"Do I try to make it 'two and two'?"

"You seem to."

"And you don't want me to?"

"No."

"If I happen to see you alone in the garden, must I go and get your Uncle Tim or my mother?"

"Not if you'll talk sense."

"I don't talk sense?"

Sally did not answer this question, so he repeated it, in the form of an accepted statement: "So I don't talk sense."

This certainly called loudly for an explanation, and Sally made it—in a way. "I think you know what I mean."

"I know what I mean, but I didn't know it deserved that name."

"It's only—" Sally hesitated, then she went through with it, speaking hurriedly: "I don't want you to bother about me—doing things for me—except as you do them for us all. You—you—are getting—"

"Well, what am I getting? Out with it!"

"To seem—not like my old friend Jarvis Burnside. And—I'd rather have him back."

It was certainly out now. Jarvis drove on up the hill steadily, without any further questioning. It was precisely like Sally thus bravely to have shown him where he stood. It was a position clearly defined; he had stood on it so long that he ought surely to be able easily to go back to it. But he had driven to the top of the hill and on for two miles down the road, had taken the turn to the left and pursued that road for another mile, so that he was nearly at his destination, before he spoke. When at last he did speak it was only to say, very quietly and cheerfully—at least, so it sounded:

"All right, Sally."

Then he turned in at an open gate, and in less than five minutes, with the hay-fork and tackle and ropes at their feet, he was turning out again.

The drive back was rather a silent one. Jarvis spoke often, and Sally replied, but it was about things to be seen along the wayside, or of the plans for the day. The trip was made rather faster than it had been done in coming, and the pace was excuse enough for there being no prolonged conversation on any subject. Jarvis was now an expert driver and by no means an over-cautious one, though he took no risks that he would have called by that name, when he was not alone. More than once his passenger held her breath, but realized afterward that she had been in no real danger. Then they were at home, and Sally was saying, "Thank you very much," as she jumped out, quite as if she had eagerly requested to be taken.

"You are entirely welcome," was his response, in such an odd tone that she looked round at him. He was smiling, but not at her—at the driveway before him, and she could not help noting that he did not appear to be at all crushed by anything that had occurred that morning. It struck her that he had never seemed a stronger or more attractive figure than he looked at this moment, sitting at the wheel with the bright July sunlight touching his brown cheek and clean-cut profile; his head, with its heavy crop of dark hair, bare and breeze-tossed; his powerful engine throbbing before him. Suddenly she wanted to say: "You don't mind, do you?" with a queer little feeling that he didn't mind quite enough! But the car was already off, and she went on into the house with a sense of not feeling quite so relieved as might have been expected at having brought about something she had been wishing for some time to accomplish, but hadn't known just how.

But she had no time left in which to do any thinking about her own affairs. As was easily to be discerned by the distant shoutings, Ferry's city guests had arrived, and had taken possession of the hayfield. From the kitchen window they could be seen, swarming about with rakes and pitchforks, like so many black spiders. There were many more of them than could possibly be used to any advantage, it seemed; but as about half of the distant figures appeared to be standing on their heads it might be taken for granted that employment of some sort could be had for everybody.

At noon the four girls captured Jake and his horses, filled the bottom of the hay-wagon with baskets and pails, and were borne up to the fields, where they were hailed with cheers. Under a tall elm, at one side of the scene of operations, they spread the lunch, and a motley crowd was presently encamped around it. Their entertainers thought they had never seen a happier lot of youngsters. They were of all sorts and sizes, but in one point they were alike: their ignorance of the country and their delight in this interesting and novel experience. They were very plainly all devoted friends of the young man who had brought them there, as could be seen in their every look at him.

"How long have you known Mr. Ferry?" Josephine asked of one slim, tall lad, with black hair drooping over a pair of sharp black eyes, his pale face full of animation.

"Oh, ever since he come down our street one day an' axed me 'bout a feller I knowed that jes' come back from the horspital. Chap got run over—Mr. Ferry was feared he wouldn't have no home to stay in when he got out o' horspital. No more he didn't—till then. After that day, he did, all right."

Josephine glanced toward the subject of these remarks and then back at the lad, who nodded. "Bet yer life 'twas him fixed it," he declared. "There don't no kid go without some kind of a home, if he can fix things for 'em."

"You boys must think a good deal of him," suggested Josephine.

The boy's lips answered only "You bet!" But his face instantly became eloquent.

After lunch the first load of hay was pitched upon the wagon, Jarvis, Jake, and Ferry wielding the pitchforks, Sally driving, and a big boy at the bridle of the colt that had run away during the ploughing season and so could not be trusted entirely to Sally, although she begged to be allowed to manage him without help. He was not exactly a colt, after all, being four years old, but he was new in the traces of the work-horse and Jake kept an eye on him.

"You fellers pitch pretty well fer green hands," acknowledged Jake, when the load was nearly on. He was on the wagon with Sally, placing the forkfuls as they were pitched on. "Expected to see one or 'tother of you git winded and go set down under the ellum. 'Bout the third load'll git you, though, I calc'late."

The two contestants exchanged laughing glances under the forkfuls at the moment lifted above their heads. "This fellow's a Hercules for muscle," said Jarvis to Jake, "but I've discovered several places in my anatomy not so well developed as they might be. I'm going to get after them right away and train them up to the standard. Great Caesar, but it's a hot day!"

He stood up and wiped his perspiring brow.

"I think it's deliciously cool," remarked Sally from the top of the load.

"It's perfectly comfortable here," called Janet, from the fence near by, where the other three girls were perched.

Jake grinned. He had been grinning more or less all day. This "haying it" with a field full of boys and young ladies was a new and interesting experience for Mr. Kelly.

At this moment a diversion arose. Two of the guests, disputing for the possession of a pitchfork, both naturally preferring it to a rake for bunching up from the winrows—being raked by Bob with a horse-rake—had decided to settle the matter, street fashion, with their fists. They were pretty evenly matched and a rough-and-tumble fight ensued. Ferry stopped to watch the bout and see that fair play was enforced. Everybody else stopped work also, and stood looking that way. Jake Kelly, perhaps the most interested spectator in the field, slid down from the load and strolled toward the affair, still grinning. Jarvis, with the precaution of a glance around at the wagon, on the top of which perched Sally, took a few steps in the same direction. It was hot, and he was glad of a moment's respite from his labours. He did not see that the lad at the bridle of the "colt" had relaxed his hold.

Suddenly one of the lads in the affair of the pitchfork got in a bit of unfair work—unfair according to the standards Ferry had introduced among these young friends of his. A protesting yell from at least a dozen throats instantly called the fighters' attention to this fact, and Ferry himself called out, "No fouls, Bates!"

At the yells the "colt" plunged, carrying his mate with him. Sally, though unprepared, hung on gallantly to the lines, trying hard to pull the pair to a standstill. The ground was uneven, and not free from an occasional stone. The wagon had not gone its own length before a shriek from the girls on the fence had brought Jarvis, Jake, and Ferry to the right-about, and all three rushed for the horses' heads. But they were too late to prevent the accident which is always liable to happen in a hayfield, particularly when the driver is a novice. The right front wheel swerved into a hollow, the wagon tipped, the "colt" plunged again. Sally slipped, and tried to throw herself down in safety upon the top of the load, but it slid with her, and in an instant the spectators and the three dashing to the rescue saw the whole load go like a green mountain to the ground, covering Sally from sight.

Now a forkful of hay is light, but a load of the fragrant stuff is very heavy and very smothery, and it depends entirely upon where the victim lands under such an avalanche whether the matter is serious or otherwise. For a minute nobody could be sure just where the slender, blue-clad figure might be, for it made no outcry. The hearts of them all were in their throats for a minute, as the men tore at the hay with their hands, Jarvis thundering at the tall lad, who seized upon a pitchfork, "Don't touch it with that, you fool!"

He was blaming himself savagely as he worked for leaving the girl for an instant, under such conditions. Ferry was calling, "Don't be frightened, we'll have you out in a minute!" Jake was grunting, "Hope the little gal ain't far under—hope to mercy she ain't!" and Josephine, Janet, and Constance were trying to get a chance to help, though the most they could do was to keep clear of the desperately working arms of the men.

It was Jarvis who, with a hoarse ejaculation of thankfulness, came first upon a fold of the blue skirt. Sally had not been under the heaviest part of the load, and doubtless it was only the smother of the hay which kept her from calling out—if the fall itself had not hurt her. In a minute more they had her out, very red and choky, her eyes blinded with dust, her curls full of hay-seed; and she was lying on a soft mound of the fragrant stuff, the girls fanning her, Ferry bringing her lemonade from the pail, and Jarvis watching her with his heart in his eyes—only, fortunately, considering the conversation of the morning, her own eyes were too full of sticks to see.

"You're not hurt anywhere, dear?" one or other of the girls asked her, at close intervals, and Sally shook her head each time, until at length she was able to clear her throat enough to murmur: "Only my feelings, as Jake said. It was so—silly—of me!"

"It was much worse than silly—of us," vowed Donald Ferry, his fine, freckled face a deep Indian-red with heat and anxiety, his breath still a trifle laboured with the furious exertion of the rescue.

But in a very short time she was all right again, and sitting up on her hay throne, watching the wrecked load being pitched back upon the wagon.

The horses had not escaped, for a dozen boys had set after them, headed by the tall youth, and the boot-blacks and news-boys had proved themselves decidedly more efficient at stopping runaways than at making symmetrical hay-cocks.

"If you have any regard for my pride," said Sally suddenly, when the load was half replaced, "you'll let me drive down to the barn."

The three men stopped and looked at her.

"That's mighty plucky of you, Miss Sally," declared Donald Ferry, "but—if you have any regard for our feelings—" and he let an eloquent shake of the head finish his sentence for him.

