I felt exactly the same but , in view of Sara Ray 's tears , admit it I would not ; so I sat in grum silence while the other tongues wagged . `` If I were not going away myself I 'd feel just terrible , '' said the Story Girl . `` Even as it is I 'm real sorry . I 'd like to be able to think of you as all here together when I 'm gone , having good times and writing me about them . '' `` It 'll be awfully dull when you fellows go , '' muttered Dan . `` I 'm sure I do n't know what we 're ever going to do here this winter , '' said Felicity , with the calmness of despair . `` Thank goodness there are no more fathers to come back , '' breathed Cecily with a vicious earnestness that made us all laugh , even in the midst of our dismay . We worked very half-heartedly the rest of the day , and it was not until we assembled in the orchard in the evening that our spirits recovered something like their wonted level . It was clear and slightly frosty ; the sun had declined behind a birch on a distant hill and it seemed a tree with a blazing heart of fire . The great golden willow at the lane gate was laughter-shaken in the wind of evening . Even amid all the changes of our shifting world we could not be hopelessly low-spirited -- except Sara Ray , who was often so , and Peter , who was rarely so . But Peter had been sorely vexed in spirit for several days . The time was approaching for the October issue of Our Magazine and he had no genuine fiction ready for it . He had taken so much to heart Felicity 's taunt that his stories were all true that he had determined to have a really-truly false one in the next number . But the difficulty was to get anyone to write it . He had asked the Story Girl to do it , but she refused ; then he appealed to me and I shirked . Finally Peter determined to write a story himself . `` It ought n't to be any harder than writing a poem and I managed that , '' he said dolefully . He worked at it in the evenings in the granary loft , and the rest of us forebore to question him concerning it , because he evidently disliked talking about his literary efforts . But this evening I had to ask him if he would soon have it ready , as I wanted to make up the paper .
`` It 's done , '' said XXXXX , with an air of gloomy triumph .
Cecily Dan Peter Ray days evening evenings fire grum laughter-shaken