"I'll go. Please don't come." And Sally was off like the wind, down over the path which much tramping had made through the snow. Jarvis and Ferry looked at one another and smiled.
"Do you know another girl in the world who would have thought of doing that?" asked Jarvis, with amusement.
"Not many, out of those who happened to have devoted cavaliers beside them, certainly," admitted the other young man, looking after the rapid transit of the crimson cap across the snowy fields. "But Miss Sally is a law unto herself—and the unexpected is the thing one may expect from her every time. Yet she's not capricious purely for the sake of being capricious, like so many girls. She can be counted on—at the same time that one doesn't know exactly where to find her." He laughed. "There's a paradox for you."
"Counted on to do the thing you're glad afterward she has done," supplemented Sally's old friend.
If Sally could have heard them, her small ears—burning with the transition from cold air to warm, as in the kitchen she hurriedly forced Mary Ann, protesting with feeble giggles, into whatsoever garments could be adapted to the purpose—would have burned even more fiercely. But it is quite safe to say that she had no thought whatever of the effect her impulsive little act might have upon anybody—except Mary Ann herself.
CHAPTER XII
IN THE OLD GARDEN
"Mother, won't you drive out to the farm with us? Jo will tell you I drive like a veteran, and the roads aren't bad—with chains on the rear tires."
Jarvis's hand was on the door as he spoke. He wore a motorist's cap, coat, and leather gauntlets.
Mrs. Burnside shook her head, smiling. "I'll make my first trip into the country when the chains are not needed, son. Give Sally my love, and tell her that now spring is at hand I shall come out with you often."