Jarvis said nothing. But a certain peculiar set of his jaw, as he went on with his pitching, spoke volumes.

As for Jake Kelly—"Wall, I want to know!" said he. Then he laughed outright. "I calc'late, miss," said he, "ef you ride on that thar' load o' hay again to-day it'll be because them two's rendered incompetent o' action! An' they don't look to me much 'sif paralysis would set in yit awhile!"



CHAPTER XV

ON AN AUGUST EVENING

"Oh, dear—who's this coming?—just as we've settled down to accomplish something!"

"It's the Chases. Girls—we simply can't stop work to entertain them!"

"We don't need to stop—this sort of work."

They bent over their sewing—all but Sally, who with inward reluctance got to her feet as the Chases' big car rolled up the driveway and approached the porch, where the four girls were sitting, busy with some extremely important matters. But of course the work had to be put down for a little when Dorothy Chase actually set foot on the porch.

"Oh, what an energetic crowd!" she cried, "this hot August morning, too. Sally, where are your men? Neil wants to see some of them while I talk to you."

Sally pointed off into the distance. "Jarvis and Bob are hoeing potatoes over there in the field. There's a tree near by, and Neil can sit in the shade of that. You don't mind going, Neil? They're 'way behind with the potatoes."

Neil Chase bowed impressively to the group on the porch. "I should much prefer to stay here," said he gallantly, "but business reasons impel me to seek that inferno out yonder. What Jarve finds interesting in that sort of thing is beyond me."

He drove on by the house and over the grass behind, getting as near to the corn-field as possible, that he might have to walk only the least necessary distance. Meanwhile his wife sat down and inspected the quality of the work being done on the porch.

"Are you people sewing for an orphan asylum?" she inquired, after discovering that red and blue ginghams and white cotton cloth of a grade only moderately fine were the materials being used for certain small garments.

"Something like it. One of Mr. Ferry's poor families was burned out the other day—five children and an invalid mother."

"Of course—the mother's always an invalid, isn't she? I believe they make themselves invalids on purpose. Well—it makes no difference how important it is. Those children won't freeze in this weather, if you don't get these things all done to-night. And I'm in a perfectly awful difficulty. You all have simply got to help me out."

"What's the matter?" Josephine asked the question calmly, being used to Dorothy Chase's fashion of putting things. She threaded her needle as she spoke, as if she had every intention of continuing to work for as long a period as she had planned to do. The other girls resumed their sewing also. The cause of their being at work at all certainly was apology sufficient for going on with it, in spite of the visitor.

"Just listen—and nobody is to say a word till I'm through. It's no use raising objections—you're to do as I ask, if you care anything whatever about my friendship." She grasped the ends of the lavender-silk parasol lying on her lavender-linen lap, nodded her head violently, causing several lavender plumes to nutter agitatedly upon her lavender-straw hat, and plunged into her subject.

"I'm entertaining to-night for our new bishop—and he's a distant connection besides. I made it an evening affair, because it's so hot, and our new house opens up so beautifully. I planned to have some informal music—and at this last minute Herr Braun and Madame Hafsky have failed me. It was a misunderstanding about the date. It turns out they were engaged for to-day weeks ago by somebody very important—they won't give it up. I must have music—and everybody is out of town. Now what I want is to have you four go back with me to luncheon, help me about the decorations and things this afternoon, and then have Miss Carew sing and Miss Ferry play for us in the evening. Neil will come back for the men for the evening. You know I didn't ask you in the beginning only because I knew you didn't want to be invited. But now—you must come!"

It was precisely like Dorothy Chase. That was all that could be said. Nobody said it, but Sally and Josephine thought it, and Janet and Constance told themselves, as they sewed on, that the young matron who made this decidedly startling proposition must be accustomed to having things her own way, or she would not have acquired so confident a manner of making her demands.

Sally was the first to give voice to her astonishment. "Well, Dorothy," said she, "you certainly take us off our feet. Here are we, just settled down to work that absolutely must be done, and in you walk and ask us to lay it down and go off to help entertain a bishop who's probably wishing you wouldn't do anything special at all for him this hot weather!"

"Nothing of the sort. He's heard all about Miss Carew's voice—people that met her last year in Leipsic."

Constance sat up. "Who, please?"

"The Markhams—and the Carrolls. Now will you be good?"

Constance leaned back again, applying herself to her sewing.

"I don't remember anybody of that name," mused Janet, looking at Constance.

"Yes, you do—friends of Mrs. Sears—just stopping over a day?"

The two pairs of eyes met. There must have been something in Constance's—invisible to other beholders—which recalled some incident or other to Janet, for after staring a minute she suddenly dropped her eyes, said, "Oh, yes—" and sewed away faster than ever.

"Will you come?" demanded Dorothy Chase.

They tried to get out of it—they pointed out various reasons why it would be difficult for them to come away. Dorothy overrode all their objections, and became so persistent that at last the four agreed, but refused to go until evening. As for the young men of the household, it would be of no use to ask them.

"Send out for us just in time for your affair, and we'll come," promised Sally. "But what you want of Jo and me I don't see. We can't perform for you in any way."

"Oh, but you can help make things go. Sally can talk to the bishop—"

"I can't," cried Sally, dismayed.

"And Jo can be nice to Mrs. bishop. I don't see why your men won't come. It's so hard to get men for anything except sports in summer. How perfectly absurd it is for Jarvis Burnside to prefer hoeing potatoes in this frightful sun to playing society man for an hour or two in the evening!"

"It's truly incomprehensible, but so it is. Besides, he looks like an Indian, and in his evening clothes would resemble a fiend. Be satisfied, Dorothy, now you have us for victims, and let the men stay at home." And Sally slashed a seam open with shears that clipped like her speech.

But Mrs. Chase was not satisfied, and berated Jarvis roundly, when, presently he came walking up to the porch with Neil, looking the picture of well-browned contentment. He took her displeasure lightly enough, and presently had her laughing in spite of herself.

"Well, I know all about it now," Neil Chase informed the company, as he got into his car. "We ploughed seven acres and sowed it to buckwheat, turned the buckwheat under and have now planted the ground to potatoes. In the end there are to be strawberries on the seven acres—or a good share of it—and Burnside, Lane & Co. are to become the most successful strawberry culturists in this part of the country."

"Right you are," agreed Jarvis placidly, sitting down on the edge of the porch and poking about in Janet Ferry's work-bag until he found a thimble, which he placed on the only finger it would fit, the smallest one on his right hand. He had washed the hands before he came to the porch, but they were so brown that the little gold thimble looked most absurd in its new position.

"If I sew for you for an hour, Miss Janet," he proposed, as the car bolted away down the drive, "will you come and hoe potatoes for me until lunch time?"

"I would gladly hoe potatoes all day if I could be let off from going to play for Mrs. Chase's friends this evening." The fierce energy with which Janet pulled out a row of bastings gave emphasis to her words.

Jarvis looked at his sister. "How did you manage not to let me in for this affair, Sis?"

"I knew you wouldn't go, and Janet knew her brother wouldn't. Sally said Max would be too used up. Happy boys—we saved you from it at the price of going ourselves."

"Self-sacrificing girls! We'll have to make it up to you somehow. When I see Ferry I'll—Hold on, I've an idea. How are you coming home?"

"In Neil's car—as we go."

"We'll see that you come in a better way. Be good little girls, do your stunts, keep up your courage, and we'll rescue you promptly at eleven o'clock," and putting down the thimble Jarvis went away, deaf to entreaties to tell what his interesting plan might be.

"Oh, dear, isn't it horrid?" demanded Sally that evening, running into Josephine's room in the course of her dressing to have certain unreachable hooks and eyes fastened. "After sewing all day we deserve something better than one of the Chases' fussy affairs."

"Stop fuming and stand still. Anybody who looks as pretty as you do in this white swiss—"

"Poor old white swiss—the same one. I wish Dorothy could forget the pattern of it. She'll undoubtedly mention that I wore it at her wedding,—she does, every time."

"Don't you care a bit. Those touches of blue make it seem perfectly fresh to me, and I've seen it much oftener than Dorothy Chase has."

"You're a comfort. You look like a dream yourself, in that peach-coloured thing."

"A midsummer day's dream, then—with my gypsy skin. Oh, there's Neil and his car."

"A nice lot you are," Neil Chase was exclaiming outside, as he drove up to the porch and eyed the male figures occupying its comfortable recesses. Max reposed in a hammock; Mr. Timothy Rudd swayed to and fro in a rocker, reading the evening paper by the sunset light; Alec and Bob, sitting on the steps, were playing a game of some sort; and Jarvis lay stretched at full length on a rug, his arms beneath his head, luxuriously resting after his bath and change of work clothes for fresh flannels, enjoying the sense of virtue earned by having hoed many rows of potatoes with a vigorous arm.

"A nice lot," Neil went on. "We have it in for you particularly, Jarve. Max never was much of a society chap, but you once could be depended upon to do your duty like a man. Bob, run in and see if those girls are ready. Dorothy won't be easy till she sees them. One thing I know—you'll soon tire of this playing at farming. To be the real thing you fellows ought to work till the sun goes down, doing 'chores.' I'll wager a fiver you come in and get your bath every night before dinner, eh?"

"We certainly do," Jarvis laughed.

"And you don't sit down in your shirt-sleeves?"

"Well—hardly."

"You're not the real thing—never will be. Look at those girls!" He pulled off his straw hat as two figures appeared in the doorway. "Nice farmers' folks they are!"

"We're glad you think we're nice," responded Sally, gathering her white skirts about her. "Jo, be careful—don't get that peaches-and-cream frill against the running board."

Jarvis's reposeful posture had become an active one, and he took care that neither peach-coloured skirts nor white ones fluttered against anything on the outside of the car that might soil them.

