ith us. She does not like us,--me
at least. She has pointedly avoided me, and I half believe it was to
avoid going with us that she was taken ill. I only hope Wilbur will not
misunderstand the matter."

"I think you are unjust, Margaret, in one thing at least. There was
certainly some severe fright or shock Saturday night."

"Oh, a thing that might unstring a nervous, hysterical woman a few
hours, perhaps, but it is no case of nerves or hysteria with her. She's
a perfectly healthy country girl. Mrs. Darling, who isn't thoroughly
strong and well, seems to have been very little affected."

"Mrs. Darling has been three years out here and is accustomed to
frontier life. Mrs. Davies, probably, never had such an experience
before, and she has been worried by these queer incidents that Mrs.
Leonard tells us of,--those midnight whistlings and tappings at her
window. Mrs. Davies is alone, her husband miles away at the agency.
Everything has tended to worry the girl. I honestly feel sorry for her,
Margaret. I'm sorry that she wouldn't let us be her friends."

"You are full of excuse for her, Agatha, and down in the bottom of your
heart you know perfectly well she doesn't deserve it. I cannot forgive
her for this flirtation with Mr. Willett. I only welcomed the idea of
taking her with us because of the hope it gave me of breaking up that
affair."

"Has it never occurred to you that she may have broken it off
herself?--that besides this queer adventure with those drunken fellows
there was something else to agitate her? Be just, Margaret. She came to
us utterly inexperienced, even ignorant. She hasn't much mind, I'll
admit, but she is innocent of wrong intent. Is it not possible that
driving home he may have spoken to her in a way she could not mistake,
and that that has had much to do with her prostration? If not, if she
did not then and there forbid his coming near her again, how do you
account for it that he has not once been out to the fort since
Saturday?"

"Well, it's only three days, and the sleighing is practically ended."

"Yes, but he hasn't let forty-eight hours pass hitherto without a visit,
so I'm told, and he has his buggy and wagon, and unless there was a
rupture of some kind was it not more than likely he would be out Sunday
or Monday? Wasn't it the proper thing, really, for him to call and
inquire for her?"

But here the Concord rattled on again, the boys playing "giant strides"
hanging to the boot at the