rustee can't possibly find another
teacher, and let you off? I know Robert will be disappointed, for he's
rented his office and bought a house and he said last night to get
ready as soon after Christmas as I could. Oh, Kate, won't you see if
you can't possibly get that man to hire another teacher?"

"Why, Nancy Ellen--" said Kate.

Nancy Ellen, with a twitching face, looked at Kate.

"If Robert has to wait months, there in Hartley, handsome as he is, and
he has to be nice to everybody to get practice, and you know how those
Hartley girls are--"

"Yes, Nancy Ellen, I know," said Kate. "I'll see what I can do. Is it
understood that if I give up the school and come back and take ours,
Father will let me come home?"

"Yes, oh, yes!" cried Nancy Ellen.

"Well, nothing goes on guess-work. I'll hear him say it, myself," said
Kate.

She climbed from the buggy. Nancy Ellen caught her arm.

"Don't go in there! Don't you go there," she cried. "He'll throw the
first thing he can pick up at you. Mother says he hasn't been asleep
all night."

"Pooh!" said Kate. "How childish! I want to hear him say that, and
he'll scarcely kill me."

She walked swiftly to the side door.

"Father," she said, "Nancy Ellen is afraid she will lose Robert Gray if
she has to put off her marriage for months--"

Kate stepped back quickly as a chair crashed against the door facing.
She again came into view and continued--"so she asked me if I would get
out of my school and come back if I could"--Kate dodged another chair;
when she appeared again--"To save the furniture, of which we have none
too much, I'll just step inside," she said. When her father started
toward her, she started around the dining table, talking as fast as she
could, he lunging after her like a furious bull. "She asked me to come
back and teach the school--to keep her from putting off her
wedding--because she is afraid to-- If I can break my contract
there--may I come back and help her out here?"

The pace was going more swiftly each round, it was punctuated at that
instant by a heavy meat platter aimed at Kate's head. She saw it
picked up and swayed so it missed.

"I guess that is answer enough for me," she panted, racing on. "A
lovely father you are--no wonder your daughters are dishonest through
fear of you--no wonder your wife has no mind of her own--no wonder your
sons hate you and wish you would die--so they could have their deeds
and be like men--ins