"Here come Constance and Janet. Aren't they imposing society ladies now?" and Sally stood up to wave at the two coming through the hedge, accompanied by Janet's brother. Ferry had an eye upon the porch and meant to spend the evening consoling his friends for the absence of the usual feminine contingent.

"You exquisite person—may I venture to sit beside you?" whispered Sally, as Constance, in trailing pale gray with bands of violet velvet, a shimmering cloak of the same hues enveloping her like a mist, took the place beside her. "This is the singer, not my friend Constance. I'm—just—a little—afraid of you!"

"Nonsense!" Constance's warm hand caught Sally's beneath the cloak. "You know I don't like show singing—or anything that goes with it."

"Don't forget your promise—" Josephine called back, as the big car, with its rainbow-tinted load rolled away.

An answering shout from the porch, accompanied by the waving of several arms, conveyed assurance.

"What promise?" asked Janet, turning to the others. Being the smallest of the party she occupied one of the folding seats which enable a roomy tonneau to hold five people.

"The boys are coming after us—we don't know how. Doesn't that give you courage to face the evening?" murmured Josephine, and the expression on Janet's face became decidedly more hopeful.

"But how can they come? They've only your brother's car!" she said in Josephine's ear.

"Don't know, and don't care. They'll come—and rescue us from our fate."

They felt, during the following hours, that they needed the cheering prospect of a merry home-going, to enable them to bear the rigours of the form of entertainment offered them. It was not that the affair differed much from affairs of its sort, but the fact that it did not materially differ might have been what made it seem so tiresome. Possibly the effect of a summer of out-door, home merrymaking, under the least conventional of conditions, had been to make formal entertaining under a roof seem more than ordinarily fatiguing and pointless. The handsome rooms were hot, in spite of open windows; the guests quite evidently were making heroic efforts to seem gay. Somehow even Janet's brilliant music stirred only a perfunctory sort of applause.

"Never played so badly in my life," whispered the performer, when she regained Josephine's side, after her second number.

"You played perfectly, as you always do."

"I played like an automaton—a 'piano-player.' Don't pretend you don't know the difference."

"I understand, of course. But, you know, we shouldn't really like to have you play for the bishop and these people as you do for us on your own piano."

"The poor bishop! Doesn't he look like a martyr? I'm sure he's delightful—in his own library, or at his friends' dinner-tables—but he hates this sort of thing. He's beautifully polite, but he's bored. My only hope is that Con will revive him. It's her turn next."

If anything could revive a weary bishop, who had that day attended two funerals and a diocesan convention, it would be both the sight and the sound of Miss Constance Carew.

"Isn't she dear?" breathed Sally, in Josephine's ear, as Constance took her place, her slender, gray-clad figure and interest-stirring face a notable contrast to the personality of the professional singer who had opened the program of occasional numbers, interspersed through an evening of—so-called—conversation. Sally's hands were unconsciously clasped tight all through the song, and her eyes left the singer's face only long enough to observe that the bishop's tired eyes were also fixed upon the creator of all those wonderful, liquid notes, and to fancy that, for the moment, at least, he forgot how hot his neck was inside his close, clerical neckwear.

"That pays me for coming," was the reward Constance had from Sally, whose praise she had somehow come to value more highly than that of most people she knew. Sally might be no musician herself, but she was a most sympathetic listener, and could appreciate the points singers love to have appreciated, as few people can.

"That pays me!" Constance answered, drawing a long breath. "But, Sally, will it never end? It's nearly eleven, now."

"Thank heaven! I'd lost all count of time. The boys said they'd be here at eleven. But Dorothy is not to know they're within five miles of here. She'd never forgive them."

As she spoke a maid came to her elbow and handed her a note. Retiring to a secluded corner to read it, Sally returned with triumphant eyes. "We're to go down the lawn to a gate that opens on the other road. They're there. Now—to get away from Dorothy."

This proved difficult.

"Not let Neil take you back? Why not? How will you get back? But you're not going yet?"

"Both the girls have performed twice, with two encores. You don't expect any more of them this hot night? Your bishop is going to sleep; do let him off and send him to bed. Yes, we must go now. They've sent for us. Don't bother about how we're going to get back—Neil will be thankful not to have to take us."

Thus Sally. And when Dorothy persisted in exclamations and questions her guests fell into a little gusto of enthusiasm over the stately old house which Neil had bought after he had to give up the Maxwell Lane place, and diverted Dorothy's attention. Sally also praised everything she could honestly praise in relation to the affair of the evening—and not a thing she couldn't, for Sally was the most honest creature alive. Somehow at last she got her party away from their hostess, taking advantage of the bishop's approach to whisper hastily—"Here comes your guest of honour. Now do attend to him and forget us!"—and so had them all out a side door and off down the lawn out of range of the lighted windows. As they hurried along in their airy dresses, they were pulling off long, hot gloves, and saying, still under their breath, "Oh, isn't it good to get out?" They were laughing softly, and breathing deep breaths of the warm summer air, and looking up at the starlit sky.

"Now where is that gate?" They had reached the high fence at the back of the grounds.

"Here you are—this way," came back a low voice, and a doorway in the fence swung open. There was a rush of skirts, and the four were out in the road at the back of the suburban place, a country road on which stood, most appropriately, a long hay-wagon, cushioned with hay and rugs, drawn by a pair of farm horses, with Jake Kelly in command. Four other dark figures were grouped about the back end.

"You splendid things!"

"What a jolly idea!"

"Oh, what a delicious change from a hot music-room!"

"Here's Mother Burnside, tucked away in the corner. How good of you to come, you patient person!"

"Now tell us all about it," demanded Donald Ferry of Sally, next whom, at the end of the load, he sat. It may be noted that Jarvis had not been found, of late, at Sally's elbow. Without a suggestion of seeming avoidance on her part, or of umbrage on his, the two no longer fell to each other as a matter of course. Sally's plea had had the effect she wished for. Both Constance and Janet appeared to like Jarvis immensely, and Sally could not detect any failure on his part to enjoy their society. She told herself it was a very good thing that she had been so frank with him.

"All about it?" She was answering Ferry's question. "Why, I don't need to tell you. You know, without having been there, exactly how things went."

"More or less, probably. Was it very hot?"

"Stifling! How could it be anything else on an August night? Janet vows her fingers burned on the keys. But she played beautifully, of course, and the bishop had a little interval of being glad he was there. Poor man—I wonder if anything can be warmer than a clerical waistcoat."

"Nothing, except a clerical collar, I believe. Did Constance have a bad time of it, too? She doesn't like singing in hot rooms."

"She sang like an angel. The bishop opened his eyes and stared at her all through, and applauded so vigorously it must have made him several degrees warmer. But she deserved it."

"I don't doubt it. And what did you and Miss Josephine do?"

"Stood about and tried to look pleased and happy. My gloves felt like furs and a soapstone, and I couldn't think of anything intelligent to say to anybody."

Ferry laughed. "I wonder if anybody ever does say anything intelligent at such entertainments. Did Mr. Neil Chase himself rise to the occasion and play the genial host as he should?"

"I think he mostly spent the evening sitting on the porch rail at the farthest corner away from the drawing-room."

"The memory of the fellows lounging comfortably on your porch undoubtedly made his role seem the harder by contrast. I saw a longing look in his eye as he drove away, and had an idea he might be back. But I suppose he couldn't get out of it."

"No—their 'country home' isn't much like our 'country home.' Oh, isn't this air delicious? Do you suppose Constance would be willing to sing in it? Wouldn't it sound like a part of the summer night out here?"

They were bowling along the quiet country road, only the chirp of many locusts, the rumble of the wheels, and the sound of their own voices to break the stillness. Ferry leaned forward. Constance was at the farther end of the wagon, between Jarvis and Max.

"Constance!" he called softly. Sally thought she would not hear, but she did. Ferry's voice, even in its subdued tones, possessed that carrying quality which is the peculiar acquirement of the trained public speaker.

"Yes, Don," she called back, and everybody stopped talking. People had a way of stopping other talk to listen when either of these two had anything to say.

"Here's a person, at this end of the chariot, who wonders if people with drawing-room voices ever venture to test them in the open air."

"What do you think about it?"

"That one of them will, if we ask her. Therefore, we ask."

Constance considered an instant. "Will you and Janet sing 'My Garden' with me—especially for Sally?"

For answer Ferry tried for the proper key, found it—under his breath—and began, very softly, and on a low note, to sing. Janet joined him with a subdued contralto, and the two voices, without words, made themselves into a harmonious undertone of an accompaniment. Upon this support, presently, rose Constance's pure notes. It was no "show singing," this time, and the song did not lift above a gentle volume which seemed to fit, as Sally had anticipated, into the night. But the listeners gave themselves to the listening as they had never done before, even in the many times they had heard this girl. Even Jake Kelly, on his driver's seat, turned about to hearken with held breath. The farm-hand drew his horses down to a walk, that not a note might be marred.

"A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! Rose plot, Fringed pool, Ferned grot— The veriest school Of Peace, and yet the fool Contends that God is not— Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool? Nay, but I have a sign: 'Tis very sure God walks in mine."

The words[A] were familiar to some of them—the music new. Together words and music were something to remember.

[Footnote A: The words are those of Thomas Edward Brown.]

Certain of these phrases came in over and over, throughout the song—taking hold of one's heart most appealingly. "Not God—in gardens!—when the eve is cool?" came again and again, till one felt it indeed to be the word of the fool. Then, in exquisite harmony, fell the assurance—"Nay, but I have a sign—a sign—a sign—'Tis very sure God walks in mine!"

Everybody but Sally found words in which to tell, in some sort, how the song had seemed to them, even Alec observing boyishly, "I say, but that's great. I didn't know you folks could all sing."

After some minutes had gone by, Donald Ferry bent to speak in Sally's ear. She was looking off into the night, her hands clasped tight together in her lap. "I know," he said, very gently.

