ent would mean he must
break the speed laws to get back to town. It had been arranged that he
was to take his breakfast and dinner with the hospitable Welles, a most
convenient plan since their house was the nearest. He was seldom home
for lunch and his telephone calls would be taken care of at the "Jordan
office" as Eastshore still called the rooms which had been occupied by
the old and popular physician whose practise had been taken over by
Doctor Hugh.

Mrs. Willis watched him drive away, satisfied that his comfort was
provided for; and then, as she had decreed that no unpacking was to be
done that night, Richard and Warren took their leave, after promising
to show the girls the whole farm the next morning.

"If they know what they're about, they'll tie a rope to Sarah," said
Winnie, going about locking doors and windows as though she expected a
siege.

She had managed to "get a good look," as she said, at the visitors and
had approved of them whole-heartedly.

"Nice, ordinary boys," she said to Mrs. Willis at the first
opportunity. "Not a bit stiff or shy. did you notice, and yet not any
of these smart Alecs that can't stop talking long enough to listen to
what a body has to say."

"What are you locking up all the windows for, Winnie?" Sarah questioned
her, sitting down on the rug to take off her sandals as a preparation
for the trip upstairs. "You'll have to open them all in the morning
again."

"Well, maybe I will," admitted Winnie, turning the key in the front
door and sliding both bolts with emphasis, "but I won't come downstairs
and find the parlor full of skunks and owls and bats--we'll be saved
that."

"They couldn't get through the screens," protested Sarah, whose natural
tendency to argue was intensified by weariness.

"You never can tell," was Winnie's answer to this. "I'm not taking any
chances in the country."

She thought Sarah had gone up to bed and was startled a few minutes
later, when busy in the kitchen, to hear the door open behind her.

"What are you doing, Winnie?" demanded Sarah, her dark eyes instantly
coming to rest on the table where, spread out in imposing array, were
three mousetraps and the cheese with which Winnie intended to bait them.

"If you must know," said Winnie, exasperated, "I'm setting mousetraps."

"Oh!" Sarah gulped. "Oh, Winnie--the poor little mice!"

"Now, Sarah, don't begin all that," Winnie pleaded. "I'm dead tired
and I haven't the heart to star