"I—don't want to," said May, huddling herself in a small bunch against the side of the barn.
The General did not lose his temper; fortunately, too, for had he done so May would have turned and fled, but his voice was stern, as he said,—
"Take that rifle and do as I bid you!"
CHAPTER XIII
A PLAN THAT FAILED
When the doctor was gone, after saying that Gay would be all right in a day or two, Miss Celia took her place at the bedside of the sufferer, prepared to play the nurse; Miss Linn and Margery returned to their household duties; John resumed his wood-chopping and Peace spread her downy wing once more over Rose Cottage.
During the rest of the day Gay spoke so gently, looked so pensive and behaved so like an angel that Miss Linn wondered how she could have dreamed of calling her mock niece a hoyden.
"She is perfectly angelic," Miss Linn confided to her sister. "I don't know how I ever thought her otherwise."
"The dear lamb," said Margery, after seeing Gay among the pillows successfully playing the rôle of angel, "she's no more like the tomboy as was flying around the back-yard this forenoon than nothing in the world. It looks," added Margery, who had had what she called "an expe'runce" and was qualified to judge, "it looks like a real change of heart."