"You always know," she answered, under cover of the talk, which was now going on again. "Tell me,"—wistfully—"do you think—He—walks in mine?"

"I know it. He walks in every garden—when He is wanted there."



CHAPTER XVI

TIME-TABLES

"If ever I felt weepy over seeing people off, it's this minute!"

"We feel just as weepy over going, Sally Lunn. But cheer up. We shall come out every other minute, Jarvis and I, and mother will be planning all winter, I know, how early she can get back in the spring."

Josephine gave Sally a tremendous hug as she spoke, and Mrs. Burnside, in her turn, took the girl into her motherly embrace.

"I shouldn't have believed," she said warmly, "how reluctant I should be to go back to town in the fall, after this charming summer—nor how willing I should be to promise to return in the spring. Sally, dear—do make use of our rooms all you care to—though they're not half as cheery as your own, for the winter."

"It has been a lovely summer, hasn't it?" cried Sally, as the Burnside carriage, fine bay horses and liveried coachman, appeared upon the driveway, looking suggestively like city life again. "A successful one too, don't you think, for the boys? They're confident they have improved the ground so much that their first real crops, next year-will begin to show what crops ought to be."

"Yes, it has all been a success," agreed Mrs. Burnside, "in spite of the mistakes they own to and laugh over. Jarvis himself has received a world of good from his out-door life. I'm hoping that all your brothers will make the most of next season—especially Max."

"Oh, Max will come round in time," declared Josephine confidently. "I caught him feeling enviously of Jarvis's arms the other day. When Jarvis said he felt like a giant, Max said he thought he'd have to begin giant culture, whether he succeeded in making any squashes grow or not."

This thought cheered Sally through the trying moment of watching her friends drive away. Their going took place at rather an unfortunate time for her. Uncle Timothy was off on a visit to his old New Hampshire home; Constance Carew had departed the week before—though under promise to return for a long visit the following summer; and Janet was away for a wedding in which she was to play the part of bridesmaid. Sally's one consolation was that Joanna was to take the place of Mary Ann Flinders in the kitchen.

This arrangement had been made by Mrs. Burnside. On just what terms it had been effected Sally was not permitted to inquire. She had protested against it, but the argument had ended by the elder woman's saying gently, "Sally dear, I shall spend a happier winter if I know you have my good Joanna here. She likes the place, it is a pleasant change for her from the responsibilities of my entertaining, and her sister is eager to take her place with me. So let me have my way—at least for this winter." It was a way of putting the matter which could not be set aside.

When the carriage had disappeared, Sally wandered out to the kitchen to console herself with the sight of Joanna. There was no doubt that the presence of that capable, comfortable person, possessed as she was of intelligence and common sense, would be a real support to the young mistress of the house. But at this moment even Joanna failed her, for she had gone to her room, the hour being that of mid-afternoon. Sally wandered back again into the living-room, feeling too disconsolate even to make the effort to cheer herself by going for a brisk walk in the keen late October air, a measure which usually had a prompt effect upon her spirits.

From the living-room window she saw a messenger boy approaching, and hurried to the porch door to meet him, hoping he brought no ill news. Two minutes later she was reading the message, alone in the living-room, while the boy waited in the hall. Its purport banished all thought of present circumstances, except to bring the wish that it had arrived a half-hour earlier. "Mr. Rudd seriously ill anxious to have you come at once" it read, and was signed by the name of one of Mr. Rudd's old New Hampshire friends.

After a minute's deliberation, Sally wrote her reply "Will come at once. Leave to-night if possible," and sent the boy off with it. As he departed Jarvis came into the hall from the door at the rear. Sally turned with an exclamation of surprise and relief.

"Oh, I thought you had gone."

"Without saying good-by? You ought to know better. But I'd have been off when the others went if I hadn't had some unexpected magneto trouble. All right now, and I'm going at once. What's that?" as he caught sight of the yellow envelope in her hand. "No bad news, I hope?"

"Uncle Timmy's very sick—up in New Hampshire. I'm going to him as fast as I can get off."

"Uncle Timmy? Oh, I'm mighty sorry! You're going, you say?"

"Of course. He asked me to come. I was just going to telephone to find out about trains."

"I'll see to all that—if you must go. But, Sally—have you let Max know?"

"Not yet."

"Have you sent an answer saying you will come, on your own responsibility?"

Sally's slight figure drew itself up. "Why not? There's nothing else to do but go—and if there were, I wouldn't do it."

"It will take you at least twenty-four hours to get there."

"Yes. What has that to do with it?"

Jarvis's face looked as if he thought it had a good deal to do with it. He knew that, dress as quietly as she would—and Sally's dressing for the street meant always the plainest and simplest of attire—there was that about her which invariably attracted attention. He understood with just what a barrier of youthful reserve she would be likely to surround herself upon such a journey, but he understood also that barriers of reserve are not all the defences sometimes necessary for a girl who travels alone. For one moment he felt as if he must go along to take care of her, in the next that nothing could be more out of the question.

"I'm glad it's no farther, anyhow," he replied to Sally's quick question. "But hadn't you better let the boys know, before you go at your preparations? Max wouldn't be pleased at not being consulted, you know."

"Will you tell him, please? But first find out what train I must take, so you can be definite with him."

"But, Sally—really—shouldn't you ask old Maxy's consent?"

"Why?"

"Well—it's the diplomatic thing to do."

"I don't care one bit about diplomacy. Uncle Timmy's sick and wants me. I'm going up to get ready. You can telephone what you like." With something in her voice which sounded suspiciously like a sob, she ran away up the stairs.

Knitting his brows, Jarvis went into the west wing to the telephone, that instrument having been promptly installed upon the Burnside family's arrival for the summer. After considering a minute he called up a railway ticket-office and learned that the best through train Sally could take would leave at 5.30 that afternoon. His watch told him that it was then nearly half after three. There must be rapid work if Sally was to catch that train. Then he had Max on the wire. Statement, question, and answer now came back and forth in quick succession.

"What, start to-night?" Max's tone was incredulous.

"So she wants to do—with your permission. I suppose you'll give it. By the despatch we judge he's pretty ill."

"Well, but—look here. I must say that's asking a good deal for her to go off up there. Why not wire whoever sent the thing to keep us informed, and if he gets much worse—"

"Won't do, she's already answered she'll go."

"Well, of all the—see here—but we can't really afford—"

"I'll see to that—don't mention it." Jarvis's tone was curt. He was beginning to sympathize with Sally's reluctance to consult her elder brother. He wondered if Max would ever outgrow his habit of objecting to everything first and unwillingly taking it into consideration afterward.

"I'm awfully busy here—can't do a thing to get her off—can't get away from the bank before five."

"Don't try. Meet us at the train. I'll engage a berth for her—mustn't lose more time about it," and Jarvis hang-up his receiver without waiting to hear anything further. Then he had a wrestle with the Pullman ticket-office, in the attempt to secure a full sleeping-car section for Sally.

"Can't do it," came back the answer.

"Too full?"

"No, but we don't give a section to one passenger."

"Not if it's paid for?"

"Not on one ticket."

"On two tickets, then?"

"Why, of course, if you want to pay for two full-fare tickets."

Jarvis considered rapidly. If he secured the section on two tickets, Sally would be forced to show them both, so she couldn't be kept from knowing about it—unless he—yes, he could hunt up the Pullman conductor and give him one ticket. Wait—why not engage a state-room—if he could get it at this late hour?—though the train was a fast and popular one, and he knew this was doubtful. But a moment's reflection negatived this idea. Sally would certainly resent his taking the liberty of paying all the difference between one ordinary berth and a luxuriously private state-room. He realized, with a sense of irritation, that it was of no use. He could not send Sally up into New Hampshire packed in jewellers' cotton, marked "Fragile and Valuable," a registered package conveyed by special messenger. But he could make sure that nobody else shared the section either by night or day, and this he did, and double-tied his reservation until he could get to town to see about it personally.

Then he ran over to the Ferry cottage, thinking that Sally might be glad, in the absence of the girls, to have Mrs. Ferry come over and help her with her hurried preparations. But he found the place locked and silent, and understood that the mistress of it had probably gone into town for the day, as she frequently did. So he dashed back and upstairs to Joanna's room, where he routed her from her sewing with the request: "Go see if you can be mother, sister, and friend to Miss Sally, Joanna—there's an angel!" Which intimate form of address may be comprehended if it is added that Joanna had been in the Burnside family since Jarvis himself was a small lad in knickerbockers—and the good woman's especial pride—and that therefore a warm friendship existed between them.

Joanna made all haste to Sally's room, ready to do her best, but she found her charge already clad in travelling dress, pinning a veil about her hat, her gloves and purse laid out, and a bag packed with necessaries. The mind of the young mistress of the house was concerned less with her own preparations than with the comfort of those she was to leave behind.

"You'll take good care of them, won't you, Joanna?" begged Sally. "Give them the things they like best—all the time. And you'll see that the living-room looks the way I like to have it when they come home, won't you?—the fire blazing, and the couch pillows plumped up. And you know they like a nice lot of shiny red apples brought up to eat before they go to bed!"

"Yes, Miss Sally, I'll remember all the things. Don't you fret yourself. I can't take your place, but I'll see that the young gentlemen have their buttons sewed on, and plenty of good food. But I'm hoping you won't be gone long. Most likely you'll find your uncle better—I hope that, indeed I do, Miss Sally."

"Thank you, Joanna—indeed I do, too. And—Joanna—I'm so glad you're here. I don't think I could go away and leave my brothers with just little Mary Ann to look after them!"

