"Patience! Patience!" her mother said reprovingly.

"I mean, there's such a little—"

"Go up-stairs and get yourself ready for bed at once."

Miranda was waiting in the spare room. "You ain't took sick, Hilary?"

Hilary shook her head. "Please, Miranda, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, will you bring Pauline's bed in here?"

"I guessed as much," Miranda said, moving Hilary's bed to one side.

"Hilary—wouldn't you truly rather have a room to yourself—for a change?" Pauline asked.

"I have had one to myself—for eight days—and, now I'm going back to the old way." Sitting among the cushions of the cozy corner, Hilary superintended operations, and when the two single white beds were standing side by side, in their accustomed fashion, the covers turned back for the night, she nodded in satisfied manner. "Thank you so much, Miranda; that's as it should be. Go get your things, Paul. To-morrow, you must move in regularly. Upper drawer between us, and the rest share and share alike, you know."

Patience, who had hit upon the happy expedient of braiding her hair—braids, when there were a lot of them, took a long time—got slowly up from the hearth rug, her head a sight to behold, with its tiny, hornlike red braids sticking out in every direction. "I suppose I'd better be going. I wish I had someone to talk to, after I'd gone to bed." And a deep sigh escaped her.

Pauline kissed the wistful little face. "Never mind, old girl, you know you'd never stay awake long enough to talk to anyone."

She and Hilary stayed awake talking, however, until Pauline's prudence got the better of her joy in having her sister back in more senses than one. It was so long since they had had such a delightful bedtime talk.

"Seeing Winton First Club," Hilary said musingly. "Paul, you're ever so clever. Shirley insisted those letters stood for 'Suppression of Woman's Foibles Club'; and Mr. Dayre suggested they meant, 'Sweet Wild Flowers.'"

"You've simply got to go to sleep now, Hilary, else mother'll come and take me away."

Hilary sighed blissfully. "I'll never say again—that nothing ever happens to us."

Tom and Josie came to supper the next night. Shirley was there, too, she had stopped in on her way to the post-office with her father that afternoon, to ask how Hilary was, and been captured and kept to supper and the first club meeting that followed.

Hilary had been sure she would like to join, and Shirley's prompt and delighted acceptance of their invitation proved her right.

"I've only got five names on my list," Tom said, as the young folks settled themselves on the porch after supper. "I suppose we'll think of others later."

"That'll make ten, counting us five, to begin with," Pauline said.

"Bell and Jack Ward," Tom took out his list, "the Dixon boys and Edna Ray. That's all."

"I'd just like to know where I come in, Tom Brice!" Patience demanded, her voice vibrant with indignation.

"Upon my word! I didn't suppose—"

"I am to belong! Ain't I, Paul?"

"But Patty—"

"If you're going to say no, you needn't Patty me!"

"We'll see what mother thinks," Hilary suggested. "You wouldn't want to be the only little girl to belong?"

"I shouldn't mind," Patience assured her, then feeling pretty sure that Pauline was getting ready to tell her to run away, she decided to retire on her own account. That blissful time, when she should be "Miss Shaw," had one drawback, which never failed to assert itself at times like these—there would be no younger sister subject to her authority.

"Have you decided what we are to do?" Pauline asked Tom, when Patience had gone.

"I should say I had. You'll be up to a ride by next Thursday, Hilary? Not a very long ride."

"I'm sure I shall," Hilary answered eagerly. "Where are we going?"

"That's telling."

"He won't even tell me," Josie said.

Tom's eyes twinkled. "You're none of you to know until next Thursday. Say, at four o'clock."

"Oh," Shirley said, "I think it's going to be the nicest club that ever was."



CHAPTER VI

PERSONALLY CONDUCTED

"Am I late?" Shirley asked, as Pauline came down the steps to meet her Thursday afternoon.

"No, indeed, it still wants five minutes to four. Will you come in, or shall we wait out here? Hilary is under bond not to make her appearance until the last minute."

"Out here, please," Shirley answered, sitting down on the upper step. "What a delightful old garden this is. Father has at last succeeded in finding me my nag, horses appear to be at a premium in Winton, and even if he isn't first cousin to your Bedelia, I'm coming to take you and Hilary to drive some afternoon. Father got me a surrey, because, later, we're expecting some of the boys up, and we'll need a two-seated rig."

"We're coming to take you driving, too," Pauline said. "Just at present, it doesn't seem as if the summer would be long enough for all the things we mean to do in it."

"And you don't know yet, what we are to do this afternoon?"

"Only, that it's to be a drive and, afterwards, supper at the Brices'. That's all Josie, herself, knows about it. Tom had to take her and Mrs. Brice into so much of his confidence."

Through the drowsy stillness of the summer afternoon, came the notes of a horn, sounding nearer and nearer. A moment later, a stage drawn by two of the hotel horses turned in at the parsonage drive at a fine speed, drawing up before the steps where Pauline and Shirley were sitting, with considerable nourish. Beside the driver sat Tom, in long linen duster, the megaphone belonging to the school team in one hand. Along each side of the stage was a length of white cloth, on which was lettered—

SEEING WINTON STAGE

As the stage stopped, Tom sprang down, a most businesslike air on his boyish face.

"This is the Shaw residence, I believe?" he asked, consulting a piece of paper.

"I—I reckon so," Pauline answered, too taken aback to know quite what she was saying.

"All right!" Tom said. "I understand—"

"Then it's a good deal more than I do," Pauline cut in.

"That there are several young people here desirous of joining our little sight-seeing trip this afternoon."

From around the corner of the house at that moment peeped a small freckled face, the owner of which was decidedly very desirous of joining that trip. Only a deep sense of personal injury kept Patience from coming forward,—she wasn't going where she wasn't wanted—but some day—they'd see!

Shirley clapped her hands delightedly. "How perfectly jolly! Oh, I am glad you asked me to join the club."

"I'll go tell Hilary!" Pauline said. "Tom, however—"

"I beg your pardon, Miss?"

Pauline laughed and turned away.

"Oh, I say, Paul," Tom dropped his mask of pretended dignity, "let the Imp come with us—this time."

Pauline looked doubtful. She, as well as Tom, had caught sight of that small flushed face, on which longing and indignation had been so plainly written. "I'm not sure that mother will—" she began, "But I'll see."

"Tell her—just this first time," Tom urged, and Shirley added, "She would love it so."

"Mother says," Pauline reported presently, "that Patience may go this time—only we'll have to wait while she gets ready."

From an upper window came an eager voice. "I'm most ready now!"

"She'll never forget it—as long as she lives," Shirley said, "and if she hadn't gone she would never've forgotten that."

"Nor let us—for one while," Pauline remarked—"I'd a good deal rather work with than against that young lady."

Hilary came down then, looking ready and eager for the outing. She had been out in the trap with Pauline several times; once, even as far as the manor to call upon Shirley.

"Why," she exclaimed, "you've brought the Folly! Tom, how ever did you manage it?"

"Beg pardon, Miss?"

Hilary shrugged her shoulders, coming nearer for a closer inspection of the big lumbering stage. It had been new, when the present proprietor of the hotel, then a young man, now a middle-aged one, had come into his inheritance. Fresh back from a winter in town, he had indulged high hopes of booming his sleepy little village as a summer resort, and had ordered the stage—since christened the Folly—for the convenience and enjoyment of the guests—who had never come. A long idle lifetime the Folly had passed in the hotel carriage-house; used so seldom, as to make that using a village event, but never allowed to fall into disrepair, through some fancy of its owner.

As Tom opened the door at the back now, handing his guests in with much ceremony, Hilary laughed softly. "It doesn't seem quite—respectful to actually sit down in the poor old thing. I wonder, if it's more indignant, or pleased, at being dragged out into the light of day for a parcel of young folks?"

"'Butchered to make a Roman Holiday'?" Shirley laughed.

At that moment Patience appeared, rather breathless—but not half as much so as Miranda, who had been drawn into service, and now appeared also—"You ain't half buttoned up behind, Patience!" she protested, "and your hair ribbon's not tied fit to be seen.—My sakes, to think of anyone ever having named that young one Patience!"

"I'll overhaul her, Miranda," Pauline comforted her. "Come here, Patience."

"Please, I am to sit up in front with you, ain't I, Tom?" Patience urged. "You and I always get on so beautifully together, you know."

Tom relaxed a second time. "I don't see how I can refuse after that," and the over-hauling process being completed, Patience climbed up to the high front seat, where she beamed down on the rest with such a look of joyful content that they could only smile back in response.

From the doorway, came a warning voice. "Not too far, Tom, for Hilary; and remember, Patience, what you have promised me."

"All right, Mrs. Shaw," Tom assured her, and Patience nodded her head assentingly.

From the parsonage, they went first to the doctor's. Josie was waiting for them at the gate, and as they drew up before it, with horn blowing, and horses almost prancing—the proprietor of the hotel had given them his best horses, in honor of the Folly—she stared from her brother to the stage, with its white placard, with much the same look of wonder in her eyes as Pauline and Hilary had shown.

"Miss Brice?" Tom was consulting his list again.

"So that's what you've been concocting, Tom Brice!" Josie answered.

Tom's face was as sober as his manner. "I am afraid we are a little behind scheduled time, being unavoidably delayed."

"He means they had to wait for me to get ready," Patience explained. "You didn't expect to see me along, did you, Josie?" And she smiled blandly.

"I don't know what I did expect—certainly, not this." Josie took her place in the stage, not altogether sure whether the etiquette of the occasion allowed of her recognizing its other inmates, or not.

But Pauline nodded politely. "Good afternoon. Lovely day, isn't it?" she remarked, while Shirley asked, if she had ever made this trip before.

"Not in this way," Josie answered. "I've never ridden in the Folly before. Have you, Paul?"

