at it was going to be.

Well, by the evening of that day things were going fairly well. Tillie
brought out a basket every morning to me at the spring-house,
fairly bursting with curiosity, and Mr. Sam got some canned stuff in
Finleyville and took it after dark to the shelter-house. But after the
second day Mrs. Dicky got tired holding a frying-pan over the fire and I
had to carry out at least one hot meal a day.

They got their own breakfast in a chafing-dish, or rather he got it and
carried it to her. And she'd sit on the edge of her cot, with her feet
on the soap box--the floor was drafty--wrapped in a pink satin negligee
with bands of brown fur on it, looking sweet and perfectly happy, and
let him feed her boiled egg with a spoon. I took them some books--my
Gray's Anatomy, and Jane Eyre and Molly Bawn, by The Duchess, and the
newspapers, of course. They were full of talk about the wedding, and the
suite the prince was bringing over with him, and every now and then a
notice would say that Miss Dorothy Jennings, the bride's young sister,
who was still in school and was not coming out until next year, would be
her sister's maid of honor. And when they came to that, they would hug
each other--or me, if I happened to be close--and act like a pair of
children, which they were. Generally it would end up by his asking
her if she wasn't sorry she wasn't back at Greenwich studying French
conjugations and having a dance without any men on Friday nights, and
she would say "Wretch!" and kiss him, and I'd go out and slam the door.

But there was something on Mr. Dick's mind. I hadn't known him for
fourteen years for nothing. And the night Mr. Sam and I carried out the
canned salmon and corn and tomatoes he walked back with me to the edge
of the deer park, Mr. Sam having gone ahead.

"Now," I said, when we were out of ear-shot, "spit it out. I've been
expecting it."

"Listen, Minnie," he answered, "is Ju--is Miss Summers still confined to
her room?"

"No," I replied coldly. "Ju--Miss Summers was down to-night to dinner."

"Then she's seen Pierce," he said, "and he's told her the whole story
and by to-morrow--"

"What?" I demanded, clutching his arm. "You wretched boy, don't tell me
after all I've done."

"Oh, confound it, Minnie," he exclaimed, "it's as much your fault as
mine. Couldn't you have found somebody else, instead of getting, of all
things on earth, somebody from the Sweet Peas Company?"

"I see," I said slowl