Sally held the big hand tight a minute, looked into the plump, kind face with eyes which were suddenly like drenched violets—then dashed away the tears, smiled at Joanna, caught up her belongings, and ran downstairs, followed by the woman, who felt relieved when she saw Mr. Jarvis waiting in the hall below. It had suddenly seemed to Joanna as if she must go with the girl herself. It must not be supposed that Sally did not possess plenty of the air of capable independence. It was only that—well—the fair, curly hair, the dark-lashed blue eyes, the flower-like bloom of the young face, appealed to her, as they did to Jarvis, as needing protection from the eyes sure to follow her wherever she went. Looking up at her from below it also occurred to Jarvis that the plain and unrelieved dark blue of Sally's whole attire somehow served only to heighten the probable effect of her upon the observant public, and he longed fiercely himself to double the thickness of that veil and tie it tight about her head, requesting her not to untie it till she was safe in Uncle Timothy's presence!

But all he said was: "Ready? You're a quick one—wouldn't have thought any girl could make such time. This all your baggage? Come on—the car's at the door."

Outside he spoke hurriedly: "Sally, you haven't given me a chance to ask you about funds for this trip. One can't always lay one's hand on just the amount—and Max is busy, so—"

But Sally answered with assurance. "It's all right, thank you, Jarvis. I've a little fund of my own. There isn't any need to bother Max. I'm so glad of that. How lucky for me you hadn't gone with the car! I should have been so flurried, trying to catch the trolley with my bag and umbrella."

She took her place and in a minute they were off. And there had been nobody but Joanna on the big porch to wave good-by at Sally Lane!

Then came a fast drive to town, during which neither of them talked much.

"I wish there were time to take you up to the house to see mother and Jo," Jarvis said, as they came into the down-town streets. "But Jo may be at the station. I telephoned the house, but they'd evidently driven somewhere else before going home. I left word, so I'm hoping Jo will get it. She'll be heart-broken if you get off without her seeing you."

But Josephine was not at the station. Alec and Bob were there, however, and they told Sally that Max would come in time to see her off. Personally they were much upset at the outlook.

"I don't see why you have to be the one," protested Alec. "Uncle Timothy must have some ancient sister or cousin or aunt to see to him, without sending for a girl like you."

Jarvis had rushed away to the ticket-office, and Sally had her brothers to herself for the time. She made the most of it.

"But he hasn't, Alec," she explained. "I simply have to go. But I want you boys not to mind my being away. Joanna will take beautiful care of everything, and you must have your friends out, and crack nuts and pop corn and roast apples in the evenings, and be just as jolly as if—"

"Oh, wow!" cried Bob. "Sally, what do you take us for? What we'll do will be to moon around the fire and wonder what you're doing. We—"

"No, no! It will be winter soon, and you must go tobogganing—"

"Why, you aren't going to stay away all winter, are you?" Alec grew wrathful. "Look here—I won't stand for anything like that—neither will the rest. You've got to—"

"Listen, dear. I may be back in a—well—in a very short time, if Uncle Timothy gets on. But you know how it was a few years ago when he had pneumonia—he was a long time getting about. He's older now, and—"

"Yes, but we've first right to you. Besides, you'll use yourself all up trying to nurse—"

"No—I'm strong and well, Alec—I won't use myself up. But Uncle Timmy is all we have left—and—oh, please don't talk about it!—I'm so anxious lest I can't do anything for him when I get there." She conquered a constriction in her throat, while they waited, for that last phrase had silenced them. They were all fond of Uncle Timothy—they didn't want to lose him. In a minute Sally went on cheerfully: "If you'll only write to me I can stand anything. Tell me all about everything. Oh, here's Max!"

She turned to meet him. He was looking gravely disapproving, as was to have been expected, but something in the sight of his sister's face made him refrain from reproaching her for not having consulted him, as he had intended to do. Besides, the hands of the clock were pointing too nearly to the time of her departure for him to feel like thrusting upon her the weight of his displeasure.

Jarvis came back, tickets in hand, and gave them to Sally with the little purse she had handed him. Announcing that there was no time to lose he then convoyed the whole party through the door to the trains, using some influence which he possessed with the blue-capped official thereat to obtain the favour. So the passengers already in the crowded sleeper were treated to the somewhat unusual spectacle of a particularly charming girl being brought aboard her train by a party of four quietly solicitous young men, even the youngest of them, by virtue of his height and broad shoulders, counting as a male "grown-up."

Jarvis went off for a hasty interview with the Pullman conductor then hunted up the porter of Sally's car, the "Lucatia," and gave him certain instructions, accompanied by a transfer of something which brought a broad grin to that person's dusky face, with the assertion, "Suah, sah—I'll make the young lady comf'able—thank you, sah."

He got back to the "Lucatia" only in time to hear the call of "all aboard," from outside, to see the blue veil surrounded by three leave-taking brothers bestowing hurried but hearty testimonials of their affection and bidding her "Take care of yourself," "Write often," and "Don't kill yourself working," and to push past them as they made for the door, to say his own good-by. It was easy for the interested fellow-travellers to see that this young man evidently was not a brother, for his farewell consisted only of a somewhat prolonged grip of the hand, his hat off, his eyes searching the blue ones lifted to his with the expression of one who cannot quite trust her lips to speak. Then, without a word on either side, Jarvis had dropped Sally's hand and was rushing to the door, for the train was under way.

Remembering suddenly that this happened to be the last car on the train when she came in, Sally hurried through it to the rear. There they were, lined up in a solid row, and as she appeared, their hats came off and were waved in the air. Beneath the bright electric lights of the station she could see their cheerful smiles, and she smiled back, waving her handkerchief as long as she could see them. From their point of view the picture was quite as absorbing as from hers, for her slender figure holding to the brass rail of the platform against the background of the car looked both girlish and solitary, and as they watched it recede into the distance they were all of them hoping that it would not be long before they could welcome her back into that same great dingy station.

"If you have any pity on us, Jarve, come back to the house, and don't go home to stay in town till she comes. We shall be bluer than tombstones."

This was Max's double tribute to the homemaking qualities of his sister and to the partnership qualities of his friend, and Jarvis responded readily, for, truth told, it was the very thing he wanted to do most. It seemed to him that while he should not miss Sally less in the house whose every corner would be eloquent of her absence, there would be a certain consolation in being there. He had a queer feeling that she had not gone for a speedy return, and that more than one moon would change before they should see her again. Meanwhile, it occurred to him that she would like to have him there for her brothers' sake, since they wanted him.

Alec and Bob eagerly echoed Max's plea.

"Bachelors' hall? Well, I don't know that I mind, since my stuff hasn't gone back yet. Mother and Jo have company asked for next week, and will expect me to help entertain, but I can be out at Strawberry Acres more or less. Come up to the house in the car with me, while I explain; then we'll drive out. Al and Bob can ride on the running boards, if they like."

They jumped on, feeling that to stay together was to mind things less. It was odd how low of spirit they all were already. Surely, one would think that four strapping fellows might contemplate getting on for a space without one slim young person who was accustomed not only to humour them, but to make three of them toe certain well-defined marks in the matter of clean linen, fresh cravats, and carefully parted hair. Yet not one of them was really willing to go home till the others should be coming along too.

In front of the fireplace, later, when Joanna had given them so good a dinner that it would seem as if their content could hardly be preyed upon by any contemplation of the future, Bob suddenly voiced the general sentiment. He was lying on his side upon the hearth-rug, his round face fiery from his proximity to the blaze.

"Why does it feel so different when you know people are miles away and getting farther every minute than when you know they've just gone to town for a party?" he queried, thoughtfully. "They're away just the same—they aren't here, I mean. Why isn't being away the same thing as being away?"

At any other time this somewhat involved statement of conditions would have provoked jeers from the company. But no jeers were forthcoming. Max grunted, lying flat on his back on the couch—whose pillows Joanna had carefully plumped up—his heels on the arm at the end. Alec, standing at the window with his hands in his pockets, staring out into the frosty night, turned about and remarked that on a train averaging sixty to seventy miles an hour Sally must already be out of the state.

"Wonder if she's asleep," speculated Bob. "She used to like sleeping on sleepers, when father and mother used to take us around so much. Say, she had a whole section to herself—at least till we left, and nobody was coming aboard then. Hope she has the luck to keep it. Funny! The car was crowded, and so was the next one. I looked in."

"Plenty of people may get on before midnight." reflected Alec.

Jarvis picked up a magazine. "Suppose I read aloud this article on railroading," he proposed. The company consented and he began. He had not read two pages before he ran, so to speak, into a series of frightful railway wrecks. But, wishing he had chosen something else, he kept on till suddenly Bob interrupted with a fierce: "Cut it! I've got her knocked into five thousand pieces now—I'll dream of those confounded smash-ups and Sally in the midst of 'em, if you don't drop that magazine."

The others murmured a somewhat sheepish assent, and Jarvis turned willingly enough to a tale of adventure at sea. A snore from the couch interrupted him in the middle of a most thrilling crisis, and only the appearance of Joanna with a big dish of shiny apples prevented Bob from following suit.

"Jove, Joanna, you're a good one. How did you come to think of it?" asked Alec, selecting a beauty and setting his teeth into it with a sense of refreshment.

"Miss Sally said I was not to forget anything she usually did, Mr. Alec," replied Joanna.

"If you remember everything she usually does you'll be a brick, Joanna," cried Bob, rousing to his opportunity and getting up on his knees to accept his apple.

"There's one thing she does, that nobody can possibly do for her," thought Jarvis as, consuming the crisp, cool specimen Joanna had bestowed upon him with a motherly smile for the boy she had known so long, he paced up and down the room, passing the piano at the end with a vivid recollection of how Sally was accustomed to play what she called "little tunes" upon it in the firelight.

"And that's to fill one small corner of her place in the home she has made here."



CHAPTER XVII

THE SOUTHBOUND LIMITED

Sally's first letter home was a short one, stating merely that Uncle Timothy was very ill, very glad to see her, and that she was extremely thankful she had come. The second letter, two days later, showed strong anxiety. The illness was pneumonia, although not in its severest form; but Mr. Rudd's age was an important factor in the case. For a week bulletins were brief, then came a long letter, telling of improvement.

