tion had promptly banished her last trace of anger
against them.

"So I will, lambies, so I will. You just keep on a steppin' backwards
and I'll do it, too, and first we know we'll get to that nice pantry
where we stayed last night. I've got the key to that, even if 'tis
rusty from not bein' often used, and I'll defy anybody to get it away
from me."

Still beating her eggs as if nothing uncommon were happening, the
housewife retreated toward the door in question, and slipping one hand
behind her opened it without turning her head. She was instantly
relieved of the drag upon her skirts, and quietly shut the door again
upon her self-imprisoned charges. Then she drew a long breath, and
exclaimed:

"Well, sharpshooter, what do you think of that?"

"Looks as if you couldn't have been so very hard on them, else they'd
never come back."

"I ain't a-flatterin' myself. That was a 'Hobson's choice.' But----"

"But they must have been badly frightened to have done it."

"Yes, Ephraim, they are, and I am. I'm so stirred up I don't
know whether I've beat these eggs all one way, like I ought, or
forty-'leven different ones, like I ought not. I'm flustered. I'm
completely flustered, and that ain't often my case."

"Picra!" sympathetically suggested the old man.

Aunt Sally's eyes snapped, and she smiled grimly, as she retorted:

"Picra's good for them 'at need it. That's you, not me. It ain't a
medicine for in'ards so much as 'tis for out'ards. I mean, it's better
for the body than 'tis for the mind, and it's my mind that's ailin'
me! Besides, doctors never take their own doses."

"You know it yourself! I thought your mind was failing you, but----"

"No such thing. I said, or I meant to say, I was troubled in it.
That's all; and if you're a mite of a man you'll try and help me
unravel this tangle and quit foolin'. Just step into that closet with
me and maybe the tackers'll tell you themselves. I'd rather you heard
it first hand, anyway."

Wun Lung, sifting flour in one part of the kitchen, and Pasqual
scrubbing a kneading board at the sink, both paused and eyed the
strange proceedings with curiosity if not displeasure; for not only
had the children been bestowed within the "cold closet," but Aunt
Sally and Ephraim had, also, followed and locked themselves out of
sight and hearing.

The pantry was absolutely dark, until Mrs. Benton found a candle and
lighted it; then she pointed to the chair she had occupied during th