red barrels of apple sauce!"

Mrs. Argenter laughed a feeble little _expected_ laugh; her heart
was not free to be amused with an apple-story. No wonder Mrs.
Jeffords kept the funny parts for Sylvie. Mrs. Argenter quenched her
before she could possibly get to them. But was Sylvie's heart free
for amusement? What was the difference? The years between them? Mrs.
Jeffords was a far older woman than Mrs. Argenter, and had had her
cares and troubles; yet she and Sylvie laughed like two girls
together, over their work and their stories. That was it,--the work!
Sylvie was doing _all she could_. The cheerfulness of doing followed
irresistibly after, into the loops and intervals of time, and kept
out the fear and the repining.

"There was nothing that chippered you up so, as being real driving
busy," Mrs. Jeffords said.

Mrs. Argenter sat in her low easy-chair, watched away the time, and
worried about the time to come. It left no leisure for a laugh.

Perhaps the hardest thing that Sylvie did through the day, was the
setting to work to "chipper" her mother up. It was lifting up a
weight that continually dropped back again.

"Do they think this rain will ever be over?" asked Mrs. Argenter,
turning her face toward the dripping panes again.

"Why, yes, mother; rains always _have_ been over sometime. They
never knew one that wasn't, and they go by experience."

There was nothing more to be said upon the rain topic, after that
simple piece of logic.

"If there doesn't come Badgett up the hill in all the pour!"

Badgett drove the daily stage from Tillington up through Pemunk and
Sandon. He came round by Brickfields when there was anybody to
bring.

Badgett drove up over the turf door-yard, close to the porch. He
jumped off, unbuttoned the dripping canvas door, and flung it up.

Mrs. Jeffords was in the entry on the instant; surprised, puzzled,
but all ready to be hospitable, to she didn't know whom. Relations
from Indiana, as likely as not. That is the way people arrive in the
country; and a whole houseful to stay over night does not startle
the hostess as an unexpected guest to dinner may a city one.

But the persons who alighted from the clumsy stage-wagon were Mr.
Christopher Kirkbright, Miss Euphrasia, and Desire Ledwith.

"Didn't you get our letter?" said Miss Euphrasia, as Sylvie, from
her mother's door-way, saw who she was, and sprang forward.

"Why, no, we didn't get no letter," said Mrs. Jeffords. "Father
ha