oung woman, is a most
reluctant sufferance. You are hopeless. I don't see why you asked me
at all, with the thing as good as settled. Go on; but don't come back
to your old uncle with the demoralization of an entire village on your
conscience."

"Nonsense!" laughed the other. "That won't trouble me one bit. Just
now I'm much more concerned as to what you're to do for us at the
fair--something that will be popular and yet entail no loss of
dignity." She regarded him quizzically. "Ah! I have it! Fortunes told
by the cards! A magician in gown and fez, behind a curtain. Slight
extra charge, flattering and profitable alike." She clapped her hands
and Mr. Bangs groaned.

"Don't make me face details yet."

He struck at another potato hill, and Annie turned to the road. "Wait
a minute," he called after her; "this is serious. Have you spoken to
Miss Pamela yet?"

"Miss Pamela Roscoe, you mean? No, of course not; why should I?"

"Why should you?" Uncle William leaned on his hoe and fixed her with
stern eye. "Easier a brick without straw, a law without a legislature,
than to foist an idea, a plan, a measure on this village save in one
way. My dear Annie, haven't you found out in five days that Miss
Pamela is chief of the clan? Sister, aunt, cousin, in varying degrees,
to every Roscoe and Collamer in the township--and there are no others
worthy the count. Don't you know that she lives in the biggest house,
has money in the bank, owns railroad stock, preserves opinions and
never goes out of doors? That last is enough to surround her with a
wall of mystery, and her own personality does the rest. Her position
is almost feudal; the others may be jealous, most of the women are,
for she is as acquisitive as she is dogmatic, and somehow she has been
able to deflect nearly all the family possessions to her own line of
inheritance; but, though they scold behind her back, they bend the
knee, every one of them.

"You really must see her and get her consent, or gradually you will
have the whole village backing out of its agreements. You'd better go
before she hears of the plan from anyone else. I dare say you're too
late already. You'll need all your diplomacy, and I wouldn't attempt
it till after dinner. Get some points from your aunt Mary. We'll talk
it over by and by. Now, speaking of dinner, do you mind taking these
potatoes to Cassandra as you go by the kitchen door? They're my very
first. They're late enough, but I guess I'm a we