maid to the doorway.

"Mr. Fox won't be here until noon," said the maid, in answer to his
question.

"Does Miss--could I see Miss Mix?" substituted Anthony, after a
moment's thought.

He took a porch chair while she departed to find out.

"If you please," said the maid, suddenly reappearing, "Miss Mix is
setting a Plymouth, and will you step right down?"

"Setting a--" scowled Anthony.

"Plymouth," supplied the maid, mildly.

Anthony eyed her suspiciously, but there was evidently nothing
concealed behind her innocence of manner. Finally he followed the path
she indicated as leading to Miss Mix. He followed it past the house,
past clothes drying on lines, past scattered apple trees with
whitewashed trunks, and down a board walk to the chicken yard.

No one was in sight. Anthony rattled the gate tentatively. A slim,
neat, black Minorca fowl made an insulting remark about him to another
hen. Both chuckled.

"Come in--come in and shut it!" called a clear voice from the interior
of the chicken house.

Anthony's jaw stiffened.

"May I speak to you?" he called, with as much dignity as a person
shouting at an utter stranger across an unfamiliar chicken yard may
command.

"Certainly! Come right in!" called the voice, briskly.

Seeing nothing else to do, Anthony unwillingly crossed the yard, and
stepped into the pleasant, whitewashed gloom of the chicken house.
Loose chaff was scattered on the floor, and whitewashed boxes lined the
walls. An adjoining shed held the roosts, which a few murmuring fowls
were looping with heavy flights.

As he entered, a young woman in blue linen shut a gray hen into a box,
and turned a pleasantly inquiring glance upon him.

"Good morning!" she said, smiling. "I knew you would want to see the
thing sooner or later, so I asked Statia to show you right down here.
Now, there's the trap"--she indicated a mass of loose chains and metal
teeth on the floor--"and here's the key; but it simply WON'T work!"

Anthony was not following. He was staring at her. She was extremely
pretty; that he had expected. But he had not expected that
she--she--well, he was not prepared for this sort of a woman at all! He
must go slow here. He--she--Bud--

"I beg your pardon," he interrupted himself to stammer apologetically,
"I didn't catch--you were saying--"

"The trap!" she said, smiling.

"Ah, the trap!" repeated Anthony, inanely.

"Certainly!" she said, with a hint of impatience. Then, as he sti