THE ORCHARD PARTY 41 
get me to sign that I won’t go trappin or shootin nothin, and 
spoiling my fun, and birds are only knuisances, except the kinds 
we can eat.” 
This note also went with the others, but by Friday 
morning the two children, who had heard nothing talked 
of for two days but the party, began to wish that they 
were going, Eliza especially, for her mother said that 
morning, ‘‘ You weren’t smart to refuse; you could have 
had a peep inside the General’s house, maybe, and I don’t 
believe she’d dassed said a word about birds on hats, 
with one of the company wearing ’em!”’ 
On Friday afternoon, when Miss Wilde asked the children 
to meet her at the hedge half a mile above the schoolhouse 
at ten o’clock the following morning, so that they might 
take a short cut across the fields, she noticed that Eliza 
and Dave hung behind the others, who as usual raced off 
in different directions toward home, and then Eliza, who 
was walking beside her, mumbled something about “‘ wish- 
ing she hadn’t refused and supposing that it was too 
late now,”’ etc. 
“Of course, it is not very polite to change one’s mind 
about an invitation,” said the teacher, ‘‘but Gray Lady 
wrote me last night that if you and Dave should feel 
differently about wishing to come, I might bring you, 
but that after to-morrow it would be too late.” 
At ten o’clock this bright September morning Gray 
Lady came out on the porch of the big white house, with 
the row of columns in front, that was known the country- 
side over as ‘“‘the General’s.”” There was a wide lawn 
in front of the house and on either side, arched by old elms, 
the leaves of which were now turning yellow, but there had 
