dicated that if
almost any young man had had in his house--actually living with him and
taking part in his household affairs--an unusually handsome young woman,
who, not only by her appearance, but by her gentle and thoughtful desire
to adapt herself to the tastes and circumstances of himself and his
sister, seemed to belong in the place into which she had so suddenly
dropped, that young man would naturally want to see that young woman just
as soon as he could. This would be so in any similar case, and there was
no use in trying to find out why it was so in this case.

He rose to his feet, and at that moment he heard Miriam calling to him.

"Ralph," she said, running into the barn, "I have been looking all over
for you. The new woman cannot come to-day."

"I do not see why you should appear so delighted about it," said Ralph;
"I am very sorry to hear it."

"And I am not," replied Miriam. "There are some things I want to do
before she comes, and I am very glad to have the chance. Mike brought
back word from her that if you send the wagon in the cool of the morning,
she will come over with her trunk."

"You are a funny girl," said Ralph, "to be actually pleased at the
prospect of cooking and doing housework a little longer." And as he said
that, he congratulated himself that his sister had not had the chance of
thinking him a funny fellow for lying stretched on the hay when he ought
to have been at work.

Miriam was now in good spirits again. She walked to the great open
window, and, leaning on the bar, looked out.

"What a lovely air," she said, and then she turned to her brother. "It is
nice to have visitors, and to have plenty of people to do your work, but
it is a hundred times jollier for just us two to be here by ourselves.
Don't you think so, Ralph?" And, without waiting for her brother's
answer, she went on. "You see, we can do whatever we please. We can be
as free as anything--as free as cats. Here, puss, puss," she called to
the gray barn cat in the yard below. "No, she will not even look at me.
Cats are the freest creatures in the world; they will not come to you if
they do not want to. If you call your dog, he feels that he has to come
to you. Ralph, do you know I think it is the most absurd thing in the
world that in a place like this we should have no dog."

"I have been waiting for somebody to give me one," said Ralph, taking up
a pitchfork and preparing to throw some hay into the stable below.

"