toward the stable window and was about to pull himself
up by the ledge so that he might look in.

Neb seized him and pulled him from the aperture with a desperate agility
which strained his aged limbs. "Fo' de Lawd's sake, now, Marse Frank,"
he cried, "don't yo' dare look t'rough dat stable winder!"

Frank, now, was badly frightened. "Is there some one in there with Queen
Bess?" he asked.

"A young pusson to see you, suh," Neb admitted.

"And you let that person have the key?"

"No, suh; it were taken from me."

Layson was in panic. "Heaven knows," he exclaimed, "what can have
happened here!" He rushed to the stable door and pounded on it with his
fists. "Open at once, or I'll break in the door," he cried.

Neb, now, had gone up to the window and looked through it with desperate
glance. What he saw was reassuring. He turned back toward his master
smiling. "Hol' on, Marse Frank, de young pusson am a-comin' out," he
said.

"Well," said Layson, threateningly, "I'm ready for him." He braced
himself to spring upon some malefactor.

The door opened and Madge appeared before their astonished eyes, garbed
in a gown which she had fashioned after that which Barbara had worn up
in the hills.

"Madge!" cried Frank, amazed.

The Colonel, laughing, approached the girl with outstretched hand; Neb,
relieved, dived through the stable door; Miss Alathea, who had been
under a great strain while the dramatic little scene had been in
progress, dropped limply on Neb's bench.

Madge, with a retentive memory of the way Miss "Barbarous" had greeted
her back in the mountains, stepped toward that much-astonished maiden,
opened her red parasol straight in her face, and courtesied to the rest.

"Howdy, folks; howdy!" she said, happily.

CHAPTER XIII

The party stood, nonplussed. Frank was first to show signs of recovery,
and, after a moment of completely dazed astonishment, advanced to Madge
with hand outstretched. Her appearance, astonishing as it had been, had
been as great a relief as he had ever known in all his life. Neb's worry
and insubordination had filled him with the keenest apprehension. But he
had no doubts of Madge. If she had been there with the mare, the mare
was certainly all right, no matter how puzzling the affair might seem to
be upon its surface.

"Why, little one, this is, indeed, a great surprise and pleasure!" he
exclaimed, with sincere gallantry.

Madge looked at him with doubtful eyes, from whi