ing on her
hat and coat, with scarcely a rustle, the sly one!

"Draught from this door?" he suggested, got up and closed it.

At least Dick shouldn't know she was going. If anybody stole behind her
in the friendly "outdoors" it should be he, to guard her from her own
foolhardiness. These roads were paths of peace, but Nan was equal to
adventure more extended. She might have snatched snowshoes, in her
stealthy preparation, to go off wood wandering. She might brave the
darkness where, to country minds, lurked the recurring legend of the
"lucivee." There was no actual danger, but Pan might be wandering.

"These old windows are draughty, too," said Raven. He paused at one of
them, fumbling with the catch. Really he was watching the path. There
she was, at the left, going toward her own house. He pulled down the
shade and lounged back to his seat by the fire.

"You probably feel the cold," said Milly drowsily. The fur coat and
blazing logs were beginning to do their blessed work. "Your vitality is
low."

"Yes," said Raven piously. He would have sworn to anything. "Just so."
He went on talking to Dick, and Dick caught the ball neatly, so that
presently they could glance at each other in a community of
understanding. "She's off!" said Raven's face, and Dick's returned,
"Right you are!" while he droned on about "popple," the local word for
poplar, and the right month for peeling and whether it really paid to
cut it if you had to hire. Raven loved Dick at times like these, when he
was neither sulky over Nan's aloofness nor didactic about democracy and
free verse. Amelia choked and came awake.

"Did I," she ventured, fearing a too frank reply, "did I--make a noise?"

"No, dear," said Raven mellifluously.

If Milly had been cleverer she would have remembered that when he was
deceiving her he spoke, "as if butter wouldn't melt," as if his vocal
arrangements dropped oil and balm.

"Dick and I are talking out this lumber question. Don't you bother. You
don't know anything about popple."

Milly, reassured, dropped her cheek, with a little breath, and closed
her eyes. "Gone?" Dick telegraphed Raven, who nodded "Gone!" took a step
to the door, opened it, and was himself away. He snatched, haphazard, at
a hat and coat on the great chest in the hall. Dick had a way of
throwing things down and leaving them where they fell. Yes, they were
Dick's, and Raven hastily shoved himself into them, judging it was
better, if Dick decided