The Story Girl lifted her golden-hued flagon to her red lips. Her
hazel eyes laughed at us over the brim.

"Here's to our futures," she cried, "I wish that every day of our
lives may be better than the one that went before."

"An extravagant wish--a very wish of youth," commented Uncle
Blair, "and yet in spite of its extravagance, a wish that will
come true if you are true to yourselves. In that case, every day
WILL be better than all that went before--but there will be many
days, dear lad and lass, when you will not believe it."

We did not understand him, but we knew Uncle Blair never explained
his meaning. When asked it he was wont to answer with a smile,
"Some day you'll grow to it. Wait for that." So we addressed
ourselves to follow the brook that stole away from the spring in
its windings and doublings and tricky surprises.

"A brook," quoth Uncle Blair, "is the most changeful, bewitching,
lovable thing in the world. It is never in the same mind or mood
two minutes. Here it is sighing and murmuring as if its heart
were broken. But listen--yonder by the birches it is laughing as
if it were enjoying some capital joke all by itself."

It was indeed a changeful brook; here it would make a pool, dark
and brooding and still, where we bent to look at our mirrored
faces; then it grew communicative and gossiped shallowly over a
broken pebble bed where there was a diamond dance of sunbeams and
no troutling or minnow could glide through without being seen.
Sometimes its banks were high and steep, hung with slender ashes