ndered what could be keeping father; and Sarah Emily
braced herself against the wall and declared some folks were slower
than a seven years' famine. It was impossible to leave their places,
for the pipes would collapse into the study below, so that there was
nothing to do but wait, Casabianca-like. Elizabeth misquoted something
about the noble two who held the pipes in the brave days of old. But
Sarah Emily did not understand the allusion, and the joke fell very
flat. Her arms were cramped too, and her sense of humor was becoming
dulled.

They waited and called and waited, until at last Elizabeth became
alarmed, fearing something had happened to her father. Still holding
her uncomfortable burden, she rose to her feet, whence she could
command a view from the windows overlooking the kitchen-garden. One
glimpse she caught and uttered a shriek of laughter, which threatened
dislodgment of the stove-pipes. For there, far down the garden, near
to Tom Teeter's fence, peacefully hoeing in his potato-patch, stood her
absent-minded father!

But Sarah Emily did not laugh. Declaring that Lizzie's pa was the most
forgettable man that ever pestered the soul out of a body, she managed
to place herself so that her strong arms supported both sections of the
pipe and dispatched Elizabeth after the truant.

Mr. Gordon flung up his hands in dismay at his daughter's appearance,
and fled back to the house full of apologies enough to appease even
Sarah Emily, who was by this time both cramped and cross. Elizabeth
followed more slowly, filled with laughter. It was impossible to hurry
indoors on such a morning. The orchard path was bordered with soft
grass, vividly green. The bluebirds hopped and twittered in the
branches above, and on every side the undulating fields stretched away,
shimmering in the warm sunshine. When Elizabeth looked back in later
years at the picture of herself walking gayly down the orchard path on
that radiant morning, she wondered how she could have laughed, and how
it was possible that not the smallest premonition was given her of the
storm of anguish so rapidly approaching.

As she reached the end of the orchard path the rattle of wheels
attracted her. She looked up to see John Coulson driving slowly down
the lane. She ran through the house and out to the garden gate in glad
surprise, full of questions. What had brought him out here at this
hour? And why did he come alone? And what did he mean by