thoughtfully. "I have a feeling that something
is going on there and we are missing it. Aunt Betsey's isn't as much fun
as usual, though she was awfully good to forgive me so easily. And you
have been frightening me about it all the way, Jack."

At last the day wore on, and amid cordial good-byes from Miss Betsey,
her relatives took leave.

"I'll send you something for those little orphans at Christmas-time,
Jackie," she called after them, "though this being only July, I hope to
see you before then."

When the party reached home they found Bob shaven and shorn, Neal in his
most careless and teasing frame of mind, Edith depressed and silent, and
the children in disgrace.

"I knew something was happening while we were away," whispered Cynthia
to Jack.

"If only we hadn't missed it!" returned he. "Smashing the buggy and
shaving Bob, all in one day! It's a regular shame that we weren't on
hand."

"It seems to me that you were neglecting things somewhat to-day, Edith,"
said her father, when he heard the story.

There! it had come. Of course she was to be censured, as she had
expected.

"I didn't know I was to be tied hand and foot and look after the
children every minute of the day," she answered, crossly; "and it was
not _my_ fault that we went to the woods and broke the buggy."

"I don't care in the least about the buggy, but about Neal's dog."

This was too much. Edith felt badly herself about the dog, but surely
she was not responsible. She had not been the means of bringing him to
Oakleigh, she said to herself. She was about to reply, when Mrs.
Franklin interposed and diverted her husband's mind from the subject.
This still further annoyed Edith.

Why should Mrs. Franklin feel called upon to interfere between her and
her father? And she encouraged herself to dislike more than ever the
"intruders" at Oakleigh.

The summer went by. More chickens were hatched, until they numbered four
hundred, and then "Franklin & Gordon" concluded that they would not fill
the machine again this season. The stock must be carefully tended during
the winter, and Jack would have his hands full, though one of the men
would help him if necessary.

Jack was to go to Boston to school this winter. Neal was going back to
boarding-school; it was his last year, and next autumn he hoped to begin
college life.

One fine day towards the end of the summer Cynthia and Neal walked out
over the pasture to the "far meadow," and sat down i