"Once, from the depot to the hotel, when I was a youngster, about Impatience's age. You remember, Hilary?"

"Of course I do. Uncle Jerry took me up in front." Uncle Jerry was the name the owner of the stage went by in Winton. "He'd had a lot of Boston people up, and had been showing them around."

"This reminds me of the time father and I did our own New York in one of those big 'Seeing New York' motors," Shirley said. "I came home feeling almost as if we'd been making a trip 'round some foreign city."

"Tom can't make Winton seem foreign," Josie declared.

There were three more houses to stop at, lower down the street. From windows and porches all along the route, laughing, curious faces stared wonderingly after them, while a small body-guard of children sprang up as if by magic to attend them on their way. This added greatly to the delight of Patience, who smiled condescendingly down upon various intimates, blissfully conscious of the envy she was exciting in their breasts. It was delightful to be one of the club for a time, at least.

"And now, if you please, Ladies and Gentlemen," Tom had closed the door to upon the last of his party, "we will drive first to The Vermont House, a hostelry well known throughout the surrounding country, and conducted by one of Vermont's best known and honored sons."

"Hear! Hear!" Jack Ward cried. "I say, Tom, get that off again where Uncle Jerry can hear it, and you'll always be sure of his vote."

They had reached the rambling old hotel, from the front porch of which Uncle Jerry himself, surveyed them genially.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," standing up, Tom turned to face the occupants of the stage, his megaphone, carried merely as a badge of office, raised like a conductor's baton, "I wish to impress upon your minds that the building now before you—liberal rates for the season—is chiefly remarkable for never having sheltered the Father of His Country."

"Now how do you know that?" Uncle Jerry protested. "Ain't that North Chamber called the 'Washington room'?"

"Oh, but that's because the first proprietor's first wife occupied that room—and she was famous for her Washington pie," Tom answered readily. "I assure you, sir, that any and all information which I shall have the honor to impart to these strangers within our gates may be relied upon for its accuracy." He gave the driver the word, and the Folly continued on its way, stopping presently before a little story-and-a-half cottage not far below the hotel and on a level with the street.

"This cottage, my young friends," Tom said impressively, "should be—and I trust is—enshrined deep within the hearts of all true Wintonites. Latterly, it has come to be called the Barker cottage, but its real title is 'The Flag House'; so called, because from that humble porch, the first Stars and Stripes ever seen in Winton flung its colors to the breeze. The original flag is still in possession of a lineal descendant of its first owner, who is, unfortunately, not an inhabitant of this town." The boyish gravity of tone and manner was not all assumed now.

No one spoke for a moment; eleven pairs of young eyes were looking out at the little weather-stained building with new interest. "I thought," Bell Ward said at last, "that they called it the flag place, because someone of that name had used to live there."

"So did I," Hilary said.

As the stage moved on, Shirley leaned back for another look. "I shall get father to come and sketch it," she said. "Isn't it the quaintest old place?"

"We will now proceed," Tom announced, "to the village green, where I shall have the pleasure of relating to you certain anecdotes regarding the part it played in the early life of this interesting old village."

"Not too many, old man," Tracy Dixon suggested hurriedly, "or it may prove a one-sided pleasure."

The green lay in the center of the town,—a wide, open space, with flagstaff in the middle; fine old elms bordered it on all four sides. The Vermont House faced it, on the north, and on the opposite side stood the general store, belonging to Mr. Ward, with one or two smaller places of business.

"The business section" of the town, Tom called it, and quite failed to notice Tracy's lament that he had not brought his opera glasses with him. "Really, you know," Tracy explained to his companions, "I should have liked awfully to see it. I'm mighty interested in business sections."

"Cut that out," his brother Bob commanded, "the chap up in front is getting ready to hold forth again."

They were simple enough, those anecdotes, that "the chap up in front" told them; but in the telling, the boy's voice lost again all touch of mock gravity. His listeners, sitting there in the June sunshine, looking out across the old green, flecked with the waving tree shadows, and bright with the buttercups nodding here and there, seemed to see those men and boys drilling there in the far-off summer twilights; to hear the sharp words of command; the sound of fife and drum. And the familiar names mentioned more than once, well-known village names, names belonging to their own families in some instances, served to deepen the impression.

"Why," Edna Ray said slowly, "they're like the things one learns at school; somehow, they make one realize that there truly was a Revolutionary War. Wherever did you pick up such a lot of town history, Tom?"

"That's telling," Tom answered.

Back up the broad, main street they went, past the pleasant village houses, with their bright, well-kept dooryards, under the wide-spreading trees beneath which so many generations of young folks had come and gone; past the square, white parsonage, with its setting of green lawn; past the old stone church, and on out into the by-roads of the village, catching now and then a glimpse of the great lake beyond; and now and then, down some lane, a bit of the street they had left. They saw it all with eyes that for once had lost the indifference of long familiarity, and were swift to catch instead its quiet, restful beauty, helped in this, perhaps, by Shirley's very real admiration.

The ride ended at Dr. Brice's gate, and here Tom dropped his mantle of authority, handing all further responsibility as to the entertainment of the party over to his sister.

Hilary was carried off to rest until supper time, and the rest scattered about the garden, a veritable rose garden on that June afternoon, roses being Dr. Brice's pet hobby.

"It must be lovely to live in the country," Shirley said, dropping down on the grass before the doctor's favorite La France, and laying her face against the soft, pink petals of a half-blown bud.

Edna eyed her curiously. She had rather resented the admittance of this city girl into their set. Shirley's skirt and blouse were of white linen, there was a knot of red under the broad sailor collar, she was hatless and the dark hair,—never kept too closely within bounds—was tossed and blown; there was certainly nothing especially cityfied in either appearance or manner.

"That's the way I feel about the city," Edna said slowly, "it must be lovely to live there."

Shirley laughed. "It is. I reckon just being alive anywhere such days as these ought to content one. You haven't been over to the manor lately, have you? I mean since we came there. We're really getting the garden to look like a garden. Reclaiming the wilderness, father calls it. You'll come over now, won't you—the club, I mean?"

"Why, of course," Edna answered, she thought she would like to go. "I suppose you've been over to the forts?"

"Lots of times—father's ever so interested in them, and it's just a pleasant row across, after supper."

"I have fasted too long, I must eat again," Tom remarked, coming across the lawn. "Miss Dayre, may I have the honor?"

"Are you conductor, or merely club president now?" Shirley asked.

"Oh, I've dropped into private life again. There comes Hilary—doesn't look much like an invalid, does she?"

"But she didn't look very well the first time I saw her," Shirley answered.

The long supper table was laid under the apple trees at the foot of the garden, which in itself served to turn the occasion into a festive affair.

"You've given us a bully send-off, Mr. President," Bob declared. "It's going to be sort of hard for the rest of us to keep up with you."

"By the way," Tom said, "Dr. Brice—some of you may have heard of him—would like to become an honorary member of this club. Any contrary votes?"

"What's an honorary member?" Patience asked. Patience had been remarkably good that afternoon—so good that Pauline began to feel worried, dreading the reaction.

"One who has all the fun and none of the work," Tracy explained, a merry twinkle in his brown eyes.

Patience considered the matter. "I shouldn't mind the work; but mother won't let me join regularly—mother takes notions now and then—but, please mayn't I be an honorary member?"

"Onery, you mean, young lady!" Tracy corrected.

Patience flashed a pair of scornful eyes at him. "Father says punning is the very lowest form of—"

"Never mind, Patience," Pauline said, "we haven't answered Tom yet. I vote we extend our thanks to the doctor for being willing to join."

"He isn't a bit more willing than I am," Patience observed. There was a general laugh among the real members, then Tom said, "If a Shaw votes for a Brice, I don't very well see how a Brice can refuse to vote for a Shaw."

"The motion is carried," Bob seconded him.

"Subject to mother's consent," Pauline added, a quite unnecessary bit of elder sisterly interference, Patience thought.

"And now, even if it is telling on yourself, suppose you own up, old man?" Jack Ward turned to Tom. "You see we don't in the least credit you with having produced all that village history from your own stores of knowledge."

"I never said you need to," Tom answered, "even the idea was not altogether original with me."

Patience suddenly leaned forward, her face all alight with interest. "I love my love with an A," she said slowly, "because he's an—author."

Tom whistled. "Well, of all the uncanny young ones!"

"It's very simple," Patience said loftily.

"So it is, Imp," Tracy exclaimed; "I love him with an A, because he's an—A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N!"

"I took him to the sign of The Apple Tree," Bell took up the thread.

"And fed him (mentally) on subjects—antedeluvian, or almost so," Hilary added.

"What are you talking about?" Edna asked impatiently.

"Mr. Allen," Pauline told her.

"I saw him and Tom walking down the back lane the other night," Patience explained. Patience felt that she had won her right to belong to the club now—they'd see she wasn't just a silly little girl. "Father says he—I don't mean Tom—"

"We didn't suppose you did," Tracy laughed.

"Knows more history than any other man in the state; especially, the history of the state."

"Mr. Allen!" Shirley exclaimed. "T. C. Allen! Why, father and I read one of his books just the other week. It's mighty interesting. Does he live in Winton?"

"He surely does," Bob grinned, "and every little while he comes up to school and puts us through our paces. It's his boast that he was born, bred and educated right in Vermont. He isn't a bad old buck—if he wouldn't pester a fellow with too many questions."

"He lives out beyond us," Hilary told Shirley. "There's a great apple tree right in front of the gate. He has an old house-keeper to look after him. I wish you could see his books—he's literally surrounded with them."

"Not storybooks," Patience added. "He says, they're books full of stories, if one's a mind to look for them."

"Please," Edna protested, "let's change the subject. Are we to have badges, or not?"

