"Four posts upon my bed, Four corners overhead; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bless the bed I _lay_ upon. Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark, Grant my wish and keep it dark." These rhymes had been chanted with great solemnity, and Timothy sat by the open window in the sweet darkness of the summer night, wishing that he and Gay might stay forever in this sheltered spot. "I'll make a sign of my very own," he thought. "I'll get Gay's ankle-tie, and put it on the window-sill, with the toe pointing out. Then I'll wish that if we are going to stay at the White Farm, the angels will turn it around, 'toe in' to the room, for a sign to me; and if we've got to go, I'll wish they may leave it the other way; and, oh dear, but I'm glad it's so little and easy to move; and then I'll say Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, four times over, without stopping, as Jabe told me to, and then see how it turns out in the morning." ... But the incantation was more soothing than the breath of Miss Vilda's scarlet poppies, and before the magical verse had fallen upon the drowsy air for the third time, Timothy was fast asleep, with a smile of hope on his parted lips. There was a sweet summer shower in the night. The soft breezes, fresh from shaded dells and nooks of fern, fragrant with the odor of pine and vine and wet wood-violets, blew over the thirsty meadows and golden stubble-fields, and brought an hour of gentle rain. It sounded a merry tintinnabulation on Samantha's milk-pans, wafted the scent of dripping honeysuckle into the farmhouse windows, and drenched the night-caps in which prudent farmers had dressed their haycocks. Next morning, the green world stood on tiptoe to welcome the victorious sun, and every little leaf shone as a child's eyes might shine at the remembrance of a joy just past. A meadow lark perched on a swaying apple-branch above Martha's grave, and poured out his soul in grateful melody; and Timothy, wakened by Nature's sweet good-morning, leaped from the too fond embrace of Miss Vilda's feather-bed.... And lo, a miracle!... The woodbine clung close to the wall beneath his window. It was tipped with strong young shoots reaching out their innocent hands to cling to any support that offered; and one baby tendril that seemed to have grown in a single night, so delicate it was, had somehow been blown by the sweet night wind from its drooping place on the parent vine, and, falling on the window-sill, had curled lovingly round Gay's fairy shoe, and held it fast! SCENE XI. _The Honeysuckle Porch._ MISS VILDA DECIDES THAT TWO IS ONE TOO MANY, AND TIMOTHY BREAKS A HUMMINGBIRD'S EGG.