"
"Did you not get her letter?" Mrs. Thorne evaded.
"Where shall I find her?"
"Willy, I am a perjured woman! I have been making mischief steadily for two
days."
"You might as well go on, mater." Willy beamed gravely upon his mother's
career of dissimulation.
"Don't, for pity's sake, be hopeful! She said she would not see you for
worlds."
"Then she hasn't gone."
Willy took a quick survey of the premises. He had long gray eyes and a set
mouth. He saw most things that he looked at, and when he aimed for a thing
he usually got somewhere near the mark.
"She is not in the house," he decided; "she is not on the hill--remains the
garden."
* * * * *
Mrs. Thorne stood alone, meditating on Miss Benedet's trust in her. She saw
her husband, her stool of repentance and her mercy-seat in one, plodding
toward her contentedly across the soft garden ground, stepping between the
lettuces and avoiding the parsley bed. He knocked off a huge fat kitchen
weed with his cane.
"Where is that girl?" he said. "It's time you got your things on. We ought
to be starting in ten minutes."
"If you can find Willy you'll probably find 'that girl'!" Mrs.
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