ndmother know that you are here?"

"N-n-no, Aunt E-E-E-Eunice. Nev' mind her. She w-w-won't care. C-c-c-can
we?"

"I--don't think I quite understand. Did you ask me for a pumpkin? Please
repeat."

"'A pumpkin'--that's one; no, indeed!" said Katy, scornfully. "We want
the whole field full of them. We sha'n't hurt them any, Monty says, and
he knows 'bout country things better than I do." Here she bestowed such
an approving smile upon her comrade that he flushed and smiled
beatifically. There were so few, so very few, things in which he could
really excel this superior city creature, yet she was so generous as to
perceive them even before he did himself.

Just then Susanna came in greatly flurried, and, catching Eunice's arm,
tried to draw her hastily out of the room. Miss Maitland herself had
swiftly caught her housemate's perturbation. Indeed, she had already
been perturbed when the children intruded upon her, and had, apparently,
now forgotten them.

Katharine saw their opportunity slipping from them, and opportunity was
something that girl never wasted for want of readiness to seize it.
Running after the departing lady, she clasped her skirt and stayed her
long enough to put her question once more:

"May we, aunty? Oh, please, before you go, say--yes!"

"Yes. Why, of course, yes, yes," returned the lady, all unheeding unto
what she had given her consent.

But she was to learn. Ah, yes! She was to learn in good time.

CHAPTER XIX.

WHAT THE MOON SAW IN THE CORN-FIELD

October had now nearly gone, and there was a chill in the air which
would, under ordinary circumstances, have made both Eunice and Susanna
pause before setting off into the woods at that hour in the afternoon.
Certainly they would not have gone without wraps and shawls galore, but
neither paused now. As swiftly, almost as secretly, as two guilty
schoolgirls would have started upon some surreptitious adventure, they
left the house by the back door and passed through the back garden. From
thence they struck into the path to the woodland and hurried forward.
Between strides the widow managed to interject a few explanatory
sentences.

"I got the wash off the line." Pause. "An' I got oneasy." Another pause.
Resuming: "I felt druv to go out there, alone even, an' see. What you
said about starvin' him worked on me, dreadful. I took a basket o'
victuals. Bad as he is--Oh, my suz!"

"Walk slower, Susanna. We shall be overdone if we keep thi