.

"Lyd got out of bed on the wrong side this morning," said 'Phemie.
However, she went with Mr. Somers in her sister's stead.

And Lyddy Bray was glad to be left alone. No one could honestly call
Hillcrest Farm a lonesome place these days!

"I'm not sure that I wouldn't be glad to be alone here again, with just
'Phemie and father," the young girl told herself. "There is one drawback
to keeping a boarding house--one has no privacy. In trying to make it
homelike for the boarders, we lose all our own home life. Ah, dear, well!
at least we are earning our support."

For Lyddy Bray kept her books carefully, and she had been engaged in
this new business long enough to enable her to strike a balance. From her
present boarders she was receiving thirty-one and a half dollars weekly.
At least ten of it represented her profit.

But the two young girls were working very hard. The cooking was becoming
a greater burden because of the makeshifts necessary at the open fire.
And the washing of bed and table linen was a task that was becoming too
heavy for them.

"If we had a couple of other good paying boarders," mused Lyddy, as she
sat resting on the side porch, "we might afford to take somebody into the
kitchen to help us. It would have to be somebody who would work cheap,
of course; we could pay no fancy wages. But we need help."

As she thus ruminated she was startled by seeing a figure cross the field
from behind the barn. It was not Cyrus Pritchett, although the farmer
spent most of his Sabbaths wandering about the fields examining the crops.
Corn had not yet been planted, anyway--not here on the Hillcrest Farm.

But this was a man fully as large as Cyrus Pritchett. As he drew nearer,
Lyddy thought that he was a man she had never seen before.

He wore a broad-brimmed felt hat--of the kind affected by Western
statesmen. His black hair--rather oily-looking it was, like an
Indian's--flowed to the collar of his coat.

That coat was a frock, but it was unbuttoned, displaying a pearl gray
vest and trousers of the same shade. He even wore gray spats over his
shoes and was altogether more elaborately dressed than any native Lyddy
had heretofore seen.

He came across the yard at a swinging stride, and took off his hat with a
flourish. She saw then that his countenance was deeply tanned, that he
had a large nose, thick, smoothly-shaven lips, and heavy-lidded eyes.

"Miss Bray, I have no doubt?" he began, recovering from his bo