gate, walking carefully on the edge of the grass, so
as not to get her shoes dusty. It was very odd that Aunt Julia didn't
come home--Good, she was coming now.

"Isn't the train late?" Patricia demanded, the moment her aunt was
within earshot.

Miss Kirby smiled. "It isn't due yet, Patricia, for five minutes." She
didn't look in the least excited, going calmly up the garden path to the
house.

But then it wasn't _her_ grandmother who was coming; besides,
Patricia's gray eyes danced mischievously, she didn't know about the
punchbowl.

Patricia decided to wait down by the gate--explanations were such
tiresome things.

Then, in a few moments, far down the quiet village street she caught
sight of a familiar gig, duly attended by old Caesar, the pointer.

The gig was quite close now. Patricia's heart gave a great jump, then
seemed to stand quite still.

She hadn't come!

There was a lady in the gig with Daddy; but--

Patricia turned sharply, and regardless of her shoes ran swiftly back up
the driveway and through the garden to the meadow beyond; never stopping
until she dropped, a little breathless heap, beside the brook.

Custard barked excitedly, thinking it some new move in this grandmother
game; then suddenly he poked his cold black nose in under the tossed
thatch of Patricia's brown curls. For Patricia was crying--and doing it
quite as earnestly and as thoroughly as she did most things.

At last she sat up, dabbing her eyes.

"She didn't come! And we were all ready--and now it can't be just the
same--when she does come. Custard, do you suppose it's a--a judgment
on me, for taking the punchbowl?"

Custard looked sober.

"I'll go put it right back. Oh, dear, I do hope that other person hasn't
stayed to supper!"

Patricia went back to the house, forlorn, bedraggled; very different
from the Patricia whom Sarah had sent downstairs not an hour before,
imploring her to "try and keep smarted up for once."

On the back porch she met her father.

"Patricia," he asked, "what does this mean? Why did you run away when
you saw your grandmother coming?"

Patricia gasped. "But, Daddy, she didn't come! I didn't see her! Oh, do
you mean, was that--I expected she'd have on a bonnet tied under her
chin--and a shawl--and glasses." Patricia was half crying again, her
head on her father's shoulder.

It was hard to relinquish the picture of the grandmother she had been
carrying in her mind for the past fortnight; a s