"Pins," Bell suggested.

"Pins would have to be made to order," Pauline objected, "and would be more or less expensive."

"And it's an unwritten by-law of this club, that we shall go to no unnecessary expense," Tom insisted.

"But—" Bell began.

"Oh, I know what you're thinking," Tom broke in, "but Uncle Jerry didn't charge for the stage—he said he was only too glad to have the poor thing used—'twas a dull life for her, shut up in the carriage-house year in and year out."

"The Folly isn't a she," Patience protested.

"Folly generally is feminine," Tracy said, "and so—"

"And he let us have the horses, too—for our initial outing," Tom went on. "Said the stage wouldn't be of much use without them."

"Three cheers for Uncle Jerry!" Bob Dixon cried. "Let's make him an honorary member."

"But the badges," Edna said. "I never saw such people for going off at tangents."

"Ribbon would be pretty," Shirley suggested, "with the name of the club in gilt letters. I can letter pretty well."

Her suggestion was received with general acclamation, and after much discussion, as to color, dark blue was decided on.

"Blue goes rather well with red," Tom said, "and as two of our members have red hair," his glance went from Patience to Pauline.

"I move we adjourn, the president's getting personal," Pauline pushed back her chair.

"Who's turn is it to be next?" Jack asked.

They drew lots with blades of grass; it fell to Hilary. "I warn you," she said, "that I can't come up to Tom."

Then the first meeting of the new club broke up, the members going their various ways. Shirley went as far as the parsonage, where she was to wait for her father.

"I've had a beautiful time," she said warmly. "And I've thought what to do when my turn comes. Only, I think you'll have to let father in as an honorary, I'll need him to help me out."

"We'll be only too glad," Pauline said heartily. "This club's growing fast, isn't it? Have you decided, Hilary?"

Hilary shook her head, "N-not exactly; I've sort of an idea."



CHAPTER VII

HILARY'S TURN

Pauline and Hilary were up in their own room, the "new room," as it had come to be called, deep in the discussion of certain samples that had come in that morning's mail.

Uncle Paul's second check was due before long now, and then there were to be new summer dresses, or rather the goods for them, one apiece all around.

"Because, of course," Pauline said, turning the pretty scraps over, "Mother Shaw's got to have one, too. We'll have to get it—on the side—or she'll declare she doesn't need it, and she does."

"Just the goods won't come to so very much," Hilary said.

"No, indeed, and mother and I can make them."

"We certainly got a lot out of that other check, or rather, you and mother did," Hilary went on. "And it isn't all gone?"

"Pretty nearly, except the little we decided to lay by each month. But we did stretch it out in a good many directions. I don't suppose any of the other twenty-fives will seem quite so big."

"But there won't be such big things to get with them," Hilary said, "except these muslins."

"It's unspeakably delightful to have money for the little unnecessary things, isn't it?" Pauline rejoiced.

That first check had really gone a long ways. After buying the matting and paper, there had been quite a fair sum left; enough to pay for two magazine subscriptions, one a review that Mr. Shaw had long wanted to take, another, one of the best of the current monthlies; and to lay in quite a store of new ribbons and pretty turnovers, and several yards of silkaline to make cushion covers for the side porch, for Pauline, taking hint from Hilary's out-door parlor at the farm, had been quick to make the most of their own deep, vine-shaded side porch at the parsonage.

The front piazza belonged in a measure to the general public, there were too many people coming and going to make it private enough for a family gathering place. But the side porch was different, broad and square, only two or three steps from the ground; it was their favorite gathering place all through the long, hot summers.

With a strip of carpet for the floor, a small table resurrected from the garret, a bench and three wicker rockers, freshly painted green, and Hilary's hammock, rich in pillows, Pauline felt that their porch was one to be proud of. To Patience had been entrusted the care of keeping the old blue and white Canton bowl filled with fresh flowers, and there were generally books and papers on the table. And they might have done it all before, Pauline thought now, if they had stopped to think.

"Have you decided?" Hilary asked her, glancing at the sober face bent over the samples.

"I believe I'd forgotten all about them; I think I'll choose this—" Pauline held up a sample of blue and white striped dimity.

"That is pretty."

"You can have it, if you like."

"Oh, no, I'll have the pink."

"And the lavender dot, for Mother Shaw?"

"Yes," Hilary agreed.

"Patience had better have straight white, it'll be in the wash so often."

"Why not let her choose for herself, Paul?" Hilary suggested.

"Hilary! Oh, Hilary Shaw!" Patience called excitedly, at that moment from downstairs.

"Up here!" Hilary called back, and Patience came hurrying up, stumbling more than once in her eagerness. The next moment, she pushed wide the door of the "new room." "See what's come! It's addressed to you, Hilary—it came by express—Jed brought it up from the depot!" Jed was the village expressman.

She deposited her burden on the table beside Hilary. It was a good-sized, square box, and with all that delightful air of mystery about it that such packages usually have.

"What do you suppose it is, Paul?" Hilary cried. "Why, I've never had anything come unexpectedly, like this, before."

"A whole lot of things are happening to us that never've happened before," Patience said. "See, it's from Uncle Paul!" she pointed to the address at the upper left-hand corner of the package. "Oh, Hilary, let me open it, please, I'll go get the tack hammer."

"Tell mother to come," Hilary said.

"Maybe it's books, Paul!" she added, as Patience scampered off.

Pauline lifted the box. "It doesn't seem quite heavy enough for books."

"But what else could it be?"

Pauline laughed. "It isn't another Bedelia, at all events. It could be almost anything. Hilary, I believe Uncle Paul is really glad I wrote to him."

"Well, I'm not exactly sorry," Hilary declared.

"Mother can't come yet," Patience explained, reappearing. "She says not to wait. It's that tiresome Mrs. Dane; she just seems to know when we don't want her, and then to come—only, I suppose if she waited 'til we did want to see her, she'd never get here."

"Mother didn't say that. Impatience, and you'd better not let her hear you saying it," Pauline warned.

But Patience was busy with the tack hammer. "You can take the inside covers off," she said to Hilary.

"Thanks, awfully," Hilary murmured.

"It'll be my turn next, won't it?" Patience dropped the tack hammer, and wrenched off the cover of the box—"Go ahead, Hilary! Oh, how slow you are!"

For Hilary was going about her share of the unpacking in the most leisurely way. "I want to guess first," she said. "Such a lot of wrappings! It must be something breakable."

"A picture, maybe," Pauline suggested. Patience dropped cross-legged on the floor. "Then I don't think Uncle Paul's such a very sensible sort of person," she said.

"No, not pictures!" Hilary lifted something from within the box, "but something to get pictures with. See, Paul!"

"A camera! Oh, Hilary!"

"And not a little tiny one." Patience leaned over to examine the box. "It's a three and a quarter by four and a quarter. We can have fun now, can't we?" Patience believed firmly in the cooperative principle.

"Tom'll show you how to use it," Pauline said. "He fixed up a dark room last fall, you know, for himself."

"And here are all the doings." Patience came to investigate the further contents of the express package. "Films and those funny little pans for developing in, and all."

Inside the camera was a message to the effect that Mr. Shaw hoped his niece would be pleased with his present and that it would add to the summer's pleasures,

"He's getting real uncley, isn't he?" Patience observed. Then she caught sight of the samples Pauline had let fall. "Oh, how pretty! Are they for dresses for us?"

"They'd make pretty scant ones, I'd say," Pauline, answered.

"Silly!" Patience spread the bright scraps out on her blue checked gingham apron. "I just bet you've been choosing! Why didn't you call me?"

"To help us choose?" Pauline asked, with a laugh.

But at the present moment, her small sister was quite impervious to sarcasm. "I think I'll have this," she pointed to a white ground, closely sprinkled with vivid green dots.

"Carrots and greens!" Pauline declared, glancing at her sister's red curls. "You'd look like an animated boiled dinner! If you please, who said anything about your choosing?"

"You look ever so nice in all white, Patty," Hilary said hastily.

"Have you and Paul chosen all white?"

"N-no."

"Then I shan't!" She looked up quickly, her blue eyes very persuasive. "I don't very often have a brand new, just-out-of-the-store dress, do I?"

Pauline laughed. "Only don't let it be the green then. Good, here's mother, at last!"

"Mummy, is blue or green better?" Patience demanded.

Mrs. Shaw examined and duly admired the camera, and decided in favor of a blue dot; then she said, "Mrs. Boyd is down-stairs, Hilary."

"How nice!" Hilary jumped up. "I want to see her most particularly."

"Bless me, child!" Mrs. Boyd exclaimed, as Hilary came into the sitting-room, "how you are getting on! Why, you don't look like the same girl of three weeks back."

Hilary sat down beside her on the sofa. "I've got a most tremendous favor to ask, Mrs. Boyd."

"I'm glad to hear that! I hear you young folks are having fine times lately. Shirley was telling me about the club the other night."

"It's about the club—and it's in two parts; first, won't you and Mr. Boyd be honorary members?—That means you can come to the good times if you like, you know.—And the other is—you see, it's my turn next—" And when Pauline came down, she found the two deep in consultation.

The next afternoon, Patience carried out her long-intended plan of calling at the manor. Mrs. Shaw was from home for the day, Pauline and Hilary were out in the trap with Tom and Josie and the camera. "So there's really no one to ask permission of, Towser," Patience explained, as they started off down the back lane. "Father's got the study door closed, of course that means he mustn't be disturbed for anything unless it's absolutely necessary."

Towser wagged comprehendingly. He was quite ready for a ramble this bright afternoon, especially a ramble 'cross lots.

Shirley and her father were not at home, neither—which was even more disappointing—were any of the dogs; so, after a short chat with Betsy Todd, considerably curtailed by that body's too frankly expressed wonder that Patience should've been allowed to come unattended by any of her elders, she and Towser wandered home again.

