THE ADVOCATE
"You goin'?" called Isabel Wilde from the road, to Ardelia, sitting forlornly on the front steps.
It was seven o'clock of a wonderful August morning, with all the bloom of summer and the lull of fall. Isabel was a dark, strong young creature who walked with her head in the air, and Ardelia, pretty and frail and perfect in her own small way, looked like a child in comparison. Isabel had been down to carry a frosted cake to her little niece Ellen, for Ellen's share of the picnic at Poole's Woods. It was Fairfax day, when once a year all Fairfax went to the spot where the first settlers drank of the "b'ilin' spring" on their way to a clearing.
"You goin'?" she called again, imperiously, and Ardelia answered, as if from some unwillingness:—
"I guess so."
"Now what do you want to say that for?" rang her mother's voice from an upper window, where, trusting to her distance from the road, she thought she could speak her mind without Isabel's hearing. "You know you ain't. Oliver's gone off to work in the acre lot."
Isabel had heard. She stood regarding Ardelia thoughtfully, her black brows drawn together and her teeth set upon one full lip.
"Ardelia," she called softly, after that moment of consideration.
"What is it?" came Ardelia's unwilling voice, the tone of one who has emotion to conceal.