e a
friendly root gave support to his arms and breast.

Two elderly ladies of severe and forbidding aspect came slowly within
his range of vision. One was tall and thin and the other was short and
thin, while both wore plain, skimp, black gowns and had their hair
parted in the center and smoothed down flatly over their ears. They were
silent with some vexed and weighty problem as they drew near, but, as
they came just opposite to him, the taller of the two suddenly burst out
with:

"Men, men, men! Nothing but men, morning, noon and night. Please
explain, Sister Ann! Where did Adnah, during my brief absence, get her
sudden curiosity about the despicable sex?"

"It was the recent visit of Doctor Laura Phelps, Sister Sarah," meekly
replied the smaller woman. "She lost a magazine while here and Adnah
found it. The publication contained several love stories, so-called, an
illustrated article on 'Young Captains of Industry' and another on
'Handsome Young Men of the Stage.' I burned the pernicious thing as soon
as it came into my hands, but, alas, the damage had been done!"

"Damage, indeed, Sister Ann!" snapped the other. "Since the age of five,
poor Sister Jane's orphan has never been permitted to see a man. Big
country girls have even been hired to do our farm work. And this, _this_
is the end of fourteen years of self-sacrificing care!"

The young man in the pool cautiously ducked his head under the water. A
mosquito had settled back of his ear and was driving him mad.

"Dreadful!" moaned Sister Ann. "Adnah goes about sighing all the day,
and looks over-long in the mirror, and takes unseemly pains with her
dressing, and does up her hair with flowers, and has feverishly pink
cheeks, and likes to sit in a corner and brood, and takes long walks by
herself, and especially, _especially_, seems fond of moonlight!"

A snake slid down off the bushes into the water near the young man and
he "wanted out," but he stayed.

"Moonlight!" sniffed Sarah. "Moonlight!" There is no language to express
the disdain with which she spoke this word of philandering and
frivolity.

"Moonlight is very pretty," ventured the other. "I rather like it
myself."

"At _your_ time of life!" retorted Sister Sarah. "You are too
sentimental, Sister Ann, as well as too careless."

Thank Heaven they were going! The young man waited until their voices
died in the distance, then crept cautiously to the bank. He had to find
those dogs, and in a hurry.