o to get her away again."

"What be saying of, sir?" asked Jabez, bewildered, and suddenly
realizing that their sombre faces and manner meant something more than
usual. "Mrs. Pike--"

"Father is going to send and ask Aunt Pike to live here, and it's your
fault," said Betty concisely. "It was your complaining about Dan that
did it."

Jabez gasped. He knew the lady well, and preserved a vivid recollection
of her former visit. "She hain't a-coming visiting here again, is she,
sur?" he groaned.

"Visiting! It's much worse than that, a thousand times worse. She is
coming here for good, to manage all of us--and you too!" they gasped.

Jabez dropped helpless on to an upturned bucket, the picture of hopeless
dejection. "There won't be no peace in life no more," he said, "and I
shan't be allowed to show my nose in the kitchen. I'd have had my old
'ead scat abroad every day of my life and never have told rather than
I'd have helped to do this. Was it really me telling on 'ee, sur, that
made the master settle it so?"

"Yes," nodded Dan, "that finished it."

Jabez groaned again in sheer misery. "I dunno, I'm sure, whatever made
me take and do it. I've stood so much more from all of 'ee and never so
much as opened my lips. I reckon 'twas the weather made me a bit
peppery like--"

"It was fate," interposed Kitty gravely. "It must have been something,
for sure," breathed Jabez, with a dreary shake of his head.

"Make haste and get Prue harnessed," said Kitty, "or the storm will
begin before we start, and then father won't let me go;" and Jabez, with
another gloomy shake of his head, rose from the upturned bucket and
proceeded with his task.

CHAPTER III.

A DRIVE AND A SLICE OF CAKE.

With one thing and another Jabez was so agitated as to be quite
incapable of hurrying, and Kitty, who could harness or unharness a horse
as well as any one, had to help him. She fastened the trace on one
side, buckled up the girths, and finally clambered up into the carriage
while Jabez was still fumbling with the bit and the reins. She caught
the braid of her frock in the step as she mounted, and ripped down many
inches of it, but that did not trouble her at all.

"Have you got a knife in your pocket, Dan?" she asked calmly; and Dan
not only produced a knife, but hacked off the hanging braid for her and
threw it away.

"I do wish I could go too," said Betty wistfully. "I'd love to drive
all over the downs at nigh