ed. Jemima,
secretly alarmed, had insisted upon having in a doctor after her
mother's fainting attack, but he made little of it. He was a bluff,
cheerful, young countryman, shrewd but without subtlety, the son and the
worthy successor of Jacques Benoix' successful rival, "Doc" Jones.

"She's as sound as a dollar," he pronounced admiringly. "Don't often see
such a specimen of perfect health as the Madam. Nerves? Not likely.
Probably over-fatigue--she does the work of ten men. Let me see, how old
is she? Nearly forty--humph! Looks twenty-five. Make her take a rest.
She'll be all right."

But rest, inactivity, was the one thing Kate would not allow herself.
She dared not. She threw herself heart and soul into the business of her
estate, and tried to feel the same interest, the same sense of large
accomplishment, that had buoyed her up through so many years of
loneliness.

On the Monday after Mag's child was christened, it happened that she was
due to appear at a fair in an adjoining county, where she was exhibiting
shorthorn cattle. But before she left, she did not forget to send a
peremptory message to the man Henderson.

During her not infrequent absences from home, she had no uneasiness
about her daughters, amply protected as they were by the numerous
servants in the quarters back of the "great house," to say nothing of
the small army of dogs which fattened upon her bounty. The housewoman
who had been with her for years slept on such occasions on a pallet
outside the girls' door, and Big Liza, the cook, also took up a position
in the house, lying across the stairs in the great hall, whence her
massive snores would have deterred the most reckless of marauders from
entering.

But it chanced that this particular Monday was the occasion of the
annual colored picnic in the village, held under the auspices of the
Ladies of the Evening Star, of which organization both the housewoman
and Big Liza were officials. So from dusk until midnight the young
ladies were to be left in the charge of no one but Lige, the stable-boy
who had once figured as butler, to whose unhappy lot this honor had
fallen because of his known slave-like devotion to Jacqueline. Every
other member of the domestic force was off rejoicing with the Ladies of
the Evening Star.

This youth was making the rounds of the house with one of the Madam's
pistols in his belt, taking some comfort in the dramatization of his
unlucky role, when breathless yells were