"Do you want to forget them, Rob? Your life seems to me so ideally simple, so lightheartedly happy, that I thought you were glad you were no longer that little Robin that used to perch on my knee." Mrs. Grey looked at Rob sharply as she spoke, and Rob looked her squarely in the eyes, with her changeable face flashing into smiles. "She was a nice, dreaming, sunny little Robin, Mardy, but I am as blithe as a blackbird now, so don't imagine the hand of time lies heavy on me yet. Only you know I never did want to be a woman," said Rob. "I think it is so very lovely to be vastly young. Coming events cast their _shadows_ before, you know; they don't cast rays of light. The present is nice." Rob laughed as she spoke, but her eyes were wistful. "Your future will be 'nice' too, Rob dearest," said her mother. "Somehow, I don't fear for you." "There doesn't seem to be much plot in our lives, Mardy. Just a little income, just a little house, just a little work, considerable play-- and so the Grey days drift along, only they're not grey days in any but a cognominal sense. Now, Mardy, wasn't that a lovely word to have made up just as it was needed, with no malice, nor aforethought?" "Very lovely, Rob--Listen! Why here are the boys already!" cried Mrs. Grey interrupting herself. "Goodness! Can it be late enough for them?" cried Rob darting out to give the Rutherfords welcome though the front of her waist was all dust from the books which she had been hugging, and her hair was more rebellious than usual from the stooping and climbing which she had been doing, loosening hairpins that were only too ready at all times to escape. "How's the fancy-dress ball progressing?" cried Bartlemy the instant the door was opened. He had unexpectedly developed more interest in the plan than either of the other boys, a fact which he himself explained by saying that it appealed to his artistic sense. "It's going to be the loveliest thing!" cried Prue enthusiastically. "And the date is fixed for Twelfth Night," added Wythie. "There is something in the ring of that name that seems to set off the costumes." "The very night!" cried Basil. "How are the burns, Bruce?" asked Rob. "Nearly burned out. How many listeners to the stories have you secured? Did they pay in advance?" asked Bruce, kissing Mrs. Grey's cheek, as all three boys always did when they came home, and stroking the hand which Miss Charlotte had given him. "Forty-five, actually!" announced Rob, with exclamation marks in her voice. "Two hundred and twenty-five dollars down! And Hester must have nearly as much more, by this time, for the tickets she has sold to the entertainment. We are going to sell lots here in Fayre when we begin, and we have hardly any expenses. I gasp at the thought of the wealth we are amassing for the crippled children with very little effort and hardly any planning."