dogs made a swift rush at her leaping and barking around her, she gave a snort of disgust, quickening her pace involuntarily.

"Don't call them off, please!" Pauline begged Shirley. "She isn't in the least scared, and it's perfectly refreshing to find that she can move."

"All the same, discipline must be maintained," Shirley insisted; and at her command the dogs fell behind.

"Have you been here long?" Pauline asked.

"About two weeks. We were going further up the lake—just on a sketching trip,—and we saw this house from the deck of the boat; it looked so delightful, and so deserted and lonely, that we came back from the next landing to see about it. We took it at once and sent for a lot of traps from the studio at home, they aren't here yet."

Pauline looked her interest. It seemed a very odd, attractive way of doing things, no long tiresome plannings of ways and means beforehand. Suppose—when Uncle Paul's letter came—they could set off in such fashion, with no definite point in view, and stop wherever they felt like it.

"I can't think," Shirley went on, "how such a charming old place came to be standing idle."

"Isn't it rather—run down?"

"Not enough to matter—really. I want father to buy it, and do what is needed to it, without making it all new and snug looking. The sunsets from that front lawn are gorgeous, don't you think so?"

"Yes," Pauline agreed, "I haven't been over there in two years. We used to have picnics near there."

"I hope you will again, this summer, and invite father and me. We adore picnics; we've had several since we came—he and I and the dogs. The dogs do love picnics so, too."

Pauline had given up wanting to hurry Fanny; what a lot she would have to tell her mother when she got home.

She was sorry when a turn in the road brought them within sight of the old manor house. "There's father!" Shirley said, nodding to a figure coming towards them across a field. The dogs were off to meet him directly, with shrill barks of pleasure.

"May I get down here, please?" Shirley asked. "Thank you very much for the lift; and I am so glad to have met you and your sister, Miss Shaw. You'll both come and see me soon, won't you?"

"We'd love to," Pauline answered heartily; "'cross lots, it's not so very far over here from the parsonage, and," she hesitated, "you—you'll be seeing Hilary quite often, while she's at The Maples, perhaps?"

"I hope so. Father's on the lookout for a horse and rig for me, and then she and I can have some drives together. She will know where to find the prettiest roads."

"Oh, she would enjoy that," Pauline said eagerly, and as she drove on, she turned more than once to glance back at the tall, slender figure crossing the field. Shirley seemed to walk as if the mere act of walking were in itself a pleasure. Pauline thought she had never before known anyone who appeared so alive from head to foot.

"Go 'long, Fanny!" she commanded; she was in a hurry to get home now, with her burden of news. It seemed to her as if she had been away a long while, so much had happened in the meantime.

At the parsonage gate, Pauline found Patience waiting for her. "You have taken your time, Paul Shaw!" the child said, climbing in beside her sister.

"Fanny's time, you mean!"

"It hasn't come yet!" Patience said protestingly. "I went for the mail myself this afternoon, so I know!"

"Oh, well, perhaps it will to-morrow," Pauline answered, with so little of real concern in her voice, that Patience wondered. "Suppose you take Fanny on to the barn. Mother's home, isn't she?"

Patience glanced at her sharply. "You've got something—particular—to tell mother! O Paul, please wait 'til I come. Is it about—"

"You're getting to look more like an interrogation point every day,
Impatience!" Pauline told her, getting down from the gig.

Patience sniffed. "If nobody ever asked questions, nobody'd ever know anything!" she declared.

"Is mother home?" Pauline asked again.

"Who's asking things now!" Patience drew the reins up tightly and bouncing up and down on the carriage seat, called sharply—"Hi yi! Hi yi!"

It was the one method that never failed to rouse Fanny's indignation, producing, for the moment, the desired effect; still, as Pauline said, it was hardly a proceeding that Hilary or she could adopt, or, least of all, their father.

As she trotted briskly off to the barn now, the very tilt of Fanny's ears expressed injured dignity. Dignity was Fanny's strong point; that, and the ability to cover less ground in an afternoon than any other horse in Winton. The small human being at the other end of those taut reins might have known she would have needed no urging barnwards.

"Maybe you don't like it," Patience observed, "but that makes no difference—'s long's it's for your good. You're a very unchristiany horse, Fanny Shaw. And I'll 'hi yi' you every time I get a chance; so now go on."

However Patience was indoors in time to hear all but the very beginning of Pauline's story of her afternoon's experience. "I told you," she broke in, "that I saw a nice girl at church last Sunday—in Mrs. Dobson's pew; and Mrs. Dobson kept looking at her out of the corner of her eyes all the tune, 'stead of paying attention to what father was saying; and Miranda says, ten to one. Sally Dobson comes out in—"

"That will do, Patience," her mother said, "if you are going to interrupt in this fashion, you must run away."

Patience subsided reluctantly, her blue eyes most expressive.

"Isn't it nice for Hilary, mother? Now she'll be contented to stay a week or two, don't you think?" Pauline said.

"I hope so, dear. Yes, it is very nice."

"She was looking better already, mother; brighter, you know."

"Mummy, is asking a perfectly necessary question 'interrupting'?'"

"Perhaps not, dear, if there is only one," smiled Mrs. Shaw.

"Mayn't I, please, go with Paul and Hilary when they go to call on that girl?"

"On whom, Patience?"

Patience wriggled impatiently; grown people were certainly very trying at times. "On Paul's and Hilary's new friend, mummy."

"Not the first time, Patience; possibly later—"

Patience shrugged. "By and by," she observed, addressing the room at large, "when Paul and Hilary are married, I'll be Miss Shaw! And then—" the thought appeared to give her considerable comfort.

"And maybe, Towser," she confided later, as the two sat together on the side porch, "maybe—some day—you and I'll go to call on them on our own account. I'm not sure it isn't your duty to call on those dogs—you lived here first, and I can't see why it isn't mine—to call on that girl. Father says, we should always hasten to welcome the stranger; and they sound dreadfully interesting."

Towser blinked a sleepy acquiescence. In spite of his years, he still followed blindly where Patience led, though the consequences were frequently disastrous.

It was the next afternoon that Pauline, reading in the garden, heard an eager little voice calling excitedly, "Paul, where are you! It's come! It's come! I brought it up from the office myself!"

Pauline sprang up. "Here I am, Patience! Hurry!"

"Well, I like that!" Patience said, coming across the lawn. "Hurry!