"But what would folks say?" gasped 'Phemie, her eyes dancing. "What would
your sister and mother say?"

"They needn't know a thing about it," declared Lucas, eagerly. "I--I could
slip out o' my winder an' down the shed ruff, an' sneak up here with my
shot-gun."

"Why, Mr. Pritchett! I believe you are in the habit of doing such things.
I am afraid you get out that way often, and the family knows nothing about
it."

"Naw, I don't--only circus days, an' w'en the Wild West show comes,
an'--an' Fourth of July mornin's. But don't you tell; will yer?"

"Cross my heart!" promised 'Phemie, giggling. "But suppose you should
shoot somebody around here with that gun?"

"Sarve 'em aout jest right!" declared the young farmer, boldly. "B'sides,
I'd only load it with rock-salt. 'Twould pepper 'em some."

"Salt and pepper 'em, Lucas," giggled the girl. "And season 'em right, I
expect, for breaking our rest."

"I'll do it!" declared Lucas.

"Don't you dare!" threatened 'Phemie.

"Why--why----"

Lucas was swamped in his own confusion again.

"Not unless I tell you you may," said 'Phemie, smiling on him dazzlingly
once more.

"Wa-al."

"Wait and see if we are disturbed again," spoke the girl, more kindly.
"I really am obliged to you, Lucas; but I couldn't hear of your watching
under our windows these cold nights--and, of course, it wouldn't be proper
for us to let you stay in the house."

"Wa-al," agreed the disappointed youth. "But if ye need me, ye'll let me
know?"

"Sure pop!" she told him, and was only sorry when he was gone that
she could not tell Lyddy all about it, and give her older sister "an
imitation" of Lucas as a cavalier.

The girls wrote the letter to Aunt Jane that evening and the next morning
they watched for the rural mail-carrier, who came along the highroad, past
the end of their lane, before noon.

He brought a letter from Aunt Jane for Lyddy, and he was ready to stop and
gossip with the girls who had so recently come to Hillcrest Farm.

"I'm glad to see some life about the old doctor's house again," declared
the man. "I can remember Dr. Polly--everybody called him that--right
well. He was a queer customer some ways--brusk, and sort of rough. But he
was a good deal like a chestnut burr. His outside was his worst side.
He didn't have no soothing bedside mannerisms; but if a feller was real
_sick_, it was a new lease of life to jest have the old doctor come inter
the room!"

It made the girls ha