Slowly the banners of the sunset city gave up their crimson and gold ; slowly the conqueror 's pageant faded out . Twilight crept over the valley and the little group grew silent . Walter had been reading again that day in his beloved book of myths and he remembered how he had once fancied the Pied Piper coming down the valley on an evening just like this . He began to speak dreamily , partly because he wanted to thrill his companions a little , partly because something apart from him seemed to be speaking through his lips . `` The Piper is coming nearer , '' he said , `` he is nearer than he was that evening I saw him before . His long , shadowy cloak is blowing around him . He pipes -- he pipes -- and we must follow -- Jem and Carl and Jerry and I -- round and round the world . Listen -- listen -- ca n't you hear his wild music ? '' The girls shivered . `` You know you 're only pretending , '' protested Mary Vance , `` and I wish you would n't . You make it too real . I hate that old Piper of yours . '' But Jem sprang up with a gay laugh . He stood up on a little hillock , tall and splendid , with his open brow and his fearless eyes . There were thousands like him all over the land of the maple . `` Let the Piper come and welcome , '' he cried , waving his hand . `` I 'LL follow him gladly round and round the world . '' CHAPTER I GLEN `` NOTES '' AND OTHER MATTERS It was a warm , golden-cloudy , lovable afternoon . In the big living-room at Ingleside Susan Baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction hovering about her like an aura ; it was four o'clock and Susan , who had been working incessantly since six that morning , felt that she had fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip . Susan just then was perfectly happy ; everything had gone almost uncannily well in the kitchen that day .
Dr. Jekyll had not been Mr. Hyde and so had not grated on her nerves ; XXXXX where she sat she could see the pride of her heart -- the bed of peonies of her own planting and culture , blooming as no other peony plot in Glen St. Mary ever did or could bloom , with peonies crimson , peonies silvery pink , peonies white as drifts of winter snow .
In about around at from nearer over since that to