per to the
outside arbour, when with leaps and bounds it disappeared inside the
stable, to reappear a few moments later with old Liza hitched to his
high gig. Driving as rapidly as possible he soon got past the outside
farm gate leading into the road.

So when Peachy returned with cup and spoon in hand she found her shrine
deserted and instead read this note pinned outside among the vines and
scrawled in the handwriting of Ambrose Thompson:

You were right, Peachy dear, I'm not myself
to-day. I _am_ cold and my heart action is
uncommon feeble, so I think I'd best not stay to
worry you. Maybe I'll be coming back to the farm
some day when I'm feeling different.

Your respectful
AMBROSE.

However, safe on the road, Ambrose, looking back and catching a far
image of Peachy with his letter in her hand, decided that never again
should he return to the Red Farm. For not only was Ambrose fleeing, but
knew the reason why. Peachy was a manager, and had that moment in the
parlour before dinner been longer--well, thank God and old Liza, he was
still free.

"Good Lord, deliver me!" the boy prayed, though being a good Baptist he
knew no litany save that of his own soul.

CHAPTER IV

"Even so, Love, even so!
Whither thou goest, I will go."

SO THE boy continued driving on and on, loitering in the faint
sweet-smelling May afternoon.

At first after having left the farm his heart had been troubled and his
mind uneasy, burdened by an unconscious wave of sex weariness.

"Lord," he said aloud once, "seems such a pity you didn't make all
critturs the same sex; I ain't carin' which, male or female, seein' what
a lot of trouble we might all then 'a' been saved."

Naturally, so far as Ambrose himself was concerned, he was through with
the dangers lurking in feminine society forever! He even intended
confessing this conviction to his friend and partner, Miner, as soon as
they should be alone together, for even at the moment of his resolution
had not the boy's subliminal self whispered that he might need
strengthening later on?

After getting well away from his danger zone, however, Ambrose had
chosen that the remainder of his spring journey should lie through an
unfamiliar part of the state, and so had turned his horse into every
likely lane presenting itself until