In the lane, they met Sextoness Jane, sitting on the roadside, under a shady tree. She and Patience exchanged views on parish matters, discussed the new club, and had an all-round good gossip.

"My sakes!" Jane said, her faded eyes bright with interest, "it must seem like Christmas all the time up to your house." She looked past Patience to the old church beyond, around which her life had centered itself for so many years. "There weren't ever such doings at the parsonage—nor anywhere else, what I knowed of—when I was a girl. Why, that Bedelia horse! Seems like she give an air to the whole place—so pretty and high-stepping—it's most's good's a circus—not that I've ever been to a circus, but I've hear tell on them—just to see her go prancing by."

"I think," Patience said that evening, as they were all sitting on the porch in the twilight, "I think that Jane would like awfully to belong to our club."

"Have you started a club, too?" Pauline teased.

Patience tossed her red head. "'The S. W. F. Club,' I mean; and you know it, Paul Shaw. When I get to be fifteen, I shan't act half so silly as some folks."

"What ever put that idea in your head?" Hilary asked. It was one of Hilary's chief missions in life to act as intermediary between her younger and older sister.

"Oh, I just gathered it, from what she said. Towser and I met her this afternoon, on our way home from the manor."

"From where, Patience?" her mother asked quickly, with that faculty for taking hold of the wrong end of a remark, that Patience had had occasion to deplore more than once.

And in the diversion this caused, Sextoness Jane was forgotten.

"Here comes Mr. Boyd, Hilary!" Pauline called from the foot of the stairs.

Hilary finished tying the knot of cherry ribbon at her throat, then snatching up her big sun-hat from the bed, she ran down-stairs.

Before the side door, stood the big wagon, in which Mr. Boyd had driven over from the farm, its bottom well filled with fresh straw. For Hilary's outing was to be a cherry picnic at The Maples, with supper under the trees, and a drive home later by moonlight.

Shirley had brought over the badges a day or two before; the blue ribbon, with its gilt lettering, gave an added touch to the girls' white dresses and cherry ribbons.

Mr. Dayre had been duly made an honorary member. He and Shirley were to meet the rest of the party at the farm. As for Patience H. M., as Tom called her, she had been walking very softly the past few days. There had been no long rambles without permission, no making calls on her own account. There had been a private interview between herself and Mr. Boyd, whom she had met, not altogether by chance, down street the day before.

The result was that, at the present moment, Patience—white-frocked, blue-badged, cherry-ribboned—was sitting demurely in one corner of the big wagon.

Mr. Boyd chuckled as he glanced down at her; a body'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to get ahead of that youngster. Though not in white, nor wearing cherry ribbons, Mr. Boyd sported his badge with much complacency. Winton was looking up, decidedly. 'Twasn't such a slow old place, after all.

"All ready?" he asked, as Pauline slipped a couple of big pasteboard boxes under the wagon seat, and threw in some shawls for the coming home.

"All ready. Good-by, Mother Shaw. Remember, you and father have got to come with us one of these days. I guess if Mr. Boyd can take a holiday you can."

"Good-by," Hilary called, and Patience waved joyously. "This'll make two times," she comforted herself, "and two times ought to be enough to establish what father calls 'a precedent.'"

They stopped at the four other houses in turn; then Mr. Boyd touched his horses up lightly, rattling them along at a good rate out on to the road leading to the lake and so to The Maples.

There was plenty of fun and laughter by the way. They had gone picnicking together so many summers, this same crowd, had had so many good times together. "And yet it seems different, this year, doesn't it?" Bell said. "We really aren't doing new things—exactly, still they seem so."

Tracy touched his badge. "These are the 'Blue Ribbon Brand,' best goods in the market."

"Come to think of it, there aren't so very many new things one can do," Tom remarked.

"Not in Winton, at any rate," Bob added.

"If anyone dares say anything derogatory to Winton, on this, or any other, outing of the 'S. W. F. Club,' he, or she, will get into trouble," Josie said sternly.

Mrs. Boyd was waiting for them on the steps, Shirley close by, while a glimpse of a white umbrella seen through the trees told that Mr. Dayre was not far off.

"It's the best cherry season in years," Mrs. Boyd declared, as the young folks came laughing and crowding about her. She was a prime favorite with them all. "My, how nice you look! Those badges are mighty pretty."

"Where's yours?" Pauline demanded.

"It's in my top drawer, dear. Looks like I'm too old to go wearing such things, though 'twas ever so good in you to send me one."

"Hilary," Pauline turned to her sister, "I'm sure Mrs. Boyd'll let you go to her top drawer. Not a stroke of business does this club do, until this particular member has her badge on."

"Now," Tom asked, when that little matter had been attended to, "what's the order of the day?"

"I hope you've worn old dresses?" Mrs. Boyd said.

"I haven't, ma'am," Tracy announced.

"Order!" Bob called.

"Eat all you like—so long's you don't get sick—and each pick a nice basket to take home," Mrs. Boyd explained. There were no cherries anywhere else quite so big and fine, as those at The Maples.

"You to command, we to obey!" Tracy declared.

"Boys to pick, girls to pick up," Tom ordered, as they scattered about among the big, bountifully laden trees.

"For cherry time, Is merry time,"

Shirley improvised, catching the cluster of great red and white cherries Jack tossed down to her.

Even more than the rest of the young folks, Shirley was getting the good of this happy, out-door summer, with its quiet pleasures and restful sense of home life. She had never known anything before like it. It was very different, certainly, from the studio life in New York, different from the sketching rambles she had taken other summers with her father. They were delightful, too, and it was pleasant to think of going back to them again—some day; but just at present, it was good to be a girl among other girls, interested in all the simple, homely things each day brought up.

And her father was content, too, else how could she have been so? It was doing him no end of good. Painting a little, sketching a little, reading and idling a good deal, and through it all, immensely amused at the enthusiasm with which his daughter threw herself into the village life. "I shall begin to think soon, that you were born and raised in Winton," he had said to her that very morning, as she came in fresh from a conference with Betsy Todd. Betsy might be spending her summer in a rather out-of-the-way spot, and her rheumatism might prevent her from getting into town—as she expressed it—but very little went on that Betsy did not hear of, and she was not one to keep her news to herself.

"So shall I," Shirley had laughed back. She wondered now, if Pauline or Hilary would enjoy a studio winter, as much as she was reveling in her Winton summer? She decided that probably they would.

Cherry time was merry time that afternoon. Of course. Bob fell out of one of the trees, but Bob was so used to tumbling, and the others were so used to having him tumble, that no one paid much attention to it; and equally, of course, Patience tore her dress and had to be taken in hand by Mrs. Boyd.

"Every rose must have its thorns, you know, kid," Tracy told her, as she was borne away for this enforced retirement. "We'll leave a few cherries, 'gainst you get back."

Patience elevated her small freckled nose, she was an adept at it. "I reckon they will be mighty few—if you have anything to do with it."

"You're having a fine time, aren't you, Senior?" Shirley asked, as Mr. Dayre came scrambling down from his tree; he had been routed from his sketching and pressed into service by his indefatigable daughter.

"Scrumptious! Shirley, you've got a fine color—only it's laid on in spots."

"You're spattery, too," she retorted. "I must go help lay out the supper now."

"Will anyone want supper, after so many cherries?" Mr. Dayre asked.

"Will they?" Pauline laughed. "Well, you just wait and see."

Some of the boys brought the table from the house, stretching it out to its uttermost length. The girls laid the cloth, Mrs. Boyd provided, and unpacked the boxes stacked on the porch. From the kitchen came an appetizing odor of hot coffee. Hilary and Bell went off after flowers for the center of the table.

"We'll put one at each place, suggestive of the person—like a place card," Hilary proposed.

"Here's a daisy for Mrs. Boyd," Bell laughed.

"Let's give that to Mr. Boyd and cut her one of these old-fashioned spice pinks," Hilary said.

"Better put a bit of pepper-grass for the Imp," Tracy suggested, as the girls went from place to place up and down the long table.

"Paul's to have a pansy," Hilary insisted. She remembered how, if it hadn't been for Pauline's "thought" that wet May afternoon, everything would still be as dull and dreary as it was then.

At her own place she found a spray of belated wild roses, Tom had laid there, the pink of their petals not more delicate than the soft color coming and going in the girl's face.

"We've brought for-get-me-not for you, Shirley," Bell said, "so that you won't forget us when you get back to the city."

"As if I were likely to!" Shirley exclaimed.

"Sound the call to supper, sonny!" Tom told Bob, and Bob, raising the farm dinner-horn, sounded it with a will, making the girls cover their ears with their hands and bringing the boys up with a rush.

"It's a beautiful picnic, isn't it?" Patience said, reappearing in time to slip into place with the rest.

"And after supper, I will read you the club song," Tracy announced.

"Are we to have a club song?" Edna asked.

"We are."

"Read it now, son—while we eat," Tom suggested.

Tracy rose promptly—"Mind you save me a few scraps then. First, it isn't original—"

"All the better," Jack commented.

"Hush up, and listen—

"'A cheerful world?—It surely is. And if you understand your biz You'll taboo the worry worm, And cultivate the happy germ.

"'It's a habit to be happy, Just as much as to be scrappy. So put the frown away awhile, And try a little sunny smile.'"

There was a generous round of applause. Tracy tossed the scrap of paper across the table to Bell. "Put it to music, before the next round-up, if you please."

Bell nodded. "I'll do my best."

"We've got a club song and a club badge, and we ought to have a club motto," Josie said.

"It's right to your hand, in your song," her brother answered. "'It's a habit to be happy.'"

"Good!" Pauline seconded him, and the motto was at once adopted.