"The minute he is well out of danger she ought to come home," was Max's opinion.

"She won't, though," Alec predicted. "She'll stay till she can bring him with her."

"Not if she listens to me," and Max set about writing a reply which would indicate to his sister in no uncertain terms the course he thought she should pursue.

Her answer was prompt. "I want to come home just as much as you want to have me, Max dear, but it is so much to Uncle Timmy to have me with him I can't think of leaving."

Max frowned over this. "She seems to consult me precious little about anything lately," he observed to Jarvis.

"You must admit she's grown up and can think for herself. Besides, much as I'd like to see her back, I think she's right," was Jarvis's opinion.

"Of course you'd side with her against me every time. But I think her brothers are a trifle nearer to her than her uncle."

"She'd undoubtedly think so too, if you were in bed with pneumonia. Since you're all in vigorous health she imagines you can get on without her. But she's not having a very jolly time of it, I should judge. Cheer her up with a lively letter, not a peevish one," was Jarvis's advice.

"You can do that."

"I'm not writing."

"Not?" Max was surprised. "You and Sally haven't quarrelled, have you?"

"Not at all. But I've no reason to think she would care to hear from me. You fellows are undoubtedly telling her all the news."

Jarvis flung a fresh log on the fire as he spoke, then took his place on the hearth-rug with his back to the blaze and his face in the shadow. Max stared at him interestedly, and was about to begin a discussion of the subject when his companion abruptly opened up a new line of conversation, in relation to plans for the farm, and the moment for asking certain questions did not occur again.

The days went by, brief letters from Sally arriving at frequent intervals. They reported very slow improvement in the invalid, with a return of strength so tardy that she still felt she should not leave him. The home in which they were was not that of relatives, and she was unwilling to leave the responsibility of Mr. Rudd's care to those who had expected to have him with them only for a brief visit. A month passed, and then, just as her brothers were making up their minds that the limit had certainly been reached and her duty done, came a letter which gave a blow to their hopes. It read:

"DEAREST FAMILY:

"Doctor Wood has ordered Uncle Timmy South. The doctor says he positively must get out of this wretched climate, and he must not think of coming back before spring—and spring well advanced. If you could see what a shadow of himself the poor dear is you would understand that I simply must do what I have agreed to do—go with him. He will pay all my expenses. I think he must have quite a bit more property than we have known of, the matter of finances seems to trouble him so little. Of course I know how you will feel about this—and I want you to believe that I feel a thousand times sorrier than you possibly can. But I know there is nothing else to do. He can't possibly go alone, and I can't see mother's only brother have to hire some stranger to be with him when he has a niece who loves him dearly and owes him for a deal of love he has always lavished on her. It isn't as if you needed me in ways that Joanna couldn't supply—for actual food and drink, I mean. Of course I hope—I know—you all miss your little sister. I'm afraid I should feel very badly if I thought you didn't!

"We plan to start Thursday evening, December third. We can't make quite as good connections as I did in coming, so, according to Doctor Wood's figuring with the time-tables, we shall go through the home city at one o'clock on Saturday morning. We shall be in the station twenty minutes, being switched around, and—well, I don't like to ask anybody to stay up till that hour, but—I shall be up, and looking out—and—and—I'm almost afraid that if I didn't see anybody, I should shed just a tear or two! You see I haven't really cried once yet—and I don't want to break my record.

"Your Sally."

It really is not necessary to report what was said in Sally's home upon the receipt of this announcement. There was a good deal of excited talking done, and a number of statements were made to the effect that it was out of the question for Sally to be spared all winter, that she should have waited for the consent of her family before deciding on such an absence, and that it absolutely must not be allowed. Yet, after all, when it came to forbidding it, nobody seemed to have quite the authority to do that. Even Max, protesting that the thing was out of all reason, and going so far as to take his pen in hand to write his refusal to permit it, found himself brought to a halt by the remembrance that Sally was showing more and more evidences of possessing a will of her own, and of being perfectly competent to carry out its dictates when they seemed to her right. Clearly she did not want to go South with Uncle Timothy—or with anybody else. There was a homesick touch in more than one line of the stoutly written letter—unquestionably Sally would not be doing this thing if she were not persuaded of her duty.

At one o'clock in the morning of Saturday a party of people stood in the great electric-lighted station. Again the offices of Mr. Jarvis Burnside had taken the group past the usual hindrances and established them on a certain platform, nearly in the centre of the rows of tracks, where the Southbound Limited would come in. This time their numbers were considerably augmented by the presence of Mrs. Burnside and Josephine, Donald and Janet Ferry. Various packages encumbered the arms of each member of the party, and appearances certainly boded well for the reception of the young traveller who at the moment was watching eagerly, as the train rolled through the familiar streets, for the first sign of approach to the station.

"Here she comes!" Bob was the first to cry, pointing to a brilliant headlight just rounding into view on the distant track. "Jolly, I'll bet Sally's wide awake, if she ever was in her life!"

"I expect we're going to find out now how dreadfully short twenty minutes can be," said Janet Ferry to Jarvis, beside whom she stood, an attractively put-up basket of hot-house grapes in her hand.

He nodded, watching the great headlight grow all too slowly bigger and bigger. "Even the twenty minutes will probably be cut short. The train's considerably overdue now."

The long line of sleepers came to a stand-still beside them, and they scanned the cars anxiously for the first sign of Sally. Far down the track could be seen a coloured porter waving in their direction, and the next instant a girl in dark blue jumped off the step of the Pullman and ran toward them. They ran to meet her, Bob and Alec outstripping the rest, and when the others arrived all that could be seen of Sally Lane was the top of a bright head on Bob's shoulder, both blue arms about his neck, his affectionate hand patting her back.

Then they had her in their midst, and everybody was trying to greet her at once. Josephine's arm was about her, and Sally was regarding the group with a radiant smile, crying girlishly; "Oh, how good you people do look! How dear of you all to come down! If I only could stay just a little longer! We don't stop but ten minutes, instead of twenty, the train is so late. Uncle Tim doesn't know you are here—I was afraid he would be too excited to sleep the rest of the night, and he's only just dropped off. Oh, how are you all? You look perfectly fine—I don't believe you've pined away a bit, missing me! Let me look at you."

She studied each in turn, missing nobody. Her clear gaze, the blue eyes black beneath the shadowing thick lashes, met each answering pair of eyes with a steady scrutiny which did not once waver.

"That was a review one would be sorry not to be able to stand," said Ferry to Josephine, as Sally ended by thrusting her arm through Max's and leading him off by himself. "Miss Sally put us all to the test in that minute, didn't she? She gives the impression of demanding the best one has—rather an unusual characteristic in a girl of her age."

"She does demand the best—and gets it," answered Josephine warmly.

Ten feet away Sally was speaking hurriedly: "The thing I wanted most to see you for, Maxy, was to make sure you weren't really angry with me for taking my own way about this."

Her hand pressed his arm. She was looking up into his face. He returned the gaze. "I was angry, Sis," he admitted. "But, somehow, now that I see you, I can't seem to get up steam to tell you so. I suppose you're right—but the place is mighty lonesome without you. If it wasn't for the Ferrys—"

"Are they over much?"

"We get them over as often as we can. I say, I've been noticing that Jarve and Janet seem to hit it off pretty well."

"Do they? That's very nice. You like Janet yourself, don't you?"

"She's the belle of the ball, now you're away, and a mighty jolly girl to have around. If you don't look out your old friend J.B. will slip away from you."

Sally's head went up, her cheeks bloomed a deeper colour. "If I weren't going to leave you in a minute I should punish you for that piece of brotherly impertinence," said she, with spirit. "Have I ever laid hands on anybody to keep him, for you to talk of 'slipping away'?"

"No—you're not that sort," conceded Max, with a laugh which certainly carried a hint of brotherly admiration.

Sally walked straight over to Janet, at whose other side stood Jarvis. "Janet," said she, "Max says you are the life of them all. I'm so glad—and it's so kind of your mother and brother to bring you over to make the evenings pleasant. You'll keep on being good to them all winter, won't you?"

"Sally"—Janet caught hold of both her hands—"let me give you an illustration of how nobly and completely I fill your place. The last time we were over I played for them—played my best, too. I ended with my most brilliant performance of Liszt. Two minutes afterward, when I had gone back to the fire, I heard somebody very softly doing a one-finger melody, picking it out note by note. I listened, and presently made out one of your favourite 'little tunes'—'A Red, Red Rose.' I looked around the group to see who was missing. It was not Bob. It was not Max. It was not Alec. It was not Don. It was not—"

"Anybody. It was—a ghost," supplied Jarvis. He was looking intently at Sally, but she was smiling back at Janet, and the colour in her face was not less than it had been a moment before.

"My ghost, probably," she said lightly. "I'm sure if it were with you all by that fire as often as I think about you, it would be playing little tunes for itself, most of the time. Now I must spend my next minute with Alec," and she was away again.

The minutes certainly were flying.

Janet looked after her. "There's something perfectly irresistible about her, isn't there?" she suggested to her companion. He did not answer and she glanced at him. He had pulled out a card-case from his pocket and was writing something on one of the cards. He slipped the card into the big, green paper-box he held.

"Suppose I take all our packages to the porter and have him put them in her berth while she is off with Alec. Then she'll not have to bother with them, getting on," he proposed. Janet assented, and in a minute Jarvis, laden with packages, approached the porter. Retaining half his burden he followed the porter into the car. He did not immediately return therefrom, and when, three minutes afterward, the signal came for the departure of the train, he was not in the group of whom she took leave.

