ith Eppie's father.
He kept a corner grocery store in the east end, but we couldn't find
them."

"Eh, eh," sighed Tom, "poor Sandy. A fine old fellow. Eh, I hope he's
not in want." He shook his fist towards his neighbor. "An' jist go on
robbin' widows an' tramplin' on orphans till ye perish in the
corruption o' yer own penuriousness. Yes, an' me lady Jarvis too!" he
cried, abruptly finishing his apostrophe. "She'll have to answer for
old Sandy an' the wee thing, see if she don't." The company smiled in
spite of his earnestness, all but Elizabeth. She regarded him with big
solemn eyes. "Now yous 'll be over to see mother early, mind," he
added as he swung one leg over the fence.

As they drove away they heard his song rising again loud and clear--

"_O, and it's whippity-whoppity too,
And how I'd love to sing to you._"

"Tom's a great lad," laughed John Coulson. "He'll never grow old. I
wonder why he never married," he added, returning to his favorite topic.

"Does Sarah Emily still think he's pining for her?"

"She's sure of it," said Elizabeth. "And poor old granny is so angry
that Tom won't get married. 'Aw wirra wurra, if Tom'd only git a wife
now.'" She wrung her hands and imitated old Granny Teeter's wail to
perfection. "'Sure an' he nades a wife to tind to the chickens an' the
pigs an' the turkeys--the contrary little bastes that'll niver be
stayin' at home, at all at all.'"

The young men laughed, and John Coulson looked admiringly at her. John
Coulson was too apt to encourage Lizzie in this sort of thing, Annie
felt. She smiled indulgently at her sister, but said nothing. Mrs.
John Coulson alone knew why poor unselfish Tom had never married, but
hers was a loyal friendship and she had kept his secret as faithfully
as he had once kept hers.

And now they had come prancing out from behind the screen of elm trees,
and The Dale lay spread out before them--the big gate between the old
willows, the long lane bordered by blossoming cherry-trees, and the old
stone house with its prim flower beds in front. Their homecoming was a
few days earlier than expected, and Mr. Gordon was all unconsciously
hoeing at the back of the field, but Sarah Emily spied them as they
pulled up at the gate, and came running round the house shouting in a
most ungenteel but warm-hearted fashion that the folks was come home.

Elizabeth sprang from the carriage and ran down the lane to meet Mary.
Though she cam