CHAPTER VIII

SNAP-SHOTS

Bell Ward set the new song to music, a light, catchy tune, easy to pick up. It took immediately, the boys whistled it, as they came and went, and the girls hummed it. Patience, with cheerful impartiality, did both, in season and out of season.

It certainly looked as though it were getting to be a habit to be happy among a good many persons in Winton that summer. The spirit of the new club seemed in the very atmosphere.

A rivalry, keen but generous, sprang up between the club members in the matter of discovering new ways of "Seeing Winton," or, failing that, of giving a new touch to the old familiar ones.

There were many informal and unexpected outings, besides the club's regular ones, sometimes amongst all the members, often among two or three of them.

Frequently, Shirley drove over in the surrey, and she and Pauline and Hilary, with sometimes one of the other girls, would go for long rambling drives along the quiet country roads, or out beside the lake. Shirley generally brought her sketch-book and there were pleasant stoppings here and there.

And there were few days on which Bedelia and the trap were not out, Bedelia enjoying the brisk trots about the country quite as much as her companions.

Hilary soon earned the title of "the kodak fiend," Josie declaring she took pictures in her sleep, and that "Have me; have my camera," was Hilary's present motto. Certainly, the camera was in evidence at all the outings, and so far, Hilary had fewer failures to her account than most beginners. Her "picture diary" she called the big scrap-book in which was mounted her record of the summer's doings.

Those doings were proving both numerous and delightful. Mr. Shaw, as an honorary member, had invited the club to a fishing party, which had been an immense success. The doctor had followed it by a moonlight drive along the lake and across on the old sail ferry to the New York side, keeping strictly within that ten-mile-from-home limit, though covering considerably more than ten miles in the coming and going.

There had been picnics of every description, to all the points of interest and charm in and about the village; an old-time supper at the Wards', at which the club members had appeared in old-fashioned costumes; a strawberry supper on the church lawn, to which all the church were invited, and which went off rather better than some of the sociables had in times past.

As the Winton Weekly News declared proudly, it was the gayest summer the village had known in years. Mr. Paul Shaw's theory about developing home resources was proving a sound one in this instance at least.

Hilary had long since forgotten that she had ever been an invalid, had indeed, sometimes, to be reminded of that fact. She had quite discarded the little "company" fiction, except now and then, by way of a joke. "Who'd want to be company?" she protested. "I'd rather be one of the family these days."

"That's all very well," Patience retorted, "when you're getting all the good of being both. You've got the company room." Patience had not found her summer quite as cloudless as some of her elders; being an honorary member had not meant all of the fun in her case. She wished very much that it were possible to grow up in a single night, thus wiping out forever that drawback of being "a little girl."

Still, on the whole, she managed to get a fair share of the fun going on and quite agreed with the editor of the Weekly News, going so far as to tell him so when she met him down street. She had a very kindly feeling in her heart for the pleasant spoken little editor; had he not given her her full honors every time she had had the joy of being "among those present"?

There had been three of those checks from Uncle Paul; it was wonderful how far each had been made to go. It was possible nowadays to send for a new book, when the reviews were more than especially tempting. There had also been a tea-table added to the other attractions of the side porch, not an expensive affair, but the little Japanese cups and saucers were both pretty and delicate, as was the rest of the service; while Miranda's cream cookies and sponge cakes were, as Shirley declared, good enough to be framed. Even the minister appeared now and then of an afternoon, during tea hour, and the young people, gathered on the porch, began to find him a very pleasant addition to their little company, he and they getting acquainted, as they had never gotten acquainted before.

Sextoness Jane came every week now to help with the ironing, which meant greater freedom in the matter of wash dresses; and also, to Sextoness Jane herself, the certainty of a day's outing every week. To Sextoness Jane, those Tuesdays at the parsonage were little short of a dissipation. Miranda, unbending in the face of such sincere and humble admiration, was truly gracious. The glimpses the little bent, old sextoness got of the young folks, the sense of life going on about her, were as good as a play, to quote her own simile, confided of an evening to Tobias, her great black cat, the only other inmate of the old cottage.

"I reckon Uncle Paul would be rather surprised," Pauline said one evening, "if he could know all the queer sorts of ways in which we use his money. But the little easings-up do count for so much."

"Indeed they do," Hilary agreed warmly, "though it hasn't all gone for easings-ups, as you call them, either." She had sat down right in the middle of getting ready for bed, to revel in her ribbon box; she so loved pretty ribbons!

The committee on finances, as Pauline called her mother, Hilary, and herself, held frequent meetings. "And there's always one thing," the girl would declare proudly, "the treasury is never entirely empty."

She kept faithful account of all money received and spent; each month a certain amount was laid away for the "rainy day"—which meant, really, the time when the checks should cease to come—-"for, you know, Uncle Paul only promised them for the summer," Pauline reminded the others, and herself, rather frequently. Nor was all of the remainder ever quite used up before the coming of the next check.

"You're quite a business woman, my dear," Mr. Shaw said once, smiling over the carefully recorded entries in the little account-book she showed him. "We must have named you rightly."

She wrote regularly to her uncle; her letters unconsciously growing more friendly and informal from week to week. They were bright, vivid letters, more so than Pauline had any idea of. Through them, Mr. Paul Shaw felt himself becoming very well acquainted with these young relatives whom he had never seen, and in whom, as the weeks went by, he felt himself growing more and more interested.

Without realizing it, he got into the habit of looking forward to that weekly letter; the girl wrote a nice clear hand, there didn't seem to be any nonsense about her, and she had a way of going right to her point that was most satisfactory. It seemed sometimes as if he could see the old white parsonage and ivy-covered church; the broad tree-shaded lawns; the outdoor parlor, with the young people gathered about the tea-table; Bedelia, picking her way along the quiet country roads; the great lake in all its moods; the manor house.

Sometimes Pauline would enclose one or two of Hilary's snap-shots of places, or persons. At one of these, taken the day of the fishing picnic, and under which Hilary had written "The best catch of the season," Mr. Paul Shaw looked long and intently. Somehow he had never pictured Phil to himself as middle-aged. If anyone had told him, when the lad was a boy, that the time would come when they would be like strangers to each other—Mr. Paul Shaw slipped the snap-shot and letter back into their envelope.

It was that afternoon that he spent considerable time over a catalogue devoted entirely to sporting goods; and it was a fortnight later that Patience came flying down the garden path to where Pauline and Hilary were leaning over the fence, paying a morning call to Bedelia, sunning herself in the back pasture.

"You'll never guess what's come this time! And Jed says he reckons he can haul it out this afternoon if you're set on it! And it's addressed to the 'Misses Shaw,' so that means it's mine, too!" Patience dropped on the grass, quite out of breath.

The "it" proved to be a row-boat with a double set of oar-locks, a perfect boat for the lake, strong and safe, but trig and neat of outline.

Hilary named it the "Surprise" at first sight, and Tom was sent for at once to paint the name in red letters to look well against the white background and to match the boat's red trimmings.

Its launching was an event. Some of the young people had boats over at the lake, rather weather-beaten, tubby affairs, Bell declared them, after the coming of the "Surprise." A general overhauling took place immediately, the girls adopted simple boating dresses—red and white, which were their boating colors. A new zest was given to the water picnics, Bedelia learning to know the lake road very well.

August had come before they fairly realized that their summer was more than well under way. In little more than a month the long vacation would be over. Tom and Josie were to go to Boston to school; Bell to Vergennes.

"There'll never be another summer quite like it!" Hilary said one morning. "I can't bear to think of its being over."

"It isn't—yet," Pauline answered.

"Tom's coming," Patience heralded from the gate, and Hilary ran indoors for hat and camera.

"Where are you off to this morning?" Pauline asked, as her sister came out again.

"Out by the Cross-roads' Meeting-House," Tom answered. "Hilary has designs on it, I believe."

"You'd better come, too, Paul," Hilary urged. "It's a glorious morning for a walk."

"I'm going to help mother cut out; perhaps I'll come to meet you with Bedelia 'long towards noon. You wait at Meeting-House Hill."

"I'm not going to be busy this morning," Patience insinuated.

"Oh, yes you are, young lady," Pauline told her. "Mother said you were to weed the aster bed."

Patience looked longingly after the two starting gayly off down the path, their cameras swung over their shoulders, then she looked disgustedly at the aster bed. It was quite the biggest of the smaller beds.—She didn't see what people wanted to plant so many asters for; she had never cared much for asters, she felt she should care even less about them in the future. Tiresome, stiff affairs!

By the time Tom and Hilary reached the old Cross-Roads' Meeting-House that morning, after a long roundabout ramble, Hilary, for one, was quite willing to sit down and wait for Pauline and the trap, and eat the great, juicy blackberries Tom gathered for her from the bushes along the road.

It had rained during the night and the air was crisp and fresh, with a hint of the coming fall. "Summer's surely on the down grade," Tom said, throwing himself on the bank beside Hilary.

"So Paul and I were lamenting this morning. I don't suppose it matters as much to you folks who are going off to school."

"Still it means another summer over," Tom said soberly. He was rather sorry that it was so—there could never be another summer quite so jolly and carefree. "And the breaking up of the club, I suppose?"

"I don't see why we need call it a break—just a discontinuance, for a time."

"And why that, even? There'll be a lot of you left, to keep it going."

"Y-yes, but with three, or perhaps more, out, I reckon we'll have to postpone the next installment until another summer."

Tom went off then for more berries, and Hilary sat leaning back against the trunk of the big tree crowning the top of Meeting-House Hill, her eyes rather thoughtful. From where she sat, she had a full view of both roads for some distance and, just beyond, the little hamlet scattered about the old meeting-house.

