able in a corner of the veranda.

"Laura said you'd like it out here," Priscilla announced anxiously.
"Do you?"

"Very much indeed."

"That's all right, then. I'm going to have some berries and milk right
opposite you. I always get hungry about this time in the forenoon."

"When do you have breakfast, regular breakfast, I mean?"

"At six o'clock in summer, when there's so much to do."

Six o'clock! Elliott turned her gasp of astonishment into a cough.

"_I_ sometimes choke," said Priscilla, "when I'm awfully hungry."

"Does Stannard eat breakfast at six?" Elliott felt she must get to the
bed-rock of facts.

"Oh, yes!"

"What is he doing now?"

Priscilla wrinkled her small brow. "Father and Bruce and Henry are
haying, and Tom's hoeing carrots. I _think_ Stan's hoeing carrots,
too. One day last week he hoed up two whole rows of beets; he thought
they were weeds. Oh!" A small hand was clapped over the round red
mouth. "I didn't mean to tell you that. Mother said I mustn't ever
speak of it, 'cause he'd feel bad. Don't you think you could forget
it, quick?"

"I've forgotten it now."

"That's all right, then. After breakfast I'm going to show you my
chickens and my calf. Did you know, I've a whole calf all to
myself?--a black-and-whitey one. There are some cunning pigs, too.
Maybe you'd like to see them. And then I 'spect you'll want to go out
to the hay-field, or maybe make jelly."

"Oh, yes," said Elliott, "I can't see any of it too soon." But she was
ashamed of her double meaning, with those round, eager eyes upon her.
And her heart went down quite into her boots.

But the chickens, she had to confess, were rather amusing. Priscilla
had them all named and was quite sure some of them, at least, answered
to their names and not merely to the sound of her voice. She appealed
to Elliott for corroboration on this point and Elliott grew almost
interested trying to decide whether or not Chanticleer knew he was
"Chanticleer" and not "Sunflower." There were also "Fluff" and
"Scratch" and "Lady Gay" and "Ruby Crown" and "Marshal Haig" and
"General Petain" and many more, besides "Brevity," so named because,
as Priscilla solicitously explained, she never seemed to grow. They
all, with the exception of Brevity, looked as like as peas to Elliott,
but Priscilla seemed to have no difficulty in distinguishing them.

Priscilla's enthusiasm was contagious; or, to be more exact, it was so
big and warm and generous that it