sn't come yet!" Patience said protestingly. "I went for the mail
myself this afternoon, so I know!"

"Oh, well, perhaps it will to-morrow," Pauline answered, with so little
of real concern in her voice, that Patience wondered. "Suppose you
take Fanny on to the barn. Mother's home, isn't she?"

Patience glanced at her sharply. "You've got something--particular--to
tell mother! O Paul, please wait 'til I come. Is it about--"

"You're getting to look more like an interrogation point every day,
Impatience!" Pauline told her, getting down from the gig.

Patience sniffed. "If nobody ever asked questions, nobody'd ever know
anything!" she declared.

"Is mother home?" Pauline asked again.

"Who's asking things now!" Patience drew the reins up tightly and
bouncing up and down on the carriage seat, called sharply--"Hi yi! Hi
yi!"

It was the one method that never failed to rouse Fanny's indignation,
producing, for the moment, the desired effect; still, as Pauline said,
it was hardly a proceeding that Hilary or she could adopt, or, least of
all, their father.

As she trotted briskly off to the barn now, the very tilt of Fanny's
ears expressed injured dignity. Dignity was Fanny's strong point;
that, and the ability to cover less ground in an afternoon than any
other horse in Winton. The small human being at the other end of those
taut reins might have known she would have needed no urging barnwards.

"Maybe you don't like it," Patience observed, "but that makes no
difference--'s long's it's for your good. You're a very unchristiany
horse, Fanny Shaw. And I'll 'hi yi' you every time I get a chance; so
now go on."

However Patience was indoors in time to hear all but the very beginning
of Pauline's story of her afternoon's experience. "I told you," she
broke in, "that I saw a nice girl at church last Sunday--in Mrs.
Dobson's pew; and Mrs. Dobson kept looking at her out of the corner of
her eyes all the tune, 'stead of paying attention to what father was
saying; and Miranda says, ten to one. Sally Dobson comes out in--"

"That will do, Patience," her mother said, "if you are going to
interrupt in this fashion, you must run away."

Patience subsided reluctantly, her blue eyes most expressive.

"Isn't it nice for Hilary, mother? Now she'll be contented to stay a
week or two, don't you think?" Pauline said.

"I hope so, dear. Yes, it is very nice."

"She was looking better already, mother; brighter, you