replied Polly, "but—oh, daddy, I forgot all about it, didn't we have an engagement some time about now, at home?"

"No," he returned so positively that his daughter, [25]though at first a little puzzled, seemed quite satisfied. "It is quite all right for us to stay here."

[25]

He chuckled for a moment, as though over some private joke of his own, then at last laid down his pipe and crossed his legs. Oliver leaned back against the wall and Polly curled up on the bench by the fireplace.

"Are you both quite comfortable?" the Beeman inquired. "Very well, then I'll begin."

 

 

 

 

[26]

[26]

 

CHAPTER IIToC

ToC

THE SEVEN BROTHERS OF THE SUN

 

Nashola did not live in fairyland, although there were seasons when his country was so beautiful that it might well have belonged to some such enchanted place. He did not know whether he loved it best when the thickets were all in bloom with pink crab apple and the brown, wintry hills had put on their first spring green, or when every valley was scarlet and golden with frost-touched maple trees in the autumn. But to-day it was neither, being hot midsummer, with the wild grass thick and soft on the slope of the hill that he was climbing, and with the heavy foliage of 

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