t out. Bee, after an instant's
hesitation, gracefully followed suit. Nor could you tell from her
placid face that this was not always the way we made our approach.

As for me, I was in a spasm of laughter which Jehu saw.

"I'm sorry, Mis' Jardine," he said, as the gentlemen released the
sorrels' heads, and he prepared to drive off the steps, "but these
horses pulls more than Guffin's mare, and I can't get a purchase on 'em
with this bad hand of mine."

Then I knew who he was! He drove Guffin's grocery wagon for two
months, and had lost three fingers of his right hand!

Poor Bee! But she took it out on me on the way home for not having had
presentable servants before she came.

Now that she has gone, Amos is driving the sorrels again, and they are
getting fat.

CHAPTER X

OUR FIRST HOUSE-PARTY

It was Bee who suggested giving one, but then Bee thought up so many
things for us to do while she was staying with us!

She invited her friends, Sir Wemyss and Lady Lombard, to spend a week
at Peach Orchard, and when they accepted she said, to soothe my fright
at being asked to entertain such grand personages, that if I would
invite other people and make a house-party, it would take much of the
responsibility off my shoulders, as then the guests would entertain
each other.

Then she mentioned Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie, Artie Beguelin and his wife,
Cary Farquhar, and Captain Featherstone, which would make ten of us in
all.

To those who did not know Jimmie, this would seem a small number for a
house-party, but Jimmie in a house all by himself would seem to fill it
to overflowing with people, but they would all be Jimmie.

As I knew how much solid satisfaction it would be to Mrs. Jimmie to be
for a whole week in the same house with so famous a beauty as Lady
Lombard, I acted on Bee's suggestion, and all my people said they would
come.

Bee came gracefully down-stairs one morning before our guests came.
She held a letter in her hand.

"Coffee, Bee?" I asked.

"No, thank you. I had mine in bed."

She wrinkled her brow in perplexity.

"I don't know what to do about it," she murmured.

"About what?"

"Billy. He wants to see me so much, mother writes. She thinks I ought
to come home immediately."

"Let's see," I said. "It's only eight months since you saw your child.
Isn't mother rather absurd?"

Bee lifted her eyes.

"Don't be nasty," she said. "You learned that tone from Aubrey."

Aubrey smile