d frankly sulky and quite at a loss.

"That's the worst of those dog-goned things," he exclaimed, scowling at
the object blocking his way. "They're always giving out just when you
need them most. I wouldn't take one as a gift," he added savagely, and
only the enthusiastic motorist will understand what it cost Persis not
to refute his words on the spot.

"Have you tried everything you can think of to make it go, Miss
Persis?" Diantha asked, her troubled tones indicating how much she took
to heart her friend's misadventure.

Persis' glance implied affectionate appreciation.

"Well, you see, dearie, they gave me lessons in the city on how to run
a car, but I suppose it's too much to expect that I'll know everything
about it right off from the start. I dare say some real smart person
could fix it in a jiffy." She was so certain on this point that she
quaked for fear Thad might begin experimenting, but that young man's
confidence in his mechanical ability was luckily limited. He sat
scowling and twisting the lines in his hands, while his horse looked
back over its shoulder as if it shared its master's impatience of the
delay.

"I didn't relish the idea of setting here in the road all night,"
explained Persis, still with an air of relief. "Seems fairly
providential your coming along in the nick o' time."

"Fact is," said Thad sullenly, "we're not going home for a while."

"Well, I'm in no real hurry," Persis returned obligingly. "If the
children get hungry, Mary'll feed 'em. They're all too little to worry
if I'm not home on the minute, and Joel ain't the worrying kind."

"Truth is, Miss Persis," exclaimed the goaded lad, "it isn't what you'd
call convenient for us to take you along this evening."

"Thad!" cried Diantha in accents of unutterable reproach.

"Well, I don't mean to be impolite, but it's not convenient and you
know it."

"Thad West, Miss Persis is just about my dearest friend in Clematis.
And if you think I'm going to leave her here alone ten miles from home,
with an automobile that won't go--and getting dark--and a lame knee--"

"Well, of course if you feel that way about it," returned the unhappy
young man, "there's nothing more to be said. But you know yourself--"

"I guess I'd better light my lamps before I leave," remarked Persis
briskly. She attended to that little matter and hobbled toward the
buggy. Thad alighted and assisted her to climb in with so poor a grace
as to make her su