heeked, buxom farmer's daughter to Sairy
Pritchett--and her whisper carried far. "Well, I tell you right now I
don't like their looks. See that Joe Badger; will you? He's got to
help 'em down out o' Lucas's waggin'; has he? Well, I declare!"

"An' Hen Jackson, too!" cried another girl, shrilly. "They'd let airy one
of us girls fall out on our heads."

"Huh!" said Sairy, airily, "if you can't keep Joe an' Hen from shinin'
around every new gal that comes to the club, I guess you ain't caught 'em
very fast."

"He, he!" giggled another. "Sairy thinks she's hooked the school teacher
all right, and that he won't get away from her."

"Cat!" snapped Miss Pritchett, descending the steps in her most stately
manner to meet her new friends.

"Cat yourself!" returned the other. "I guess you'll show your claws, Miss,
if you have a chance."

Perhaps Sairy did not hear all of this; and surely the Bray girls did
not. Sairy Pritchett was rather proud of counting these city girls as
her particular friends. She welcomed Lydia and Euphemia warmly.

"I hope Lucas didn't try to tip you into the brook again, Miss Bray,"
Sairy giggled to 'Phemie. "Oh, yes! Miss Lydia Bray, Mr. Badger; Mr.
Jackson, Miss Bray. And this is Miss Euphemia, Mr. Badger--_and_ Mr.
Jackson.

"Now, that'll do very well, Joe--and Hen. You go 'tend to your own girls;
we can git on without you."

Sairy deliberately led the newcomers into the schoolhouse by the boys'
entrance, thus ignoring the girls who had roused her ire. She introduced
Lyddy and 'Phemie right and left to such of the young fellows as were not
too bashful.

Sairy suddenly arrived at the conclusion that to pilot the sisters from
Hillcrest about would be "good business." The newcomers attracted the
better class of young bachelors at the club meeting and Sairy--heretofore
something of a "wall flower" on such occasions--found herself the very
centre of the group.

Lyddy and 'Phemie were naturally a little disturbed by the prominent
position in which they were placed by Sairy's manoeuvring; but, of
course, the sisters had been used to going into society, and Lyddy's
experience at college and her natural sedateness of character enabled
her to appear to advantage. As for the younger girl, she was so much
amused by Sairy, and the others, that she quite forgot to feel confused.

Indeed, she found that just by looking at most of these young men, and
smiling, she could throw them into spasms of self-con