"Willy, I am a perjured woman! I have been making mischief steadily for two days."
"You might as well go on, mater." Willy beamed gravely upon his mother's career of dissimulation.
"Don't, for pity's sake, be hopeful! She said she would not see you for worlds."
"Then she hasn't gone."
Willy took a quick survey of the premises. He had long gray eyes and a set mouth. He saw most things that he looked at, and when he aimed for a thing he usually got somewhere near the mark.
"She is not in the house," he decided; "she is not on the hill—remains the garden."
* * * * *
Mrs. Thorne stood alone, meditating on Miss Benedet's trust in her. She saw her husband, her stool of repentance and her mercy-seat in one, plodding toward her contentedly across the soft garden ground, stepping between the lettuces and avoiding the parsley bed. He knocked off a huge fat kitchen weed with his cane.
"Where is that girl?" he said. "It's time you got your things on. We ought to be starting in ten minutes."
"If you can find Willy you'll probably find 'that girl'!" Mrs. Thorne explained, and then proceeded to explain further, as she walked with her husband back to the house.