“I reckon ’taint that,” Lucas hastened to say. “More likely she’s sore on me.”
“’Tain’t nawthin’ of the kind, an’ you know it, Lucas,” declared his mother. “Though ye might have driven ’round by the schoolhouse ag’in and brought her home.”
“Wal, I thought she’d ride back with school teacher. She went with him,” returned Lucas, on the defensive.
“She walked home,” said Mrs. Pritchett, shortly. “I dunno why. She won’t tell me.”
“I hope she isn’t ill,” remarked the unconscious Lyddy.
But Lucas cast a knowing look over his shoulder at ’Phemie and the latter had hard work to keep her own countenance straight.
“Well,” said Mrs. Pritchett, more briskly, “ye can’t always sometimes tell what the matter is with these young gals. They gits crotchets in their heads.”
She kept up the fiction that Sairy was a young and flighty miss; but even ’Phemie could no longer laugh at her for it. It was the mother’s pitiful attempt to aid her daughter’s chances for that greatly-to-be-desired condition–matrimony.
The roads were still muddy; nevertheless the drive over the ridge to Cornell Chapel was lovely. For some time the girls had been noting the procession of carriages and wagons winding over the mountain roads, all verging upon this main trail over the ridge which passed so close to Hillcrest.
Lucas, driving the ponies at a good clip, joined the procession. Lyddy and ’Phemie recognized several of the young people they had met the night before at the Temperance Club–notably the young men.