he evening dews. And I hope the little girls may indeed be
friends."

"Yes, I will order the chaise."

Others had risen. Mrs. Pemberton and her daughter, and two or three
more, had been bidden to supper. Some of the ladies had come on
horseback, the ordinary mode of traveling. They clustered about Madam
Wetherill and praised her cake and said how glad they would be to get
her in the city again. Then they pinned up their pretty skirts and put
on their safeguard petticoats and were mounted by Cato and went off,
nodding. The chaise took in two other ladies.

The little girls had simply eyed each other curiously, but neither made
any advance, and parted formally.

Then Patty came and took Primrose upstairs and gave her a supper of
bread and milk and a dish of cut peaches and cream. Afterward she
undressed her and put her in one of the cots, bidding her go to sleep at
once. She was needed elsewhere.

But Primrose felt desperately, disobediently wide awake. It had been
such an afternoon of adventure after six months of the quietest routine
that had made memory almost lethargic. The remembrances came trooping
back--the long time it seemed to her when she had yearned and cried in
secret for her mother, the two little girls that in some degree
comforted her, and then the half terror and loneliness on the farm until
she had come to love the dumb animals and her Cousin Andrew. This was
all so different. A long, long while and then she must go back. What
made people so unlike? What made goodness and badness? And what was God
that she stood dreadfully in awe of, who could see her while she could
not see Him?

Thus, swinging back and forth amid unanswerable questions, she fell
asleep.

CHAPTER IV.

OF MANY THINGS.

Madam Wetherill was much engrossed with visitors and overseeing the farm
work, ordering what of the produce was to be sold, what of the flax and
the wool sent away to be spun and woven, and the jars and boxes and
barrels set aside to be taken into the town later on. Patty was busy
sewing for the little girl and her mistress, and sometimes, when she was
bothered, she was apt to be rather sharp. At others she proved
entertaining.

Primrose learned to know her way about the great house and the garden
and orchard. Now she must go with a bonnet to protect her from the sun
and linen gloves to keep her hands white, or to get them that color. At
night she was anointed with cosmetics, and her hair was brushed