“I wish I hadn’t found your ties. Finding them made a lot of trouble for me. I was looking for your funny little scissors to open the door of my doll-house that was stuck, and I saw the ties. Then I remembered that I needed a rope to tie Adolphus--that’s the woolly dog you bought for my birthday--to my bed at night; and neckties make very good ropes.” “I’m glad to hear it, Mischief.” “There’s a prayer they say in church about mischief--” she began sleepily. “‘From all evil and mischief; from sin; from the crafts and assaults of the Devil?’” I quoted. “That is it! and there’s something in it, too, about everlasting damnation, that always sends shivers down my back.” She frowned in a puzzled way. I remembered that once, when Jessamine and I went to church together, she had, during the reading of the litany, so moved a silk hat on the next seat that its owner crushed it hideously when he rose from his knees. The black lashes hid the blue eyes once more, and she settled her head snugly into her folded arms. “Why,” she murmured, “do you call me Mischief? I’m not Mischief; I’m Jessamine.” “You are the Spirit of Mischief,” I answered; and she made no reply. The water of the lake beat the shore stormily. “The Spirit of Mischief.” Jessamine repeated the words sleepily. I had never thought of them seriously before, and had applied them to her thoughtlessly. Is there, I asked myself, a whimsical spirit that possesses the heart of a child,--something that is too swift for the slow pace of adult minds; and if there be such, where is its abiding-place? “I’m the Spirit of Mischief!” There, with her back to the fire, stood Jessamine, but with a difference. Her fists were thrust deep down into the pockets of her coat. There was a smile on her face that I did not remember to have seen before. The wind had blown her hair into a sorry tangle, and it was my fault--I should have made her wear her tam-o’-shanter in the catboat! An uncle may mean well, but, after all, he is no fit substitute for a parent. “So you admit it, do you? It is unlike you to make concessions.” “You use long words. Uncles _always_ use long words. It is one of the most foolish things they do.” “I’m sorry. I wish very much not to be foolish or naughty.” “I have wished that many times,” she returned gravely. “But naughtiness and mischief are not the same thing.” “I believe that is so,” I answered. “But if you are really the Spirit of Mischief,--and far be it from me to doubt your word,--where is your abiding-place? Spirits must have abiding-places.” “There are many of them, and they are a long way off. One is where the four winds meet.” “But that--that isn’t telling. Nobody knows where that is.” “Everybody doesn’t,” said the Spirit of Mischief gently, as one who would deal forbearingly with dullness. “Tell me something easier,” I begged.