ssed the courthouse and waited for Lucas and the farm wagon on the
outskirts of the village--where the more detached houses gave place to
open fields. No plow had been put into these lower fields as yet; still,
the coming spring had breathed upon the landscape and already the banks by
the wayside were turning green.

'Phemie became enthusiastic at once and before Lucas hove in view,
evidently anxiously looking for them, the younger girl had gathered a
great bunch of early flowers.

"They're mighty purty," commented the young farmer, as the girls climbed
over the wheel with their muddy boots and all.

'Phemie, giggling, took her seat on the other side of him. She had given
one look at the awkwardly arranged load on the wagon-body and at once
became helpless with suppressed laughter. If the girls she had worked
with in the millinery store for the last few months could see them and
their "lares and penates" perched upon this farm wagon, with this son of
Jehu for a driver!

"I reckon you expect to stay a spell?" said Lucas, with a significant
glance from the conglomerate load to Lyddy.

"Yes--we hope to," replied the oldest Bray girl. "Do you think the house
is in very bad shape inside?"

"I dunno. We never go in it, Miss," responded Lucas, shaking his head.
"Mis' Hammon' never left us the key--not to upstairs. Dad's stored cider
and vinegar in the cellar under the east ell for sev'ral years. It's a
better cellar'n we've got.

"An' I dunno what dad'll say," he added, "to your goin' up there to live."

"What's he got to do with it?" asked 'Phemie, quickly.

"Why, we work the farm on shares an' we was calc'latin' to do so this
year."

"Our living in the house doesn't interfere with that arrangement," said
Lyddy, quietly. "Aunt Jane told us all about that. I have a letter from
her for your father."

"Aw--well," commented Lucas, slowly.

The ponies had begun to mount the rise in earnest now. They tugged eagerly
at the load, and trotted on the level stretches as though tireless. Lyddy
commented upon this, and Lucas flushed with delight at her praise.

"They're hill-bred, they be," he said, proudly. "Tackle 'em to a buggy, or
a light cart, an' up hill or down hill means the same to 'em. They won't
break their trot.

"When it comes plowin' time we clip 'em, an' then they don't look so bad
in harness," confided the young fellow. "If--if you like, I'll take you
drivin' over the hills some day--when the roads git set