It was the very month before Pierce left us, and brilliant April weather, when we played that prank which ended so disastrously for me, and the incidents of which I can never recall without a blush. I was a pickle in those days, and ripe for all sorts of mischief, while Esther was then, as now, ever ready to follow where I led. As for the boys--did you ever know boys who didn't like forbidden fruit? As they say hereabouts, "Would a duck swim?" and the duck's attitude towards her native element was precisely that of Hugh and Donald towards any wild freak, whether suggested by themselves or by those who ought to have known better. It was an exquisite day, more like June than April, and Pierce and Aline had gone for one of their fishing excursions together, taking a basket of luncheon with them. "You'll be good children," Aline had said to us, "and not get into any mischief, and be in punctually for luncheon, and not give Oona any trouble." We said we would be all she desired us; and she went off with her look of placid contentment. We really meant to behave very well, but we had not remembered then that it was the greatest day of the year for the whole country-side, the day of Annagassan Races. Well, we remembered it soon enough--too soon--after Aline had gone; and at first we had no wilder idea than to ensconce ourselves in the ivy of the old abbey gable and watch the country people walking and driving by. "There'll be no one left in the village," said Donald; "even the babies are going." "Barney M'Gee will be left," said Hugh, "for he told me yesterday he was took with the rheumatiz fearful. 'Yez wouldn't be after wantin' the little mare an' the side-car,' said he, 'for if yez would, yez'll be kindly welcome?'" "I say," I cried out on the impulse of the moment, "why shouldn't we take Barney's offer, and see the races?" The boys stood up and jumped over the backs of their chairs to express their enthusiastic approval of the suggestion. Only Esther timidly asked what Aline would say. "Say!" I responded disingenuously. "Why, what would she say? She never said we weren't to go." "Let us ask Oona to give us our lunch to take with us," said one of the boys. "If you do," said I, "Oona will smell a rat and spoil everything. I have threepence, and we can buy some gingerbread. Mind, the twins aren't to know, or they will tell Oona." "Or they will make us take them. They're horrid cheeky little things," said twelve-year-old Donald, "and it would be ridiculous to be seen with a pair of kids like them." We got off without Oona suspecting us, and made for the village. So far as sounds of humanity were concerned, it was silent as the grave, the place being given over to cocks and hens, and goats, and pigs, and cats, and ducks, and turkeys,--except that old Barney sat on his door-step wearing an expectant look.