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then a big June-bug thudded against the window. The water in the Field of the Pool glimmered mysteriously. Away up on the hill the moonlight glinting on one of the windows of the Long Lonely House gave it a strange, momentary appearance of being lighted up. Pat had a thrill. A tree-top behind the house looked like a witch crouched on its roof, just alighted from her broomstick. Pat’s flesh crawled deliciously. Maybe there really were witches. Maybe they flew on a broomstick over the harbor at nights. What a jolly way of getting about! Maybe they brought the babies. But no, no. They didn’t want anything at Silver Bush that witches brought. Better the parsley bed than that. It was a lovely night for a baby to come. Was that a great white bird sailing over the trees? No, only a silvery cloud. Another June-bug…swoop went the wind around Uncle Tom’s apple house…tap-tap went the fir boughs…Pat was fast asleep in the big chair and there Sidney found her when he slipped cautiously in at dawn before anyone else at Swallowfield was up.
    â€œOh, Siddy!” Pat threw her arms about him and held him close to her in the chair. “Isn’t it funny…I’ve been here all night. The bed was so big and lonesome. Oh Sid, do you think Judy has found it yet?”
    â€œFound what?”
    â€œWhy…the baby.” Surely it was all right to tell Sid now. It was such a relief not to have a guilty secret from him any longer. “Judy went hunting for it in the parsley bed last night…for mother, you know.”
    Sid looked very wise…or as wise as a boy could look who had two big, round, funny brown eyes under fuzzy golden-brown curls. He was a year older than Pat… he had been to school… he knew just what that parsley bed yarn amounted to. But it was just as well for a girl like Pat to believe it.
    â€œLet’s go home and see,” he suggested.
    Pat got quickly into her clothes and they crept noiselessly downstairs and out of doors into a land pale in the morning twilight. The dew-wet earth was faintly fragrant. Pat had no memory of ever having been up before sunrise in her life. How lovely it was to be walking hand in hand with Sid along the Whispering Lane before the day had really begun!
    â€œI hope this new kid will be a girl,” said Sid. “Two boys are enough in a family but nobody cares how many girls there are. And I hope it’ll be good-looking.”
    For the first time in her life Pat felt a dreadful stab of jealousy. But she was loyal, too.
    â€œOf course it will. But you won’t like it better than me, will you…oh, please, Siddy?”
    â€œSilly! Of course I won’t like it better than you. I don’t expect to like it at all,” said Sid disdainfully.
    â€œOh, you must like it a little, because of mother. And oh, Sid, please promise that you’ll never like any girl better than me.”
    â€œSure I won’t.” Sid was very fond of Pat and didn’t care who knew it. At the gate he put his chubby arms about her and kissed her.
    â€œYou won’t every marry another girl, Sid?”
    â€œNot much. I’m going to be a bachelor like Uncle Tom. He says he likes a quiet life and I do, too.”
    â€œAnd we’ll always live at Silver Bush and I’ll keep house for you,” said Pat eagerly.
    â€œSure. Unless I go west; lots of boys do.”
    â€œOh!” A cold wind blew across Pat’s happiness. “Oh, you must never go west, Sid…you couldn’t leave Silver Bush. You couldn’t find any nice place.”
    â€œWell, we can’t all stay here, you know, when we grow up,” said Sid reasonably.
    â€œOh, why can’t we?” cried Pat, on the point of tears again. The lovely morning was spoiled for her.
    â€œOh, well, we’ll be here for years yet,” said Sid soothingly. “Come along. There’s Judy giving Friday and Monday their