Chapter XII - Page 2

an indignant glance at Miss Mullett, but that lady was busy over the kettle with her back toward them.

"I'm afraid she would pay less heed to me than to you," answered Wade with a short laugh. "But if you'll persuade her to walk, I'll lecture her as much as you wish."

"If I'm to be lectured," replied Eve, "I shan't go."

"Well, of course, if you put it that way," hedged Wade.

"Go along, dear," said Miss Mullett. "You need fresh air. But do keep out of the sun if it gets hot."

"I wonder," observed Wade, with a smile, "what you folks up here would do down in New Mexico, where the temperature gets up to a hundred and twenty in the shade."

"I'd do as the Irishman suggested," answered Eve, pertly, "and keep out of the shade. If you'll wait right where you are and not move for ten minutes I'll go and get ready."

"I won't ruffle a feather," Wade assured her. "But you'd better come before dinner time or I may get hungry and eat all the jelly."

Twenty minutes later she was back, a cool vision of white linen and lace. She wore no hat, but had brought a sunshade. Pursued by Miss Mullett's admonitions to keep out of the sun as much as possible, they went down the garden and through the gate, and turned countryward under the green gloom of the elms. Alexander the Great, laboring perhaps under the delusion that he was a dog instead of a cat, followed them decorously for some distance, and then, being prevailed on to desist, climbed a fence-post and blinked gravely after them.

"It really is nice to-day," said Eve. "When the breeze comes from the direction of the coast it cools things off deliciously. I suppose it's only imagination, but sometimes I think I can smell the salt--or taste it. That's scarcely possible, though, for we're a good twenty miles inland."

"I'm not so sure," he answered. "Lots of times I've thought I could smell the ocean here. Does it take very long to get to Portsmouth or the beach? Couldn't we go some day, you and Miss Mullett and the Doctor and I?"

"That would be jolly," said Eve. "We must talk it over with them. I'm afraid, though, the Doctor couldn't go. There's always some one sick hereabouts."

"Oh, he could leave enough of his nasty medicine one day to last through the next. He's one of the nicest old chaps I ever met, Miss Walton. He's awfully fond of you, isn't he?"

"I think he is," she answered, "and I'm awfully fond of him, I don't know whether I ought to tell this, but I have a suspicion that he used to be very fond of my mother before she was married. He's told me so many little things about her, and he always speaks of her in such a quiet, dear sort of way. I wonder--I