last, and had
insisted on walking with her arm about Priscilla's waist, which on a
narrow path was inconvenient, to say the least. Priscilla was rather
ashamed to acknowledge even to herself that she found Claire's devotion
wearisome. Of course, Claire was a very sweet girl, but it was so easy
to have a surfeit of sweets.

"I hope you left a few on the bushes," she said rather resentfully, when
the berry-pickers had recounted their experiences with an enthusiasm
which gave to the expedition through the pasture the glamor of real
adventure, "I'd like the fun of picking some real berries myself."

"We might go to-morrow," Claire suggested in a careful undertone.
Priscilla's face flushed, and Peggy seeing her look of annoyance,
created a diversion by springing to her feet.

"Time to get supper. I'm as hungry as a wolf, now that I stop to think
about it. How does cornbread and fried fish strike the crowd?"

"O Peggy," Priscilla forgot her vexation in the importance of the
announcement to be made, "the frying-pan has been borrowed!"

"Borrowed!" Peggy stood motionless in her astonishment. "But who--but
why--"

"It's a woman who lives down the road a way. I suppose she's what you
call a neighbor up here. What did she say her name was, Claire?"

"Snooks. Mrs. Snooks."

"Oh, yes. And she was very much interested in everything about us, and
asked all kinds of questions. But she came especially to borrow the
frying-pan. Can you get along without it, Peggy?"

"Why, if you can't have what you want, you can always make something
else do," returned Peggy, unconsciously formulating one of the axioms in
her philosophy of life. "But a frying-pan seems such a strange thing to
borrow, Priscilla. She must have one of her own, and it's not a thing
one's likely to mislay. However," she added hastily, as if fearful of
seeming to blame the over-generous lender, "we'll get along. Well just
forget that we ever had a frying-pan, and that it was borrowed."

But, as Peggy was soon to learn, it was not going to be an easy matter
to forget Mrs. Snooks.

CHAPTER IV

A STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY

From the very start the big brick fireplace in the living-room had held
an irresistible fascination for the Terrace girls, accustomed as they
were to the unromantic register. And when five days of their outing had
passed and no fire had been kindled on the blackened hearth, Priscilla
thought they were missing golden opportunities, and sai