hes,
Wynnette and I will live there just as much as we shall at home here."

"Indeed! and what will Mr. Brother-in-law say to that?"

"Who, Le? Why, Le will say he is very glad. Le loves us all dearly. Le
would give us anything we want, or do anything in the world for us.
Especially now I should think he would, when we are going to let him have
our sister and take her away."

"Elva, my dear, you are talking too much," whispered Miss Meeke, a small,
demure young woman, with a pale face, gray eyes and smooth brown hair.

"Why? When he wants to pretend that our Le will not be glad to have us all
three to live with him? I must take Le's part, you know, Miss Meeke,
especially in his absence," pleaded Elva.

"Shall we walk on, Col. Anglesea?" suggested Odalite, to put an end to an
embarrassing conversation.

"Certainly, if you please. What are these sticks for?" inquired the
colonel, referring to the wands the girls dragged behind them.

"Oh! these are to thresh the chincapin bushes, when we get there! And we
expect to fill our baskets!" answered Wynnette.

"Can I not carry them for you?" he inquired; and without waiting for an
answer, collected the sticks from the children, who not unwillingly gave
them up.

"And now I think of it," suggested the colonel, "you will require but one
stick, and that I will use and thresh the bushes while you gather the
nuts. See, I will leave these three here, and take this thickest one. Now
give me the four baskets; I will hang them on my stick and sling them over
my shoulder, thus," he said, suiting the action to the word.

The two children laughed at the figure he cut.

"Now! Right face! Forward! March!" he cried, stepping out in front.

They left the lawn by the east gate and passed through an orchard where a
few late winter apples still clung to the nearly leafless branches of the
trees; opened another gate and entered a narrow path leading down through
the thick woods to the shore.

Then they turned southward and walked by the side of the bay, the children
chattering as they went.

"What do you think, Col. Anglesea?" inquired Elva.

"I don't know. What ought I to think?" laughingly inquired their escort.

"Well, I'll tell you. Although Greenbushes is only three miles off, we
have never seen it in our lives."

"Really, now?"

"No, never! Miss Notley, Le's great-aunt, who owned the place and who left
it to Le in her will, never lived here at all. She left the place in t