Before the gate of one of the houses stood a familiar gig, and presently, as she sat watching, Dr. Brice came down the narrow flower-bordered path, followed by a woman. At the gate both stopped; the woman was saying something, her anxious, drawn face seeming out of keeping with the cheery freshness of the morning and the flowers nodding their bright heads about her.

As the doctor stood listening, his old shabby medicine case in his hand, with face bent to the troubled one raised to his, and bearing indicating grave sympathy and understanding, Hilary reached for her camera.

"Upon my word! Isn't the poor pater exempt?" Tom laughed, coming back.

"I want it for the book Josie and I are making for you to take away with you, 'Winton Snap-shots.' We'll call it 'The Country Doctor.'"

Tom looked at the gig, moving slowly off down the road now. He hated to say so, but he wished Hilary would not put that particular snap-shot in. He had a foreboding that it was going to make him a bit uncomfortable—later—when the time for decision came; though, as for that, he had already decided—beyond thought of change. He wished that the pater hadn't set his heart on his coming back here to practice—and he wished, too, that Hilary hadn't taken that photo.

"Paul's late," he said presently.

"I'm afraid she isn't coming."

"It's past twelve," Tom glanced at the sun. "Maybe we'd better walk on a bit."

But they had walked a considerable bit, all the way to the parsonage, in fact, before they saw anything of Pauline. There, she met them at the gate. "Have you seen any trace of Patience—and Bedelia?" she asked eagerly.

"Patience and Bedelia?" Hilary repeated wonderingly.

"They're both missing, and it's pretty safe guessing they're together."

"But Patience would never dare—"

"Wouldn't she!" Pauline exclaimed. "Jim brought Bedelia 'round about eleven and when I came out a few moments later, she was gone and so was Patience. Jim's out looking for them. We traced them as far as the Lake road."

"I'll go hunt, too," Tom offered. "Don't you worry, Paul; she'll turn up all right—couldn't down the Imp, if you tried."

"But she's never driven Bedelia alone; and Bedelia's not Fanny."

However, half an hour later, Patience drove calmly into the yard, Towser on the seat beside her, and if there was something very like anxiety in her glance, there was distinct triumph in the way she carried her small, bare head.

"We've had a beautiful drive!" she announced, smiling pleasantly from her high seat, at the worried, indignant group on the porch. "I tell you, there isn't any need to 'hi-yi' this horse!"

"My sakes!" Miranda declared. "Did you ever hear the beat of that!"

"Get down, Patience!" Mrs. Shaw said, and Patience climbed obediently down. She bore the prompt banishment to her own room which followed, with seeming indifference. Certainly, it was not unexpected; but when Hilary brought her dinner up to her presently, she found her sitting on the floor, her head on the bed. It was only a few days now to Shirley's turn and it was going to be such a nice turn. Patience felt that for once Patience Shaw had certainly acted most unwisely.

"Patty, how could you!" Hilary put the tray on the table and sitting down on the bed, took the tumbled head on her knee. "We've been so worried! You see, Bedelia isn't like Fanny!"

"That's why I wanted to get a chance to drive her by myself for once! She went beautifully! out on the Lake road I just let her loose!" For the moment, pride in her recent performance routed all contrition from Patience's voice—"I tell you, folks I passed just stared!"

"Patience, how—"

"I wasn't scared the least bit; and, of course, Bedelia knew it. Uncle Jerry says they always know when you're scared, and if Mr. Allen is the most up in history of any man in Vermont, Uncle Jerry is the most in horses."

Hilary felt that the conversation was hardly proceeding upon the lines her mother would have approved of, especially under present circumstances. "That has nothing to do with it, you know, Patience," she said, striving to be properly severe.

"I think it has—everything. I think it's nice not being scared of things. You're sort of timid 'bout things, aren't you, Hilary?"

Hilary made a movement to rise.

"Oh, please," Patience begged. "It's going to be such a dreadful long afternoon—all alone."

"But I can't stay, mother would not want—"

"Just for a minute. I—I want to tell you something. I—coming back, I met Jane, and I gave her a lift home—and she did love it so—she says she's never ridden before behind a horse that really went as if it enjoyed it as much as she did. That was some good out of being bad, wasn't it? And—I told you—ever'n' ever so long ago, that I was mighty sure Jane'd just be tickled to death to belong to our club. I think you might ask her—I don't see why she shouldn't like Seeing Winton, same's we do—she doesn't ever have fun—and she'll be dead pretty soon. She's getting along, Jane is—it'd make me mad's anything to have to die 'fore I'd had any fun to speak of. Jane's really very good company—when you draw her out—she just needs drawing out—Jane does. Seems to me, she remembers every funeral and wedding and everything—that's ever taken place in Winton." Patience stopped, sheer out of breath, but there was an oddly serious look on her little eager face.

Hilary stroked back the tangled red curls. "Maybe you're right, Patty; maybe we have been selfish with our good times. I'll have to go now, dear. You—I may tell mother—that you are sorry—truly, Patty?"

Patience nodded. "But I reckon, it's a good deal on account of Shirley's turn," she explained.

Hilary bit her lip.

"You don't suppose you could fix that up with mother? You're pretty good at fixing things up with mother, Hilary."

"Since how long?" Hilary laughed, but when she had closed the door, she opened it again to stick her head in. "I'll try, Patty, at any rate," she promised.

She went down-stairs rather thoughtful. Mrs. Shaw was busy in the study and Pauline had gone out on an errand. Hilary went up-stairs again, going to sit by one of the side windows in the "new room."

Over at the church, Sextoness Jane was making ready for the regular weekly prayer meeting; never a service was held in the church that she did not set all in order. Through one of the open windows, Hilary caught sight of the bunch of flowers on the reading-desk. Jane had brought them with her from home. Presently, the old woman herself came to the window to shake her dust-cloth, standing there a moment, leaning a little out, her eyes turned to the parsonage. Pauline was coming up the path, Shirley and Bell were with her. They were laughing and talking, the bright young voices making a pleasant break in the quiet of the garden. It seemed to Hilary, as if she could catch the wistful look in Jane's faded eyes, a look only half consciously so, as if the old woman reached out vaguely for something that her own youth had been without and that only lately she had come to feel the lack of.

A quick lump came into the girl's throat. Life had seemed so bright and full of untried possibilities only that very morning, up there on Meeting-House Hill, with the wind in one's face; and then had come that woman, following the doctor down from the path. Life was surely anything but bright for her this crisp August day—and now here was Jane. And presently—at the moment it seemed very near indeed to Hilary—she and Paul and all of them would be old and, perhaps, unhappy. And then it would be good to remember—that they had tried to share the fun and laughter of this summer of theirs with others.

Hilary thought of the piece of old tapestry hanging on the studio wall over at the manor—of the interwoven threads—the dark as necessary to the pattern as the bright. Perhaps they had need of Sextoness Jane, of the interweaving of her life into theirs—of the interweaving of all the village lives going on about them—quite as much as those more sober lives needed the brightening touch of theirs.

"Hilary! O Hilary!" Pauline called.

"I'm coming," Hilary answered, and went slowly down to where the others were waiting on the porch.

"Has anything happened?" Pauline asked.

"I've been having a think—and I've come to the conclusion that we're a selfish, self-absorbed set."

"Mother Shaw!" Pauline went to the study window, "please come out here. Hilary's calling us names, and that isn't polite."

Mrs. Shaw came. "I hope not very bad names," she said.

Hilary swung slowly back and forth in the hammock. "I didn't mean it that way—it's only—" She told what Patience had said about Jane's joining the club, and then, rather reluctantly, a little of what she had been thinking.

"I think Hilary's right," Shirley declared. "Let's form a deputation and go right over and ask the poor old soul to join here and now."

"I would never've thought of it," Bell said. "But I don't suppose I've ever given Jane a thought, anyway."

"Patty's mighty cute—for all she's such a terror at times," Pauline admitted. "She knows a lot about the people here—and it's just because she's interested in them."

"Come on," Shirley said, jumping up. "We're going to have another honorary member."

"I think it would be kind, girls," Mrs. Shaw said gravely. "Jane will feel herself immensely flattered, and I know of no one who upholds the honor of Winton more honestly or persistently."

"And please, Mrs. Shaw," Shirley coaxed, "when we come back, mayn't Patience Shaw, H. M., come down and have tea with us?"

"I hardly think—"

"Please, Mother Shaw," Hilary broke in; "after all—she started this, you know. That sort of counterbalances the other, doesn't it?"

"Well, we'll see," her mother laughed.

Pauline ran to get one of the extra badges with which Shirley had provided her, and then the four girls went across to the church.

Sextoness Jane was just locking the back door—not the least important part of the afternoon's duties with her—as they came through the opening in the hedge. "Good afternoon," she said cheerily, "was you wanting to go inside?"

"No," Pauline answered, "we came over to invite you to join our club. We thought, maybe, you'd like to?"

"My Land!" Jane stared from one to another of them. "And wear one of them blue-ribbon affairs?"

"Yes, indeed," Shirley laughed. "See, here it is," and she pointed to the one in Pauline's hand.

Sextoness Jane came down the steps. "Me, I ain't never wore a badge! Not once in all my life! Oncet, when I was a little youngster, 'most like Patience, teacher, she got up some sort of May doings. We was all to wear white dresses and red, white and blue ribbons—very night before, I come down with the mumps. Looks like I always come down when I ought to've stayed up!"

"But you won't come down with anything this time," Pauline pinned the blue badge on the waist of Jane's black and white calico. "Now you're an honorary member of 'The S. W. F. Club.'"

Jane passed a hand over it softly. "My Land!" was all she could say.

She was still stroking it softly as she walked slowly away towards home. My, wouldn't Tobias be interested!



