ames
continued before she could retort, "I hope Susan wasn't gored?"

"You're quite wrong. You're jumping to conclusions," said Helen, with an
air of indulgence that would have been exasperating had it not been
enchanting. "Things don't happen like that except in novels."

"I've never read a novel in my life," James defended himself.

"Haven't you? How interesting!"

"But I've known a woman knocked down by a bull."

"Well, anyhow, mother wasn't knocked down by a bull. But there was a mad
bull running down the street; it had escaped from the market. And Mr.
Bratt was walking home, and the bull was after him like a shot. Mother
was looking out of the window, and she saw what was going on. So she
rushed to the front door and opened it, and called to Mr. Bratt to run
in and take shelter. And they only just got the door shut in time."

"Bless us!" muttered James. "And what next?"

"Why, I came home from school and found them having tea together."

"And ninety year between them!" James reflected.

"Then Mr. Bratt called every week. He was a widower, with no children."

"It couldn't ha' been better," said James.

"Oh yes, it could," said Helen. "Because I had the greatest difficulty
in marrying them; in fact, at one time I thought I should never do it.
I'm always in the right, and mother's always in the wrong. She's
admitted that for years. She's had to admit it. Yet she _would_ go her
own way. Nothing would ever cure mother."

"She used to talk just like that of your grandfather," said James.
"Susan always reckoned as she'd got more than her fair share of sense."

"I don't think she thinks that now," said Helen, calmly, as if to say:
"At any rate I've cured her of _that_." Then she went on: "You see, Mr.
Bratt had sold his farm--couldn't make it pay--and he was going out to
Manitoba. He said he would stop in England. Mother said she wouldn't let
him stop in England where he couldn't make a farm pay. She was quite
right there," Helen admitted, with careful justice. "But then she said
she wouldn't marry him and go out to Manitoba, because of leaving me
alone here to look after myself! Can you imagine such a reason?"

James merely raised his head quickly several times. The gesture meant
whatever Helen preferred that it should mean.

"The idea!" she continued. "As if I hadn't looked after mother and kept
her in order, and myself, too, for several years! No. She wouldn't marry
him and go out there! And she wouldn't