look upon the scenes of her early freedom, and no inquisitor could have devised a more anguishing torture than that to which Mary's suffering and unsuspecting mother daily consigned her suffering and uncomplaining daughter. "Walk slowly up and down the paths, dear, and don't leave your sister for a moment. Isn't it nice that you have somebody to play with now?" "Yes, ma'am," said Mary. "But she ain't what I'd call playful." "You used to be so much alone," Mrs. Buckley continued. Mary breathed sharply, and her mother kissed her sympathetically. "But now you always have your sister with you. Isn't it fine, dearie?" "Yes, ma'am," repeated the victim, and bent her little energies to the treadmill task of wheeling the gocart to the orchard gate, where all wonders began, and then, with an effort as exhausting to the will as to the body, turning her back upon the lane, the river, and the sentinel tree, to trundle her Juggernaut between serried rows of cabbages and carrots.