to which fate assigned her; accepting conditions as a
matter of course. Yet at times she had inklings of those deeper
questions which arose in persistent interrogations before her child,
and she guessed that if Beulah once became convinced that she saw the
Plan, not all her loyalty could dissuade her from following it. So
she strove to control the sudden outburst in her own heart lest the
fire lighted in Beulah's should break forth in conflagration.

"There, there now," she said, gently stroking her daughter's hair.
"Let us forget this, and remember how much we have to be thankful
for. We have our health, and our home, and the bright sunshine,
and--I declare," she interrupted, catching a glimpse of something
through the window, "if the cows haven't broken from the lower
pasture and are all through the oat-field! You'll have to take Collie
and get them back, somehow, or bring them up to the corral."

Perhaps it was part of the Plan that the diversion should come at
that moment, but the rebellion in Beulah's heart was by no means
suppressed. Pulling a sun-bonnet upon her head she called the dog,
which came leaping upon her with boisterous affection, and hurried
down the path to the field where the cows stood almost lost in a
jungle of green oats. She soon located the breach in the fence, and,
with the help of the dog, quickly turned the cows toward it. But
alack! just as victory seemed assured a rabbit was frightened from
its hiding-place in the green oats, and sailed forth in graceful
bounds across the pasture. The dog, of course, concluded that the
capture of the rabbit was of much more vital importance to the Harris
homestead than driving any number of stupid cattle, and darted across
the field in pursuit, wasting his breath in sharp, eager yelps as he
went. Whereupon the cows turned outward again, not boisterously nor
insolently, but with a calm persistence that steadily wore out the
girl's strength and patience. They would not move a foot toward the
pasture unless she drove them; they would move only one at a time; as
she drove one the others pushed farther into the oat-field, and when
she turned to pursue them the one she had already driven followed at
her heels. The sun was hot, the oats were rank, the wild buckwheat
tripped her as she ran; her appeals to the dog, now seated on a knoll
looking somewhat foolishly for the rabbit which had given him the
slip, and her commands to the cattle alike fell on unheeding ear