girl and the tot to resume their watch
down the Road for a horse and rider due in not over two hours' time.

And indeed the last of old June's days seemed in danger of dripping
away from her in tears of farewell. Rain clouds hung low over Harpeth
Hills and drifted down to the very top of Providence Nob. A steady
downpour had begun in the night and held on into the day and seemed to
increase in volume as the hours wore away. The tall maples were
standing depressed-boughed and dripping and the poplar leaves hung
sodden and wet, refusing a glimpse of their silver lining. A row of
bleeding-hearts down the walk were turning faint pink and drooping to
the ground, while every rose in the yard was shattered and wasted away.

"Rain, rain!" wailed Martin Luther under his breath, as he pressed his
cheek to the window-pane and looked without interest at a forlorn
rooster huddled with a couple of hens under the snowball bush.

"Don't you want a cake and some milk?" asked the singer lady, as she
gave him a comforting hug and essayed consolation by the offer of a
material distraction.

"No milk, no cake; L-i-z-a, thank ma'am, please," he sobbed a
disconsolate demand for what he considered a good substitute sunbeam.

"There she comes now, darling," exclaimed the singer lady, with as much
pleasure coming into her face as lit the doleful cherub's at her side.
And from the Pike front door there had issued a small figure, also
enveloped in an old shawl, which made its way across the puddles with
splashing, bare feet. She had her covered dish under her arm and a
bucket dangled from one hand. She answered Martin Luther's hail with a
flash of her white teeth and sped across the front porch.

And in the course of just ten minutes the experienced young pacifier
had established the small boy as driver to Mother Mayberry's large
rocking-chair, mounted him on the foot of the bed with snapping switch
to crack and thus secured a two-hour reign of peace for his elders.

"Miss Elinory," she said, as she came and stood close to the singer
lady seated in the deep window, "I'm mighty glad you got Doctor Tom;
and it were fair to the other lady, too. He couldn't help loving you
best, 'cause you are got a sick throat and she ain't. Do you reckon
she'll be satisfied to take Sam Mosbey when she comes again? I'm sorry
for her."

"So am I, Eliza," laughed Miss Wingate softly, as the rose blush stole
up over her cheeks, "but I don't believe she'll need