CHAPTER IX

AT THE MANOR

"'All the names I know from nurse: Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse, Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock, And the Lady Hollyhock,'"

Patience chanted, moving slowly about the parsonage garden, hands full of flowers, and the big basket, lying on the grass beyond, almost full.

Behind her, now running at full speed, now stopping suddenly, back lifted, tail erect, came Lucky, the black kitten from The Maples. Lucky had been an inmate of the parsonage for some weeks now and was thriving famously in her adopted home. Towser tolerated her with the indifference due such a small, insignificant creature, and she alternately bullied and patronized Towser.

"We haven't shepherd's purse, nor lady's smock, that I know of, Lucky," Patience said, glancing back at the kitten, at that moment threatening battle at a polite nodding Sweet William, "but you can see for yourself that we have hollyhocks, while as for bachelor's buttons! Just look at that big, blue bunch in one corner of the basket."

It was the morning of the day of Shirley's turn and Pauline was hurrying to get ready to go over and help decorate the manor. She was singing, too; from the open windows of the "new room" came the words—

"'A cheerful world?—It surely is And if you understand your biz You'll taboo the worry worm, And cultivate the happy germ.'"

To which piece of good advice, Patience promptly whistled back the gay refrain.

On the back porch, Sextoness Jane—called in for an extra half-day—was ironing the white dresses to be worn that afternoon. And presently, Patience, her basket quite full and stowed away in the trap waiting before the side door, strolled around to interview her.

"I suppose you're going this afternoon?" she asked.

Jane looked up from waxing her iron. "Well, I was sort of calculating on going over for a bit; Miss Shirley having laid particular stress on my coming and this being the first reg'lar doings since I joined the club. I told her and Pauline they mustn't look for me to go junketing 'round with them all the while, seeing I'm in office—so to speak—and my time pretty well taken up with my work. I reckon you're going?"

"I—" Patience edged nearer the porch. Behind Jane stood the tall clothes-horse, with its burden of freshly ironed white things. At sight of a short, white frock, very crisp and immaculate, the blood rushed to the child's face, then as quickly receded.—After all, it would have had to be ironed for Sunday and—well, mother certainly had been very non-committal the past few days—ever since that escapade with Bedelia, in fact—regarding her youngest daughter's hopes and fears for this all-important afternoon. And Patience had been wise enough not to press the matter.

"But, oh, I do wonder if Hilary has—" Patience went back to the side porch. Hilary was there talking to Bedelia. "You—you have fixed it up?" the child inquired anxiously.

Hilary looked gravely unconscious. "Fixed it up?" she repeated.

"About this afternoon—with mother?"

"Oh, yes! Mother's going; so is father."

Patience repressed a sudden desire to stamp her foot, and Hilary, seeing the real doubt and longing in her face, relented. "Mother wants to see you, Patty. I rather think there are to be conditions."

Patience darted off. From the doorway, she looked back—"I just knew you wouldn't go back on me, Hilary! I'll love you forever'n' ever."

Pauline came out a moment later, drawing on her driving gloves. "I feel like a story-book girl, going driving this time in the morning, in a trap like this. I wish you were coming, too, Hilary."

"Oh, I'm like the delicate story-book girl, who has to rest, so as to be ready for the dissipations that are to come later. I look the part, don't I?"

Pauline looked down into the laughing, sun-browned face. "If Uncle Paul were to see you now, he might find it hard to believe I hadn't—exaggerated that time."

"Well, it's your fault—and his, or was, in the beginning. You've a fine basket of flowers to take; Patience has done herself proud this morning."

"It's wonderful how well that young lady can behave—at times."

"Oh, she's young yet! When I hear mother tell how like her you used to be, I don't feel too discouraged about Patty."

"That strikes me as rather a double-edged sort of speech," Pauline gathered up the reins. "Good-by, and don't get too tired."

Shirley's turn was to be a combination studio tea and lawn-party, to which all club members, both regular and honorary, not to mention their relatives and friends, had been bidden. Following this, was to be a high tea for the regular members.

"That's Senior's share," Shirley had explained to Pauline. "He insists that it's up to him to do something."

Mr. Dayre was on very good terms with the "S. W. F. Club." As for Shirley, after the first, no one had ever thought of her as an outsider.

It was hard now, Pauline thought, as she drove briskly along, the lake breeze in her face, and the sound of Bedelia's quick trotting forming a pleasant accompaniment to her, thoughts, very hard, to realize how soon the summer would be over. But perhaps—as Hilary said—next summer would mean the taking up again of this year's good times and interests,—Shirley talked of coming back. As for the winter—Pauline had in mind several plans for the winter. Those of the club members to stay behind must get together some day and talk them over. One thing was certain, the club motto must be lived up to bravely. If not in one way, why in another. There must be no slipping back into the old dreary rut and routine. It lay with themselves as to what their winter should be.

"And there's fine sleighing here, Bedelia," she said. "We'll get the old cutter out and give it a coat of paint."

Bedelia tossed her head, as if she heard in imagination the gay jingling of the sleighbells.

"But, in the meantime, here is the manor," Pauline laughed, "and it's the prettiest August day that ever was, and lawn-parties and such festivities are afoot, not sleighing parties."

The manor stood facing the lake with its back to the road, a broad sloping lawn surrounded it on three sides, with the garden at the back.

For so many seasons, it had stood lonely and neglected, that Pauline never came near it now, without rejoicing afresh in its altered aspect. Even the sight of Betsy Todd's dish towels, drying on the currant bushes at one side of the back door, added their touch to the sense of pleasant, homely life that seemed to envelop the old house nowadays.

Shirley came to the gate, as Pauline drew up, Phil, Pat and Pudgey in close attention. "I have to keep an eye on them," she told Pauline. "They've just had their baths, and they're simply wild to get out in the middle of the road and roll. I've told them no self-respecting dog would wish to come to a lawn-party in anything but the freshest of white coats, but I'm afraid they're not very self-respecting."

"Patience is sure Towser's heart is heavy because he is not to come; she has promised him a lawn-party on his own account, and that no grown-ups shall be invited. She's sent you the promised flowers, and hinted—more or less plainly—that she would have been quite willing to deliver them in person."

"Why didn't you bring her? Oh, but I'm afraid you've robbed yourself!"

"Oh, no, we haven't. Mother says, flowers grow with picking."

"Come on around front," Shirley suggested. "The boys have been putting the awning up."

"The boys" were three of Mr. Dayre's fellow artists, who had come up a day or two before, on a visit to the manor. One of them, at any rate, deserved Shirley's title. He came forward now. "Looks pretty nice, doesn't it?" he said, with a wave of the hand towards the red and white striped awning, placed at the further edge of the lawn.

Shirley smiled her approval, and introduced him to Pauline, adding that Miss Shaw was the real founder of their club.

"It's a might jolly sort of club, too," young Oram said.

"That is exactly what it has turned out to be," Pauline laughed. "Are the vases ready, Shirley?"

Shirley brought the tray of empty flower vases out on the veranda, and sent Harry Oram for a bucket of fresh water. "Harry is to make the salad," she explained to Pauline, as he came back. "Before he leaves the manor he will have developed into a fairly useful member of society."

"You've never eaten one of my salads, Miss Shaw," Harry said. "When you have, you'll think all your previous life an empty dream."

"It's much more likely her later life will prove a nightmare,—for a while, at least," Shirley declared. "Still, Paul, Harry does make them rather well. Betsy Todd, I am sorry to say, doesn't approve of him. But there are so many persons and things she doesn't approve of; lawn-parties among the latter."

Pauline nodded sympathetically; she knew Betsy Todd of old. Her wonder was, that the Dayres had been able to put up with her so long, and she said so.

"'Hobson's choice,'" Shirley answered, with a little shrug. "She isn't much like our old Therese at home, is she, Harry? But nothing would tempt Therese away from her beloved New York. 'Vairmon! Nevaire have I heard of zat place!' she told Harry, when he interviewed her for us. Senior's gone to Vergennes—on business thoughts intent, or I hope they are. He's under strict orders not to 'discover a single bit' along the way, and to get back as quickly as possible."

"You see how beautifully she has us all in training?" Harry said to Pauline.

Pauline laughed. Suddenly she looked up from her flowers with sobered face. "I wonder," she said slowly, "if you know what it's meant to us—you're being here this summer, Shirley? Sometimes things do fit in just right after all. It's helped out wonderfully this summer, having you here and the manor open."

"Pauline has a fairy-story uncle down in New York," Shirley turned to Harry. "You've heard of him—Mr. Paul Shaw."

"Well,—rather! I've met him, once or twice—he didn't strike me as much of a believer in fairy tales."

"He's made us believe in them," Pauline answered.

"I think Senior might have provided me with such a delightful sort of uncle," Shirley observed. "I told him so, but he says, while he's awfully sorry I didn't mention it before, he's afraid it's too late now."

"Uncle Paul sent us Bedelia," Pauline told the rather perplexed-looking Harry, "and the row-boat and the camera and—oh, other things."

"Because he wanted them to have a nice, jolly summer," Shirley explained. "Pauline's sister had been sick and needed brightening up."

"You don't think he's looking around for a nephew to adopt, do you?" Harry inquired. "A well-intentioned, intelligent young man—with no end of talent."

"For making salads," Shirley added with a sly smile.

"Oh, well, you know," Harry remarked casually, "these are what Senior calls my 'salad days.'"

Whereupon Shirley rose without a word, carrying off her vases of flowers.

The party at the manor was, like all the club affairs, a decided success. Never had the old place looked so gay and animated, since those far-off days of its early glory.

The young people coming and going—the girls in their light dresses and bright ribbons made a pleasant place of the lawn, with its background of shining water. The tennis court, at one side of the house, was one of the favorite gathering spots; there were one or two boats out on the lake. The pleasant informality of the whole affair proved its greatest charm.

