Two Lirrite Pinerims’ ProGress 31

pursued them with wild adventure; but perhaps the
most satisfactory thing was to invent ways to spend
it when it had grown to enormous proportions.
Sometimes they bought a house in New York, and
lived there together; sometimes they travelled in
foreign lands with it; sometimes they bought land
which increased in value to such an extent that they
were millionaires in a month. Ah, it was a Treasure
indeed !

After the little, low, overstrained laugh, Meg folded
her arms on the straw, and hid her face in them.
Robin looked at her with a troubled air for about a
minute. Then he spoke to her.

“Tt’s no use doing that,” he said.

“It’s no use doing anything,” Meg answered, her
voice muffled in her arms. “I don’t want to do this
any more than you do. We're so lonely.”

“Yes, were lonely,” said Robin. “That’s a fact.”
And he stared up at the dark rafters above him, and
at some birds who were clinging to them and twitter-
ing about a nest.

“T said I wished there was a City Beautiful,” Meg
said; “but it seems to make it worse—that there ig
going to be something like it—so near—and then
that we should never get any nearer to it than two

hundred miles,”