before he's ready to show himself off
to ladies."

With that he got his hat and went out with Mr. Trowbridge, who was
waiting with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Oh, dear, I feel as if something horrid was going to happen!" I said
to Sally, when they had gone.

"Pooh!" said she. "I should be sorry for the animal who tried to play
tricks with that young man. You'll find you haven't known him, till you
see him on a horse."

"I daresay I'm silly," I admitted. "But I have a presentiment of
_something_. Let's go and sit out on the verandah and watch. We can't
see the barn, but if they come out in the farm road we shall catch
sight of them."

"All right," said Sally. "The sun's hot on the verandah; but that's a
detail."

Already Jim and Mr. Trowbridge had disappeared, but as we were choosing
the coolest place for our chairs, we saw a dusty, nondescript old
vehicle rattling up the maple avenue, and just about to turn into the
narrow road which leads round the side of the house. The hood was up to
protect the passengers from the sun, so at first we could see only the
driver, and gather an indistinct impression that there were two figures
in the back seat.

"Visitors," said I. "I didn't know Mrs. Trowbridge was expecting----"
Then I broke off with a little gasp.

"Oh, Sally, it's----"

"The Duke and Katherine!" she gurgled.

All my blood raced up to my head, as if I were going to have a
sunstroke.

"No wonder I had a presentiment," I groaned, forgetting my fright about
the horse, for a moment. "Do stand by me."

"I will," said Sally.

Mrs. Trowbridge and the girls were busy in the kitchen, making peach
jam; so when the wretched old chaise drew up close to the verandah,
Sally and I were alone to receive it.

If my sense of humour hadn't been trampled upon by various emotions
which were all jumping about at the same time, I should have had hard
work not to laugh when Stan and Mrs. Ess Kay scrambled out from under
the lumbering old hood, which was like a great coal scuttle turned over
their heads. Their hair was grey with dust, their faces purple with
heat, and evidently they were both in towering tempers.

Stan looked at me the way he did once when I was small and spoiled his
favourite cricket bat by digging up worms with it;--as if he could have
shaken me well and boxed my ears, and would if I weren't a girl. As for
Mrs. Ess Kay, she smiled; but her smile meant worse things than Stan's
frown.

"Hullo, dear boy,"