r as ever sat a horse.

Meanwhile, up at the house events were shaping with the rapidity of a
moving picture show.

When Peggy left her so abruptly Madam Stewart sat still for a few
moments, pondering her next step. She had arrived at some very definite
conclusions and intended carrying them out without loss of time. Her
first move in that direction led her into the library where she wrote a
letter to her brother-in-law. It was while she was thus occupied that
Mammy had found Peggy and sent her for her ride. Then Mammy sought
Harrison. Ordinarily, Mammy would have died before consulting Harrison
about anything concerning Peggy, but here was a common issue, and if
Mammy did not know that a house divided against itself must fall, she
certainly felt the force of that argument. In Harrison she found a
sympathetic listener, for the old housekeeper had been made to feel
Mrs. Stewart's presence in the house in hundreds of irritating little
ways. Mammy told of finding Peggy in tears, though she could not, of
course, tell their cause. But Harrison needed no cause: the tears in
themselves were all the cause she required to know.

Their conversation took place in the pantry and at the height of
Harrison's protest against the new order of things a footfall was heard
in the dining-room beyond. Thinking it Jerome's and quite ready to add
one more to their league of defenders of Peggy's cause, Harrison pushed
open the swinging door and stepped into the dining-room with all of her
New England-woman's nervous activity. Mrs. Stewart stood in the room
surveying with a critical, calculating eye, every detail of its stately,
chaste appointments, for nothing had ever been changed.

Mrs. Stewart looked up as Harrison bounced in.

"O Harrison, you are exactly the person I wished to speak with," she
said. "There are to be a few changes made in Mr. Stewart's domestic
arrangements. In future I shall assume control of his home and relieve
Miss Peggy of all responsibility. You may come to me for all orders."

She paused, and for the moment Harrison was too dumbfounded to reply,
while Mammy in the pantry, having overheard every word, was noiselessly
clapping her old hands together and murmuring: "Ma Lawd! Ma Lawd! _Now_
I knows de sou'ce ob dat chile's tears." Before Harrison could recover
herself Mrs. Stewart continued:

"Dr. Llewellyn will be here tomorrow for the weekend, and as I am to be
mistress of the household it is more seemly that I