If the securing of the coveted school, the assurance of the good will

and support of the patrons and directors, and the love of the dear home

folks was a combination of blessings ample enough to bring perfect

happiness, then Amanda Reist should have been in that state during the

long summer months of her vacation. But, after the perverseness of

human nature, there was one thing lacking, only one--her knight, Martin

Landis.

During the long, bright summer days Amanda worked on the farm, helped

Millie faithfully, but she was never so busily occupied with manual

labor that she did not take time now and then to sit idly under some

tree and dream, adding new and wonderful turrets to her golden castles

in Spain.

She remembered with a whimsical, wistful smile the pathetic Romance of

the Swan's Nest and the musing of Little Ellie-"I will have a lover,

Riding on a steed of steeds;

He shall love me without guile,

And to him I will discover

The swan's nest among the reeds.

"And the steed shall be red-roan,

And the lover shall be noble"-and so on, into a rhapsody of the valor of her lover, such as only a

romantic child could picture. But, alas! As the dream comes to the

grand climax and Little Ellie, "Her smile not yet ended," goes to see

what more eggs were with the two in the swan's nest, she finds, "Lo, the wild swan had deserted,

And a rat had gnawed the reeds!"

Was it usually like that? Amanda wondered. Were reality and dreams

never coincident? Was the romance of youth just a pretty bubble whose

rainbow tints would soon be pierced and vanish into vapor? Castles in

Spain--were they so ethereal that never by any chance could they--at

least some semblance to them--be duplicated in reality?

"I'll hold on to my castles in Spain!" she cried to her heart. "I'll

keep on hoping, I won't let go," she said, as though, like Jacob of

old, she were wrestling for a blessing.

Many afternoons she brought her sewing to the front porch and sat there

as Martin passed by on his way home from the day's work at Lancaster.

His cordial, "Hello" was friendly enough but it afforded scant joy to

the girl who knew that all his leisure hours were spent with the

attractive Isabel Souders.

Martin was friendly enough, but that was handing her a stone when she

wanted bread.

One June morning she was working in the yard as he went by on his way

to the bank. A great bunch of his mother's pink spice roses was in his

arm. He was earlier, too, than usual. Probably he was taking the

flowers to Isabel.

"Hello," he called to the girl. "You're almost a stranger, Amanda."




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