where nothing but runty old sour
berries ever grew, if any at all. Once hidden behind the tall corn that
grew between her and her grandmother's vigilant gaze, she hastened to the
end of the lot and watched Marcia; watched her as she climbed the fences,
held her breath at the daring leaps from the top rails, expecting to see
the delicate muslin catch on the rough fence and send the flying figure to
the ground senseless perhaps. It was like a theatre to Miranda, this
watching the beautiful girl in her flight, the long dark hair in the wind,
the graceful untrammeled bounds. Miranda watched with unveiled admiration
until the dark of the green-blue wood had swallowed her up, then slowly
her eyes traveled back over the path which Marcia had taken, back through
the meadow and the wheat, to the kitchen door left standing wide. Slowly,
painfully, Miranda set herself to understand it. Something had happened!
That was flight with fear behind it, fear that left everything else
forgotten. What had happened?

Miranda was wiser in her generation than Marcia. She began to put two and
two together. Her brows darkened, and a look of cunning came into her
honest blue eyes. Stealthily she crept with cat-like quickness along the
fence near to the front, and there she stood like a red-haired Nemesis in
a sunbonnet, with irate red face, confronting the unsuspecting man as he
sauntered forth from the unwelcoming roof where he had whiled away a
mistaken hour.

"What you ben sayin' to her?"

It was as if a serpent had stung him, so unexpected, so direct. He jumped
aside and turned deadly pale. She knew her chance arrow had struck the
truth. But he recovered himself almost immediately when he saw what a
harmless looking creature had attacked him.

"Why, my dear girl," he said patronizingly, "you quite startled me! I'm
sure you must have made some mistake!"

"I ain't your girl, thank goodness!" snapped Miranda, "and I guess by your
looks there ain't anybody 'dear' to you but yourself. But I ain't made a
mistake. It's you I was asking. _What you bin in there for?_" There was a
blaze of defiance in Miranda's eyes, and her stubby forefinger pointed at
him like a shotgun. Before her the bold black eyes quailed for an instant.
The young man's hand sought his pocket, brought out a piece of money and
extended it.

"Look here, my friend," he said trying another line, "you take this and
say nothing more about it. That's a good girl. No harm's been do