he whip would go up at just that
right little angle! But it did not. She could not see the whip at
all--only the girl's drooping back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

When Mildred had passed from sight Ruth slowly turned toward the house.
She noticed the vegetable wagon there in front of the barn--so Annie had
come home. She turned away from the kitchen door she had been about to
enter; she did not want to talk to Annie just then. But when she had
passed around to the other side of the house she saw, standing with
their backs to her in the little flower garden, Annie and a woman she
was astonished to recognize as her sister Harriett.

She made a move toward the little hill that rose behind the house. She
would get away! But Mr. Herman appeared just then at the top of the
hill. He saw her; he must see that she had seen the others. So she would
have to stay and talk to Harriett. It seemed a thing she absolutely
could not do. It had come to seem she was being made some kind of sport
of, as if the game were to buffet her about between this feeling and
that, let her gain a little ground, get to a clearing, then throw her
back to new confusion. That day, anyway, she could bear no more of it.
It was hard to reply to Mr. Herman when he called something to her.
Annie heard their voices and then she had to join her and Harriett.

"Why, Ruth!" Annie cried in quick solicitude upon seeing Ruth's face,
"you went too far. How hateful of you," she laughed, as if feeling there
was something to laugh off, "to come looking like this just when I have
been boasting to your sister about how we've set you up!"

"You do look tired, Ruth," said Harriett compassionately.

Harriett said she had come for a little visit with Ruth, and Annie
proposed that they go up under the trees at the crest of the hill back
of the house. It was where Ruth had sat with Annie just the day before.
As she sat down there now it seemed it was ages ago since she and Annie
had sat there tying the asparagus into bunches.

Annie had come up with some buttermilk for them. As she handed Ruth hers
she gave her shoulder an affectionate little pat, as if, looking at her
face, she wanted to tell her to take heart. Then she went back to the
house, leaving the two sisters alone.

They drank their buttermilk, talking of it, of Annie's place, of her
children. In a languid way Ruth was thinking that it was good of
Harriett to come and see her; had she come the day before, she w