kfast's all ready,"
Jessie remarked, cheerfully, as I entered, and then, catching sight of
the empty pail, she exclaimed, "Why, what's the matter?"

When I told her, she said, reproachfully, "Leslie, of course I
supposed that you would put up the bars after we had finished milking
last night!"

I am afraid that I was cross as well as tired: "Why, 'of course,'
Jessie? Why is it, can you tell me, that there is always some one
member of a family who is supposed, quite as a matter of course, to
make good the short-comings and long-goings of all the others? To
straighten out the domestic tangles, to remember, always remember,
what the others forget; to be good-tempered when others are
ill-tempered; to--"

Jessie laid a brown little hand on my shoulder, checking the torrent
of my eloquence; she laid her cheek against my own for a passing
instant.

"That's all easily answered, Leslie dear. The some one that you
describe is the soul of a house. When a house has the misfortune not
to have such an one in it, it has no soul; the other members are
merely forms, moving forms, with impulses."

I knew that she meant to compliment me, but I would not appear to know
it.

"I suppose, then," I returned, with affected resentment, "that I am a
form with impulses. One of the impulses just now is to eat breakfast."

"Me hundry; me eat breakfuss, too," proclaimed a shrill, familiar
voice at my elbow. I had already taken my seat at the table.

"Eat your breakfast, Leslie," said Jessie; "I'll dress Ralph. After
breakfast, perhaps, I had better go with you after the cows?" She
spoke with some hesitation. As a matter of fact, she does not begin to
know the cattle trails as I know them.

"No," I said; "I'll go alone, Jessie; I can find them much quicker
than you could."

"They may not have gone far." Jessie advanced this proposition
hopefully.

"Far enough, I'll warrant. I believe there's nothing that a cow likes
so well as to chase around on a morning like this; especially if she
thinks some one is hunting for her."

"You can take one of the horses--" Jessie began, and, in the irritated
state of my mind, it was some satisfaction to be able to promptly veto
that proposition.

"Oh, no, indeed! I shall have to go on foot. It seems you turned them
out to pasture last night. I think you must have forgotten how hard it
is to catch either of the horses when they are both let out at once."

My sister had the grace to blush slightly, wh