Shirley leaned a little forward, drawing in long breaths of the clear evening air. "I don't see how anyone can ever get run down—here, in this air; I'm hardly indoors at all. Father and I have our meals out on the porch. You ought to have seen Betsy Todd's face, the first time I proposed it. 'Ain't the dining-room to your liking, miss?'" she asked.
"Betsy Todd's a queer old thing," Pauline commented. "Father has the worst time, getting her to come to church."
"We were there last Sunday," Shirley said. "I'm afraid we were rather late; it's a pretty old church, isn't it? I suppose you live in that square white house next to it?"
"Yes," Pauline answered. "Father came to Winton just after he was married, so we girls have never lived anywhere else nor been anywhere else—that counted. Any really big city, I mean. We're dreadfully tired of Winton—Hilary, especially."
"It's a mighty pretty place."
"I suppose so." Pauline slapped old Fanny impatiently. "Will you go on!"
Fanny was making forward most reluctantly; the Boyd barn had been very much to her liking. Now, as the three dogs made a swift rush at her leaping and barking around her, she gave a snort of disgust, quickening her pace involuntarily.
"Don't call them off, please!" Pauline begged Shirley. "She isn't in the least scared, and it's perfectly refreshing to find that she can move."
"All the same, discipline must be maintained," Shirley insisted; and at her command the dogs fell behind.
"Have you been here long?" Pauline asked.