and smoke?"

"A little, not too much. Oh, yes, I had forgotten!" She opened up a
little gold cigarette case, which she took from her pocket, and
extracted a handful of cigarettes.

"If you are going to see him," she said, "you might put them where he'll
find them?"

"Certainly not."

"But that's not giving them to him."

"My dear child," I said sternly, "Percy is going to come out of these
woods so well and strong that he may not have to work, but he'll want
to. And he'll not smoke anything stronger than corn-silk, if we're to
take charge of this thing."

She understood quickly enough and I must say she was grateful. She was
almost radiant with joy when I told her how capable Tish was, and that
she was sure to be interested, and about Aggie's hay fever and Mr.
Wiggins and the rabbit snares. She leaned over and kissed me
impulsively.

"You dear old thing!" she cried. "I know you'll look after him and make
him comfortable and--how old is Miss Letitia?"

"Something over fifty and Aggie Pilkington's about the same, although
she won't admit it."

She kissed me again at that, and after looking at her wrist watch she
jumped to her feet.

"Heavens!" she said. "It's four o'clock and my engine has been running
all this time!"

She got a smart little car from somewhere up the road, and the last I
saw of her she was smiling back over her shoulder and the car running on
the edge of a ditch.

"You are three darlings!" she called back. "And tell Percy I love
him--love him--love him!"

I thought I'd never get back to the lake. I was tired to begin with, and
after I'd gone about four miles and was limping with a splinter in my
heel and no needle to get it out with, I found I still had the fungus
message to the spring-wagon person under my arm.

It was dark when I got back and my nerves were rather unstrung, what
with wandering from the path here and there, with nothing to eat since
morning, and running into a tree and taking the skin off my nose. When I
limped into camp at last, I didn't care whether Percy lived or died, and
the thought, of rabbit stew made my mouth water.

It was not rabbit, however. Aggie was sitting alone by the fire, waving
a brand round her head to keep off mosquitoes, and in front of her,
dangling from the spit, were a dozen pairs of frogs' legs in a row.

I ate six pairs without a question and then I asked for Tish.

"Catching frogs," said Aggie laconically, and flourished the brand.

"Wh