Slater was not standing dry-eyed and pale at the window.

"Did you ask Tom Motherwell?" Fred, her brother, asked, looking up from
a list he held in his hand.

"I sent him a note," Nellie answered, turning around from the
baking-board. "We couldn't leave Tom out. Poor boy, he never has any
fun, and I do feel sorry for him."

"His mother won't let him come, anyway," Fred said smiling. "So don't
set your heart on seeing him, Nell."

"How discouraging you are Fred," Nellie replied laughing. "Now, I
believe he will come. Tom would be a smart boy if he had a chance, I
think. But just think what it must be like to live with two people like
the Motherwells. You do not realise it, Fred, because you have had the
superior advantages of living with clever people like your brother
Peter and your sister Eleanor Mary; isn't that so, Peter?"

Peter Slater, the youngest of the family, who had just come in, laid
down the milk-pails before replying.

"We have done our best for them all, Nellie," he said modestly. "I hope
they will repay us. But did I hear you say Tom Motherwell was coming?"

"You heard Nell say so," Fred answered, checking over the names. "Nell
seems to like Tom pretty well."

"I do, indeed," Nellie assented, without turning around.

"You show good taste, Eleanor," Peter said as he washed his hands.

"Who is going to drive into town for Camilla?" Nellie asked that
evening.

"I am," Fred answered promptly.

"No, you're not, I am," Peter declared.

George looked up hastily.

"I am going to bring Miss Rose out," he said firmly.

Then they laughed.

"Father," Nellie said gravely, "just to save trouble among the boys,
will you do it?"

"With the greatest of pleasure," her father said, smiling.

Under Pearl's ready sympathy Tom began to feel the part of the stricken
lover, and to become as eager to meet Nellie as Egbert had been to meet
the beautiful Edythe. He moped around the field that afternoon and let
Arthur do the heavy share of the work.

The next morning before Mrs. Motherwell appeared Pearl and Tom decided
upon the plan of campaign. Pearl was to get his Sunday clothes taken to
the bluff in the pasture field, sometime during the day. Then in the
evening Tom would retire early, watch his chance, slip out the front
door, make his toilet on the bluff, and then, oh bliss! away to Edythe.
Pearl had thought of having him make a rope of the sheets; but she
remembered that this plan of escape was only u