"Has Jarvis gone? Say good-by for me to him, please, Jo," she whispered as she embraced her friend. Waving the others back Max escorted her into her car. In the passage they met Jarvis. Over her head the two young men looked at each other.

"Good-by, sister," said Max, and kissed her, "I see Jarve wants me to cut it short." With which tactful brotherly explanation he abruptly retraced his steps to the vestibule, where he waited.

In the half-lit narrow passage Jarvis made the most of his minute of grace, although Sally's hand was already extended, and a friendly good-by, with a frank smile, was on her lips.

"Are you in such a hurry to be rid of me?" said he, taking the hand. "You make me feel somehow as if you didn't care even for the old friendship. Is that so, Sally?"

"Not at all. I care very much. It seems so good to see you all."

"To see 'us all' doesn't flatter me much." He smiled a little. "Sally, may I write to you?"

"Do. Tell me all about everybody."

"Will you answer?"

"Now and then."

"You are—" He stopped, with a half impatient movement of his broad shoulders.

"I'm Sally Lane." She said this very distinctly, even though both were speaking under their breath. Then she laughed, with a delicate touch of defiance.

"You certainly are," he agreed. "No doubt in the world of that. But I want you to know I'm Jarvis Burnside, and that stands for something too—something positive—and permanent. My letters will be signed by that name."

"Mine—if I write any—now and then—will be signed by mine—The train is moving. Good-by—old friend!"

She was a slim maid to oppose so colossal a resistance as she did to anything in the least suggestive to sentiment in the leave-taking. Oppose it, however, did the small hand which drew itself away with decision, the pretty lips which smiled again that coolly friendly smile, the blue-black eyes which were steady as ever in their straight look. Max, peering in upon the two to tell Jarvis to come along, saw his sister break down in her self-command, but only at sight of himself. As Jarvis turned away she ran after him to reach beyond him and clutch her brother's arm for one quick pressure, with the low cry, "Oh, Max—please—please—write to me often!"

As Max jumped off, Jarvis turned again. Sally was upon the platform. "That almost makes me wish I were a brother," said he rapidly, from the bottom step, looking straight up at her. He prepared to drop off. "But not quite" he added—and swung himself off and out of sight.

Back in her berth, the little electric side-light on, Sally opened her bundles. Their contents made her feel like laughing and crying both together, all by herself, there on the fast train flying southward through the night. Janet's superb grapes, Mrs. Ferry's preserved Canton ginger, Donald Ferry's little book of verse, with the ribbon mark opening it at "My Garden," all pleased her greatly, each in its way. Then there was a fascinating little traveller's work-box from Josephine, a letter writing-case from Mrs. Burnside, an ink-pencil from Max, a package of current magazines from Alec, a box of chocolates from Bob. The cards and merry messages accompanying these remembrances made pleasant reading, and Sally put them all together in her handbag, that she might look them over many times.

Jarvis's box she did not open till the last. Why, might be a subject for speculation. Does one leave the most interesting letter or package till the last—or does one eagerly open it first? When everything else had been disposed of Sally's fingers untied the cord slowly, she lifted the cover with apparent reluctance, she drew aside the sheltering sheets of green tissue as if she feared to disclose that which they protected. But then, when the bright light at her side shone in upon fresh tints of pink and white and lilac, she drew one deep breath and buried her face in the mass.

"Sweet peas!" she murmured, and shut her eyes and thought of her garden, lying forsaken and desolate in the December frost.

Then she picked up the card. On its back she read, in vigorous pencilling:

"A ghost from the garden, sent by the ghost who tried to pick out the 'little tune.' There seem no other tunes in the world worth listening to."

The next morning Mr. Timothy Rudd had many questions to ask his niece. He sat comfortably among pillows and rugs, his breakfast brought in from the dining-car and served in his section by a waiter who was ready to show him every attention, to oblige the young lady whose smile he liked to win.

"You say they were all down, Sally? This breakfast looks very nice, my dear—I wish I could eat more of it." He laid down a half slice of toast and brushed his thin fingers.

"Uncle Timmy, are you sure you can't manage just a little more? Two spoonfuls of boiled egg, half a slice of toast, and a cup of coffee—that's no breakfast at all. If I tell you all about it, won't you eat just half the egg?"

"I'll try, child, but—really—the old fellow who is wearing my clothes—and not half big enough for them—doesn't seem to be able to summon much of an appetite."

"If you don't eat a good breakfast I shall feel more than ever guilty for not telling you they were coming—though of course I didn't dream of their all coming. But if you had seen them you wouldn't have slept a bit."

"No, like enough I shouldn't. I'll be satisfied if you tell me how they all looked. The boys—Max?"

"Very well, indeed—he's a trifle heavier than when I went away. Joanna's cooking is beginning to tell. I think she pampers them, don't you?—I'm so grateful to her for that."

"Alec?"

"Just as usual. He was wearing a new overcoat, and looked a glass of fashion! He says as long as Mr. Ferry lives in the country in the winter he's willing to stand it there. Isn't it lucky they're staying at least one more year? By another winter the demands on Mr. Ferry in town may be so heavy he can't take time to go back and forth."

"Yes, I should say it was a very good thing for Alec to be as much under the influence of such a man as could be brought about, until he is where he can do his own thinking along the right lines. How is my nephew Robert?"

"Oh, Bob's cheeks are so round and red they look like a very large infant's. Dear Bobby—think he misses us most. He ran in and peeped into your berth while the train stood there. I think he rather hoped to wake you."

"Bless the lad—I wish he had." Mr. Rudd took another spoonful of egg under the stimulus of the wish, forgetting that he had not meant to take up that spoon again.

"Mrs. Burnside and Jo looked their own dear selves—every line of them. It struck me afresh, as it always does when I see them after an interval, how beautifully yet quietly dressed they are, and how their photographs might be taken at any minute with delightful results. 'Portrait of a Lady and her Daughter' it would be." And Sally sighed a little sigh of a quite feminine sort, looking down at her own blue travelling attire and wondering how the same material would have looked if made up by Mrs. Burnside's tailor.

"And Jarvis—how is he? I am very fond of Jarvis. I suppose he has lost some of the summer's tan?"

"If he has it's been put back again by the frosty winds, for he's the image of health. Mr. Ferry and Janet are very much themselves, too. And they all sent you something." Sally reached under the berth and drew out a big florists' box, signalled the waiter to remove the remains of the breakfast, and then spread forth the cards which accompanied the great bunch of crimson roses, enjoying Mr. Rudd's almost boyish pleasure in the remembrance of his friends.

"These must be for you too, Sally," said he, burying his nose in one fine half-open bud.

"Not a bit of it."

"No flowers for you, child?"

"Fruit and chocolates and writing-tablets and other delightful things. You must have some of the grapes, Uncle Timmy—I ought to have thought of them for your breakfast."

"These roses are as good as a square meal—but they should have been for you, not for an old fossil like me."

"Don't you dare call yourself an old fossil, Uncle Timmy. Now look at all these pretty gifts," and Sally brought them forth, exhibiting them well concealed from the other passengers. Uncle Timothy looked and exclaimed and admired, and did not note that one person seemed to be unrepresented by any remembrance. Neither did he guess that tucked far away under Sally's berth was a box containing a mass of sweet peas which had that morning been carefully sprinkled, but which were destined never to be seen again by mortal eye except her own.



CHAPTER XVIII

FROM APRIL NORTH

During a winter which seemed, in spite of all the beauties of the far South, the longest she had ever known, Sally was kept well in touch with affairs at home by the letters. If it had not been for these she thought she could hardly have waited for the spring to come. Mr. Rudd had gained slowly but positively throughout the winter, yet it was not thought best for him to come home until the spring should be well advanced. The first of May was the date set, and proved a judicious choice, for April was a cold and rainy month. There was just one odd fact about this month of April—during its course Sally received at least one letter from every member of her own family and from each one of those other two families most closely connected with her history. In an idle hour one day, just before she went home, she carefully selected one letter from each of these correspondents, in the order received, and tied them in a bunch, labelling them "April North to April South." Whatever may have happened to other letters, this packet remained in her possession for many years.

The first of them arrived on April fourth, and was in the round, school-boy hand of young Robert Lane.

"DEAR SALLY:

"This is April Fool's Day, and I've had a great old time fooling everybody. Sewed down the knives and forks to the breakfast-table, tied the chairs to the legs, salted the coffee, and did quite a few little every-day stunts like that. Max got maddest when he ran onto a big lump of cayenne in his oatmeal, but Joanna gave him another dish right away and another cup of coffee. She's awfully soft over old Max. The best lining I did was the way I fooled Jarve on a letter from you. I knew he had had one from you sometime in March, so I looked in his coat-pocket while he was up in the timber lot with a sweater on. I found it—pretty much used up with being carried around—suppose he forgot to take it out. Got a fresh thin envelope, put the old one inside, traced the address through, pasted on a postmark from your last one to me, and put three heavy sheets inside to make it fat—a lot fatter than the one I got out of his pocket. Stuck on old stamps—two of 'em—overweight, you know.

"When he came in to luncheon he found the letter with his other mail. I had my eye on him—I was pretending to read the morning paper. He read all his other letters, but he put that one in his pocket. He got terribly jolly after that—cracking jokes and everything. The minute luncheon was over he went off to his room, and I cut for out-of-doors. Didn't let him get a sight of me for hours. When I did come in I thought maybe he'd have got over being fussed, but—pitchforks and hammer handles!—if the minute I hove in sight he didn't get after me! He must have put on a lot of muscle chopping wood and hoeing, for I thought a cyclone had struck me. I'm resting up now, but I feel pretty sore yet—in spots. That's why I'm writing to you. I think you'd better write him once in a while, so that getting what he thinks is a letter won't go to his head like that.

"It'll be the first of May in one month more, and you'll be home! Jolly!—that seems good to think of.

"Heaps of love from BOB."

