canny. The old maid vanished completely, and in
her place was a woman, full to the lips with primitive emotion and pain.

"What shall I do?" she cried in a terrible voice. "Mary--Peggy--what
shall I do?"

It was almost a shriek. Peggy turned pale.

"Do you care?" she said stupidly.

"Care! Girls, I shall DIE if Malcolm MacPherson goes away! I have been
mad--I must have been mad. I have almost died of loneliness since I sent
him away. But I thought he would come back! I must see him--there is
time to reach the station before the train goes if I go by the fields."

She took a wild step towards the door, but I caught her back with a
sudden mind-vision of Aunt Olivia flying bareheaded and distraught
across the fields.

"Wait a moment, Aunt Olivia. Peggy, run home and get father to harness
Dick in the buggy as quickly as he can. We'll drive Aunt Olivia to the
station. We'll get you there in time, Aunty."

Peggy flew, and Aunt Olivia dashed upstairs. I lingered behind to pick
up her sewing, and when I got to her room she had her hat and cape on.
Spread out on the bed were all the boxes of gifts which Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson had brought her, and Aunt Olivia was stringing their contents
feverishly about her person. Rings, three brooches, a locket, three
chains and a watch all went on--anyway and anyhow. A wonderful sight it
was to see Aunt Olivia bedizened like that!

"I would never wear them before--but I'll put them all on now to show
him I'm sorry," she gasped, with trembling lips.

When the three of us crowded into the buggy, Aunt Olivia grasped the
whip before we could prevent her and, leaning out, gave poor Dick such
a lash as he had never felt in his life before. He went tearing down the
steep, stony, fast-darkening road in a fashion which made Peggy and me
cry out in alarm. Aunt Olivia was usually the most timid of women, but
now she didn't seem to know what fear was. She kept whipping and
urging poor Dick the whole way to the station, quite oblivious to our
assurances that there was plenty of time. The people who met us that
night must have thought we were quite mad. I held on the reins, Peggy
gripped the swaying side of the buggy, and Aunt Olivia bent forward,
hat and hair blowing back from her set face with its strangely crimson
cheeks, and plied the whip. In such a guise did we whirl through the
village and over the two-mile station road.

When we drove up to the station, where the train was shunting amid