"I wonder which of you will have my room with the blue parrots on the wall-paper. Oh, I'm homesick to go back. Yet, isn't it strange, when I was there I used to long so for America, that many a time I climbed up in the pear-tree at the end of the garden for a good cry. Don't forget to swing up into that pear-tree. There's a fine view from the top.
"When you see Jules, ask him to show you the goats that chewed up the cushions of the pony cart, the day we had our Thanksgiving barbecue in the garden. I fairly ache to be with you. Please write me a good long letter and tell me what you are doing; and whenever you hear the nightingales in Madame's garden, and the cathedral bells tolling out across the Loire, think of your loving JOYCE."
"Let's do those things to-morrow," exclaimed Lloyd, as she folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. "I don't want to waste time on any old châteaux with the Gate of the Giant Scissors just across the river, that we haven't seen yet."
"I have heard about that gate ever since we left America," said Mr. Forbes, laughingly. "Nobody has taken the trouble to inform me why it is so important, or why it was selected for a meeting-place. Somebody owes me an explanation."
"It's only an old gate with a mammoth pair of scissors swung on a medallion above it," said Mr. Sherman. "They were put there by a half-crazy old man who built the place, by the name of Ciseaux. Joyce Ware spent a winter in sight of it, and she came back with some wonderful tale about the scissors being the property of a prince who went around doing all sorts of impossible things with them. I believe the girls have actually come to think that the scissors are enchanted."
"Oh, Papa Jack, stop teasin'!" said the Little Colonel. "You know we don't!"
"If it is really settled that we are to go there to-morrow, I want to hear the story," said Cousin Carl. "I make a practice of reading the history of a place before I visit it, so I'll have to know the story of the gate in order to take a proper interest in it."
"Come into the parlour," said Mrs. Sherman rising. "Betty will tell us."
As she turned, she saw Fidelia looking after the girls with wistful eyes, and she read the longing and loneliness in her face.
"Wouldn't you like to come too, and hear the fairy tale with us?" she asked, kindly holding out her hand.