been doing at
the lower end of the field.

At that moment, too, the local secretary came running with word that the
first teams were already harnessed, and awaited the judges' preliminary
inspection. Mr Widger and Mr Nicholls made their excuses, therefore,
and hurried off to their duties.

"I have a bone to pick with you," said Mrs Bosenna, as she and Cai took
their way leisurably across the field.

Cai groaned at thought of those unhappy letters.

But Mrs Bosenna made no allusion to the letters.

"You have not been near Rilla for weeks," she went on, reproachfully.

Cai glanced at her. "I thought--I was afraid you were offended," he
said, his heart quickening its beat.

"Well, and so I was. To begin brawling as you did in a lady's
presence--and two such friends as I'd always supposed you to be!
It was shocking. Now, wasn't it?"

"It has made me miserable enough," pleaded Cai.

"And so it ought. . . . I don't know that I should be forgiving you
now," added Mrs Bosenna demurely, "if it didn't happen that I wanted
advice."

"_My_ advice?" asked Cai incredulous.

"It's a business matter. Women, you know, are so helpless where
business is concerned." (Oh, Mrs Bosenna!)

"If I can be of any help--" murmured Cai, somewhat astonished but
prodigiously flattered.

"Hush!" she interrupted, lifting a quick eye towards the knap of the
hill they had descended. "Isn't that Captain Hunken, up above? . . .
Yes, to be sure it is, and he's turned to walk away just as I was going
to call him!" She glanced at Cai, and there was mischief in the glance.
"I expect the ploughing has begun, and I won't detain either of you.
. . . The business? We won't discuss it now. I have to wait here for
Dinah, who is coming for company as soon as she's finished her
housework. . . . To-morrow, then, if you have nothing better to do.
Good-bye!"

He left her and climbed the hill again. He seemed to tread on air; and
no doubt, when he reached the plateau where the ploughmen were driving
their teams to and fro before the judges, with corrugated brows,
compressed lips, eyes anxiously bent on the imaginary line of the furrow
to be drawn, this elation gave his bearing a confidence which to the
malignant or uncharitable might have presented itself as bumptiousness.
He mingled with the small group of _cognoscenti_, listened to their
criticisms, and by-and-by, cocking his head knowledgeably on one side,
hazarded the remark that "the fel