like an outraged Queen Victoria. "I don't know what this
generation's coming to," she lamented, turning to the minister. "Young
girls try to act like hoodlums--deliberately TRY! In my day girls were
trained to be--and desired to be--little ladies."

Little ladies!--in the minister's presence, the phrase didn't fall
pleasantly on Missy's ear.

"Oh, they don't mean any harm," he replied. "Just a little innocent
frolic."

There was a ghost of a twinkle in his eyes. Missy didn't know whether
to be grateful for his tolerance or only more chagrined because he was
laughing at her. She stood, feeling red as a beet, while Grandma Shears
retorted:

"Innocent frolic--nonsense! I'll speak to my daughter!" Then, to Missy:
"Now take that pony back to the lot, please, and let's see no more such
disgraceful exhibitions!"

Missy felt as though she'd been whipped. She felt cold all over and
shivered, as she led Gypsy back, though she knew she was blushing
furiously. Concealed behind the barn door, peeping through a crack, was
Tess.

"It was awful!" moaned Missy. "I can never face Rev. MacGill again!"

"Oh, he's a good sport," said Tess.

"She gave me an awful calling down."

"Oh, grandma's an old fogy." Missy had heard Tess thus pigeonhole her
grandmother often before, but now, for the first time, she didn't feel a
little secret repugnance for the rude classification.

Grandma Shears WAS old-fogyish. But it wasn't her old-fogyishness, per
se, that irritated; it was the fact that her old-fogyishness had made
her "call down" Missy--in front of the minister. Just as if Missy were
a child. Fifteen is not a child, to itself. And it can rankle and burn,
when a pair of admired dark eyes are included in the situation, just as
torturesomely as can twice fifteen.

The Reverend MacGill was destined to play another unwitting part
in Missy's athletic drama which was so jumbled with ecstasies and
discomfitures. A few days later he was invited to the Merriams' for
supper. Missy heard of his coming with mingled emotions. Of course she
thrilled at the prospect of eating at the same table with him--listening
to a person at table, and watching him eat, gives you a singular sense
of intimacy. But there was that riding astride episode. Would he, maybe,
mention it and cause mother to ask questions? Maybe not, for he was,
as Tess had said, a "good sport." But all the same he'd probably be
thinking of it; if he should look at her again with that