uldn't? But that old Pepperpot is another
proposition."

"Perhaps she is a whole lot better than she appears," Ruth said mildly.
"And I don't think we ought to call her 'Pepperpot.' Tess certainly has
found her blind side."

"Ah, of course! Tess is like you," rejoined Agnes. "She would disarm a
wild tiger."

"Oh! oh!" cried Neale, hearing this remark--and certainly what Agnes
said was wilder than any tiger! "How would you go to work to disarm a
tiger, Aggie? Never knew they had arms."

"Oh, Mr. Smartie!"

"I don't know how smart I am," said Neale. "I was setting here
thinking----"

"You mean you were _sitting_," snapped Agnes. "You're neither a hen nor
a mason."

"Huh! who said I was?" asked Neale.

"Why," returned the girl, "a hen _sets_ on eggs, and a mason _sets_ the
stone in a wall, for instance. You _sit_ on that seat, I should hope."

"Oh, cricky! Get ap, Dobbin and Dewlap! What do you know about Aggie's
turning critic all of a sudden?" cried Neale.

"Alas for our learning!" chuckled Ruth. "A hen _sets_ only in colloquial
language. To a purist she always _sits_--according to my English lesson
of yesterday.

"But you'd better see where you are turning to, young man," she went on,
briskly. "Isn't yonder the road to Lycurgus Billet's place? He owns the
chestnut woods."

"We can go that way if you like," admitted Neale. "But I want to come
around by the Ipswitch Curve on the interurban, either going or coming."

"What for?" asked Ruth, while Agnes cried:

"Oh, don't Neale! I never want to see that horrid place again."

"I just want to," said Neale to Ruth. "Mr. Bob Buckham lives near there
and I worked for him once."

Until Neale's uncle, Mr. William Sorber, had undertaken to pay for the
boy's education, Neale had earned his own living after he had run away
from the circus.

"Oh, don't, Neale!" begged Agnes, faintly.

"Why shouldn't we drive back that way?" asked Ruth, surprised at her
sister's manner and words. Ruth did not know all about Agnes' trouble
over the raid on the farmer's strawberry patch. "But let's drive direct
to the chestnut woods now."

"All right," said Neale, turning the horses. "Go 'lang! We'll have to
stop at Billet's house and ask permission. He is choice of his woods,
for there's a lot of nice young timber there and the blight has not
struck the trees. He's awfully afraid of fire."

"Isn't that Mr. Billet rather an odd stick?" asked Ruth. "You know, we
never were up t