On the following day came a letter from Janet Ferry. It was a letter of several sheets, and the last two pages ran thus:

"The boys think you ought not to know about it, and intend it for a surprise, but I am so sure that it will do you even more good to hear while you are waiting to come home, I'm going to tell you. Alec and Bob have been rolling the lawn with a roller they were at great pains to get from the Burnside place in the city! You should have seen them at it, encouraging each other to do the thing thoroughly. Afterward they scattered wood ashes in all the thin places; Bob said they had been saving them all winter from the fireplace. I didn't know Alec could be so interested in out-door labour, but this winter seems to have given him an impetus toward following Mr. Burnside's example—and Don's—for I think Don has had a hand in waking him up.

"Speaking of Don—I found him out in your garden yesterday, pruning your old rose-bushes—the ones that you inherited with the garden. He says you are particularly fond of the many-leaved pink ones that smell so much sweeter than any hot-house rose that ever grew.

"Mr. Burnside has been busy all through March, and already has garden peas in. It seems absurdly early, but he prophesies that there'll be no more frosts that they can't stand, and promises us peas on the table three weeks earlier than our neighbours. He is nothing if not daring. He reads and reads in those books and magazines and papers of his, and then starts out, armed for action. He and Jake spend much time arguing over details, but I believe he usually carries his point.

"Don says that while he was finishing his work in your garden your brother Max came home and strolled out to see what he was doing. Don mentioned the fact that it would soon be time for the whole garden to be dug and raked and put in spring order, and Mr. Lane answered that he would see that it was done—in fact he thought he should do it himself. I don't exactly understand why this should seem to give Don so much satisfaction, but it does. He told me to be sure to tell you."

Clearly it gave Sally satisfaction also, for she read this particular paragraph a second time, smiling to herself, before she put the letter aside.

On the seventh of April came a screed from Alec of quite surprising length—for Alec, and it interested his sister more than any letter she had had from him during the winter.

"DEAR SALLY LUNN:

"Haven't time to write much. Have hired out J.B. as a farm hand, and he keeps a fellow some busy. For two weeks, now, we've been clearing up the old wood in the timber lot and getting out new stuff for fence posts, etc. Evenings he gets me at books. Am reading up on soil now, surprised to find it quite interesting. J.B. and I talk plans a lot more than Max does, though I think the old boy is going to get into it in time all right. Maybe you'd like to know what our plans are. Well, here goes:

"Cut off the suckers in the orchard, plough, and later spray—before the leaves come. That means hustle—but we're nearly through with the pruning. Bob and Mr. Ferry are at that.

"Then we'll plough five acres of what we let go to hay last year, and plant it to corn, with half an acre of potatoes. The other five acres we'll let grow to hay. Next year we'll have alfalfa where we have corn this year. J.B. is daft on alfalfa, and I'm beginning to see why. The five acres of hay, with the corn, will be enough for the two cows, and we'll keep the pasture over beyond the orchard for them. Miss Janet says as long as she lives there she wants to see those cows—or other ones—come down the lane by the orchard at milking time—only she wishes there were more of them and a collie to drive them. Think I'll have to get a collie, to satisfy her, though Cowslip and Whitenose are at the bars regular as a clock, all by themselves.

"The seven acres where we had the buckwheat and afterward the potatoes last year are to be set with strawberries this May. I tell you, here's where the real serious business comes in. J.B. hasn't done a thing this winter but study the soil in that seven acres and figure out what kind of berries to plant. He's given a lot of thought to what sort of fertilizers to use, and I tell you if there's any such thing as improving soil, the soil in that strawberry land is going to be improved. Tons of stuff are going into it and it's going to be well mixed in, too. Then if cultivating and irrigating and all the rest of it can bring us big fruit, we'll get it. J.B.'s idea is the more we put in the more we'll get out, and the better quality. Of course it's lucky for us we have him to pay out the money for getting things going, but I believe Strawberry Acres will support itself some day and bring us in good returns.

"Anyhow, I must say I'm beginning to like the whole thing, though it's hard work and plenty of it. Never was so hungry in my life. Joanna sets it up to us in good shape, but we'll be glad to see you back. House seems sort of empty, in spite of four fellows tumbling over each other in it.

"With love, your brother, ALEC.

"P. S. The old asparagus bed is trying so hard to show signs of life we've given it a good salting. The Ferrys' crocuses are up, grass all full of them—look mighty pretty."

This was certainly very satisfactory, when one considered that Alec had been in the beginning only second to Max in scoffing at the idea of living on a farm, not to mention working on one. More than any of the boys Alec had preferred life in the city, had been the one who cared most about his personal appearance, and had prided himself upon doing things in the urban way. For him to be willing to put on old clothes and rough boots, and soil his hands with manual labour, indicated a change of thought and ideals hardly to have been expected so soon. Sally put away the letter, rejoicing at these indications of growth, for growth it surely was, in his case. His work in the office where he had been employed had been work likely to lead no further, nor to promise any promotion to a position of greater honour. But on Strawberry Acres it seemed to Sally that, with Jarvis Burnside for a leader, Alec might develop qualities as yet only to be guessed at.

The most interesting part of Josephine's long letter, which reached Sally on the ninth, was, as is usually the case in feminine letters, toward its close. After every other subject had been touched upon, Sally's correspondent remarked:

"You may care to know that I have been much surprised of late to receive two calls, here at home, from Mr. Ferry. One was in March, but I didn't mention it, for I thought probably it was the first, last, and only one he would ever make, and I wouldn't crow about it. It was on one of mother's Thursdays, and of course a lot of other people were here. I was busy with the tea things, so couldn't give him much attention. He was very nice, and everybody seemed much interested to see him here. When he went away he came over and said to me that he should like to come again when we were not "At Home," only at home! Of course I said he might, and mother asked him specially, too. So just yesterday evening—it was Tuesday—he came again. Mother was out until just before he went. We had a delightful time in the library over a box of new books Jarvis had just had sent up—not farm books, this time. Mr. Ferry found something which specially pleased him, and read several pages to me—sitting on the edge of the library table—I mean that he was sitting on the edge of it—not I! I was most properly disposed in a chair—and congratulating myself that I had on a little new home frock of dull green with bands of blue and gold embroidery that had just come home—the most becoming thing Celeste has ever made me. I think he had a good time—anyhow, he stayed much longer than he need have done if he didn't—I meant that if he wasn't having a good time!—I don't seem to be able to write lucidly. We talked much of you, and of how good it would seem to have you back, and of the garden, and the coming summer. He wanted to know if mother and I were coming out to spend the season again, and I said yes. He asked if I didn't think we ought to be there by the latter part of April, so as to welcome you when you come the first of May. It seemed rather a good idea to me—what do you think of it? Mother has set the fifteenth, but I really do want to see the first spring things coming up. Jarvis brought home a great bunch of daffodils yesterday. I wanted to send them on to you, but he thought they wouldn't last out the journey."

The thought of the daffodils made Sally long intensely for her garden. There was a long row of them at the farther end, and another clump at the edge of the lawn, with stray ones here and there through the grass which she had not been willing to have removed. She thought about them many times until the arrival of the next letter, on the eleventh, which was from Joanna, and which turned her thoughts into housewifely channels.

"Dear Miss," it began, in a cramped hand upon a large sheet of ruled paper. "I suppose you would like to know what has been done about the house cleaning. You wrote me to wate till you come, but I never like to wate later than March, and so I did what was nesessary myself, peice by peice, as I could find time. Mr. Max and Mr. Alec and Mr. Bob seemed to think the house didn't need cleaning, but Mr. Jarvis being used to my ways and his mothers said you would want it right. He spared me Jake Kelly to clean the rugs and peices of carpet, and I did the rest. I think there is no dirt in the house now. Fireplaces makes lots of dust but I should say the way they are enjoyed makes up for it. I have tryed to do as you wanted about the pillows and apples and good food and I don't think the young gentlemen are any liter in wate than when you went away.

"Hoping you will come home soon,

"Respectfully yours,

"JOANNA MARSHFIELD."

Nobody but a housekeeper, and a young one at that, could appreciate what a load of anxiety this letter lifted from Sally's mind. She wanted to have the house immaculately clean, but—the garden was waiting for her. Now she could give her undivided thought to plans for the box-bordered beds, blessing Joanna for a maid-servant of priceless value.

Mrs. Ferry's letter, arriving on the thirteenth, made Sally smile with the lilt of its lines:

"Come, Sally dear, the spring is here, the air is mild and warm; showers happen by, but cause no sigh, they're needed on the farm. The garden waits, and stirs, and shakes the sleep from out its eyes, and gently sets the violets to blooming in surprise. The grass grows green, a lark is seen, a robin calls "It's Spring!" And everywhere, in earth and air, rejoices everything. We want you near, we need you here to share each day's delights; so hasten home, come soon, dear, come, we miss you so o' nights!"

"Sweet little lady," the girl, thought affectionately, "to take the trouble to think it out in rhyme for me."

On the sixteenth of the month a rather interesting coincidence occurred; letters from Donald Ferry and from Jarvis Burnside arrived on that day. Sally studied the superscriptions with interest, wondering what the handwriting might have indicated to her of the character of the writers, had she known nothing of either. Opening the envelopes, she laid the sheets side by side.

Jarvis wrote a rather small but very black and regular hand, the result being serried rows marching like a regiment down the page, the hand of the man who is accustomed to do everything in an orderly and masterful way, and who can no more allow his words to straggle over a sheet of paper than he can permit his books to stand upside down upon the shelf, or the affairs of his every-day life to fall into confusion. Ferry wrote a more dashing hand, the penmanship of the man whose ideas flow faster than his pen can put the words upon paper, and who cares less about the appearance of his page than for what can be fixed there before it shall escape him. This letter, therefore, appeared less easy to read than the other, and this may have been why Sally attacked it first: