utter content. It
was well that the next day was Sunday. The rain-washed prairie and the
June sunshine did so much to lift the tension in this New Eden where
even the good little snakes are not always so very good.

VI

PARADISE LOST

Laura Macpherson came through the dining-room on Monday morning with her
hands full of wild flowers.

"Wherefore?" York asked, seeing the breakfast-table already decorated
with a vase of sweet-peas.

"Just a minute, York. I got these with the dew on them--all prairie
flowers. I thought Jerry might be up to see me to-day. I went out after
them for her," Laura explained, as she arranged the showy blossoms in
vases about the rooms.

York dropped behind his day-old paper, calling after her, indifferently:
"I doubt if they are worth it. You must have gone to the far side of
'Kingussie' for them. I doubt, too, if she comes here to-day, but I
haven't any doubt that I am hungry and likely to get hungrier before you
get ready for breakfast."

"Coming, coming." Laura came hastily to the table. "I forgot you in my
interest in Jerry."

"A prevalent disease in New Eden right now," York said, behind his
paper. "Ponk nearly fell down on getting me a chauffeur for to-day; the
superintendent didn't get the quarterlies to our Sunday-school class on
time yesterday morning; the Big Dipper took the wrong pew and kept it,
and now my breakfast must wait--all on account of this Jerry girl."

"Mournful, mournful!" Laura declared. "Such a little girl, too! I'd like
to tell you what your Big Dipper said about Jerry Saturday, but I
mustn't."

"Saturday was a rainy day," York commented, knowing Laura would answer
no questions if he should ask them now.

"All the more reason why the Big Dipper should come over to copy my new
hat for one of the Poser girls up the Sage Brush, and then fall to
questions and conclusions," Laura insisted.

"I thought yesterday was the grand opening for that lid of yours. Where
did the B. D. see it?" York would not ask for what he wanted most to
know.

"It had positively never been out of the box since it came here," Laura
declared. "But pshaw, York, it is the gossip you want to know, and I'm
really concerned about that."

"I'm not. I am really concerned about where Stellar Bahrr saw your hat."
York was very serious and his sister was puzzled for the minute. He
never looked that way when he joked--never.

"I don't know anything about Mrs. Bahrr's gift of second s