Mr. Allen was there, pointing out to his host the supposed end of the subterranean passage said to connect the point on which the manor stood with the old ruined French fort over on the New York side. The minister was having a quiet chat with the doctor, who had made a special point of being there. Mothers of club members were exchanging notes and congratulating each other on the good comradeship and general air of contentment among the young people. Sextoness Jane was there, in all the glory of her best dress—one of Mrs. Shaw's handed-down summer ones—and with any amount of items picked up to carry home to Tobias, who was certain to expect a full account of this most unusual dissipation on his mistress's part. Even Betsy Todd condescended to put on her black woolen—usually reserved for church and funerals—and walk about among the other guests; but always, with an air that told plainly how little she approved of such goings on. The Boyds were there, their badges in full evidence. And last, though far from least, in her own estimation, Patience was there, very crisp and white and on her best behavior,—for, setting aside those conditions mother had seen fit to burden her with, was the delightful fact that Shirley had asked her to help serve tea.

The principal tea-table was in the studio, though there was a second one, presided over by Pauline and Bell, out under the awning at the edge of the lawn.

Patience thought the studio the very nicest room she had ever been in. It was long and low—in reality, the old dancing-hall, for the manor had been built after the pattern of its first owner's English home; and in the deep, recessed windows, facing the lake, many a bepatched and powdered little belle of Colonial days had coquetted across her fan with her bravely-clad partner.

Mr. Dayre had thrown out an extra window at one end, at right angles to the great stone fireplace, banked to-day with golden rod, thereby securing the desired north light.

On the easel, stood a nearly finished painting,—a sunny corner of the old manor kitchen, with Betsy Todd in lilac print gown, peeling apples by the open window, through which one caught a glimpse of the tall hollyhocks in the garden beyond.

Before this portrait, Patience found Sextoness Jane standing in mute astonishment.

"Betsy looks like she was just going to say—'take your hands out of the dish!' doesn't she?" Patience commented. Betsy had once helped out at the parsonage, during a brief illness of Miranda's, and the young lady knew whereof she spoke.

"I'd never've thought," Jane said slowly, "that anyone'd get that fond of Sister Todd—as to want a picture of her!"

"Oh, it's because she's such a character, you know," Patience explained serenely. Jane was so good about letting one explain things. "'A perfect character,' I heard one of those artist men say so."

Jane shook her head dubiously. "Not what I'd call a 'perfect' character—not that I've got anything against Sister Todd; but she's too fond of finding out a body's faults."

Patience went off then in search of empty tea-cups. She was having a beautiful time; at present only one cloud overshadowed her horizon. Already some tiresome folks were beginning to think about going. There was the talk of chores to be done, suppers to get, and with the breaking up, must come an end to her share in the party. For mother, though approached in the most delicate fashion, had proved obdurate regarding the further festivity to follow. Had mother been willing to consider the matter, Patience would have cheerfully undertaken to procure the necessary invitation. Shirley was a very obliging girl.

"And really, my dears," she said, addressing the three P's collectively, "it does seem a pity to have to go home before the fun's all over. And I could manage it—Bob would take me out rowing—if I coaxed—he rows very slowly. I don't suppose, for one moment, that we would get back in time. I believe—" For fully three minutes, Patience sat quite still in one of the studio window seats, oblivious of the chatter going on all about her; then into her blue eyes came a look not seen there very often—"No," she said sternly, shaking her head at Phil, much to his surprise, for he wasn't doing anything. "No—it wouldn't be square—and there would be the most awful to-do afterwards."

When a moment or two later, Mrs. Shaw called to her to come, that father was waiting, Patience responded with a very good grace. But Mr. Dayre caught the wistful look in the child's face. "Bless me," he said heartily. "You're not going to take Patience home with you, Mrs. Shaw? Let her stay for the tea—the young people won't keep late hours, I assure you."

"But I think—" Mrs. Shaw began very soberly.

"Sometimes, I find it quite as well not to think things over," Mr. Dayre suggested. "Why, dear me, I'd quite counted on Patience's being here. You see, I'm not a regular member, either; and I want someone to keep me in countenance."

So presently, Hilary felt a hand slipped eagerly into hers. "I'm staying! I'm staying!" an excited little voice announced. "And oh, I just love Mr. Dayre!"

Then Patience went back to her window seat to play the delightful game of "making believe" she hadn't stayed. She imagined that instead, she was sitting between father and mother in the gig, bubbling over with the desire to "hi-yi" at Fanny, picking her slow way along.

The studio was empty, even the dogs were outside, speeding the parting guests with more zeal than discretion. But after awhile Harry Oram strolled in.

"I'm staying!" Patience announced. She approved of Harry. "You're an artist, too, aren't you?" she remarked.

"So kind of you to say so," Harry murmured. "I have heard grave doubts expressed on the subject by my too impartial friends."

"I mean to be one when I grow up," Patience told him, "so's I can have a room like this—with just rugs on the floor; rugs slide so nicely—and window seats and things all cluttery."

"May I come and have tea with you? I'd like it awfully."

"It'll be really tea—not pretend kind," Patience said. "But I'll have that sort for any children who may come. Hilary takes pictures—she doesn't make them though. Made pictures are nicer, aren't they?"

"Some of them." Harry glanced through the open doorway, to where Hilary sat resting. She was "making" a picture now, he thought to himself, in her white dress, under the big tree, her pretty hair forming a frame about her thoughtful face. Taking a portfolio from a table near by, he went out to where Hilary sat.

"Your small sister says you take pictures," he said, drawing a chair up beside hers, "so I thought perhaps you'd let me show you these—they were taken by a friend of mine."

"Oh, but mine aren't anything like these! These are beautiful!" Hilary bent over the photographs he handed her; marveling over their soft tones. They were mostly bits of landscape, with here and there a water view and one or two fleecy cloud effects. It hardly seemed as though they could be really photographs.

"I've never done anything like these!" she said regretfully. "I wish I could—there are some beautiful views about here that would make charming pictures."

"She didn't in the beginning," Harry said, "She's lame; it was an accident, but she can never be quite well again, so she took this up, as an amusement at first, but now it's going to be her profession."

Hilary bent over the photographs again. "And you really think—anyone could learn to do it?"

"No, not anyone; but I don't see why the right sort of person couldn't."

"I wonder—if I could develop into the right sort."

"May I come and see what you have done—and talk it over?" Harry asked. "Since this friend of mine took it up, I'm ever so interested in camera work."

"Indeed you may," Hilary answered. She had never thought of her camera holding such possibilities within it, of its growing into something better and more satisfying than a mere playmate of the moment.

"Rested?" Pauline asked, coming up. "Supper's nearly ready."

"I wasn't very tired. Paul, come and look at these."

Supper was served on the lawn; the pleasantest, most informal, of affairs, the presence of the older members of the party serving to turn the gay give and take of the young folks into deeper and wider channels, and Shirley's frequent though involuntary—"Do you remember, Senior?" calling out more than one vivid bit of travel, of description of places, known to most of them only through books.

Later, down on the lower end of the lawn, with the moon making a path of silver along the water, and the soft hush of the summer night over everything, Shirley brought out her guitar, singing for them strange folk-songs, picked up in her rambles with her father. Afterwards, the whole party sang songs that they all knew, ending up at last with the club song.

"'It's a habit to be happy,'" the fresh young voices chorused, sending the tune far out across the lake; and presently, from a boat on its further side, it was whistled back to them.

"Who is it, I wonder?" Edna said,

"Give it up," Tom answered. "Someone who's heard it—there've been plenty of opportunities for folks to hear it."

"Well it isn't a bad gospel to scatter broadcast," Bob remarked.

"And maybe it's someone who doesn't live about here, and he will go away taking our tune with him, for other people to catch up," Hilary suggested.

"But if he only has the tune and not the words," Josie objected, "what use will that be?"

"The spirit of the words is in the tune," Pauline said. "No one could whistle or sing it and stay grumpy."

"They'd have to 'put the frown away awhile, and try a little sunny smile,' wouldn't they?" Patience observed.

Patience had been a model of behavior all the evening. Mother would be sure to ask if she had been good, when they got home. That was one of those aggravating questions that only time could relieve her from. No one ever asked Paul, or Hilary, that—when they'd been anywhere.

As Mr. Dayre had promised, the party broke up early, going off in the various rigs they had come in. Tom and Josie went in the trap with the Shaws. "It's been perfectly lovely—all of it," Josie said, looking back along the road they were leaving. "Every good time we have seems the best one yet."

"You wait 'til my turn comes," Pauline told her. "I've such a scheme in my head."

"Am I in it?" Patience begged. She was in front, between Tom, who was driving, and Hilary, then she leaned forward, they were nearly home, and the lights of the parsonage showed through the trees. "There's a light in the parlor—there's company!"

Pauline looked, too. "And one up in our old room, Hilary. Goodness, it must be a visiting minister! I didn't know father was expecting anyone."

"I bet you!" Patience jumped excitedly up and down. "I just bet it isn't any visiting minister—but a visiting—uncle! I feel it in my bones, as Miranda says."

"Nonsense!" Pauline declared.

"Maybe it isn't nonsense, Paul!" Hilary said.

"I feel it in my bones," Patience repeated. "I just knew Uncle Paul would come up—a story-book uncle would be sure to."

"Well, here we are," Tom laughed. "You'll know for certain pretty quick."



CHAPTER X

THE END OF SUMMER

It was Uncle Paul, and perhaps no one was more surprised at his unexpected coming, than he himself.

That snap-shot of Hilary's had considerable to do with it; bringing home to him the sudden realization of the passing of the years. For the first time, he had allowed himself to face the fact that it was some time now since he had crossed the summit of the hill, and that under present conditions, his old age promised to be a lonely, cheerless affair.