Jewel watched the speaker seriously. Mr. Evringham met her thoughtful eyes.
"Oh, they'll want you, Jewel. Don't you be afraid."
"I'm not afraid. How could I be? But I was just wondering whether you didn't know that you'll have to do your own work, grandpa."
He looked up quickly and met Julia's shining eyes.
"Dear me," he responded, with an uncomfortable laugh. "Don't I get out of it?"
The next morning when Jewel had driven back from the station, and she and her mother had studied the day's lesson, they returned to the ravine, taking the Story Book with them.
Before settling themselves to read, they counted the new wild flowers that had unfolded, and Jewel sprinkled them and the ferns, from the brook.
"Did you ever see anybody look so pretty as Anna Belle does, in that necklace?" exclaimed Jewel, fondly regarding her child, enthroned against the snowy trunk of a little birch-tree. "It isn't going to be your turn to choose the story this morning, dearie. Here, I'll give you a daisy to play with."
"Wait, Jewel, I think Anna Belle would rather see it growing until we go, don't you?"
"Would you, dearie? Yes, she says she would; but when we go, we'll take the sweet little thing and let it have the fun of seeing grandpa's house and what we're all doing."