"But I'm not a girl," smiled Miss Prudence.
"You'll pass for one any day. And you can play and make it lively. I am not urging you with disinterested motives."
"I can see through you; and I am anxious to know how Mr. West will receive my proposal."
"He will see through my eyes in the end, but he always likes to argue a while first. I want you to taste Linnet's cream biscuit, too. She made them on purpose for you. There's father, now, coming with African John, and there is Will Rheid coming across lots. Well, I'm glad Linnet did make the biscuits."
Miss Prudence arose with a happy face, she did not go back to the girls at once, there was a nook to be quiet in at the foot of the kitchen garden, and she felt as if she must be alone awhile. Mrs. West, with her heart in a tremor that it had not known since Marjorie was born, tucked away her knitting behind the school-books on the dining-room table, tied on her blue checked apron, and went out to the kitchen to kindle the fire for tea, singing in her mellow voice, "Thus far the Lord hath led me on," suddenly stopping short as she crammed the stove with shavings to exclaim, "His name was Holmes! And that's the school-master's name. And that's why he's in such a fume when the boys cheat at marbles. Well, did I ever!"
Linnet ran in to exchange her afternoon dress for a short, dark calico, and to put on her old shoes before she went into the barnyard to milk Bess and Brindle and Beauty. Will Rheid found her in time to persuade her to let him milk Brindle, for he was really afraid he would get his hand out, and it would never do to let his wife do all the milking when his father bequeathed him a fifth of his acres and two of his hardest-to-be-milked cows. Linnet laughed, gave him one of her pails, and found an other milking stool for him.
Marjorie wandered around disconsolate until she discovered Miss Prudence in the garden.
She was perplexed over a new difficulty which vented itself in the question propounded between tasting currants.
"Ought I—do you think I ought—talk to people—about—like the minister—about—"
"No, child!" and Miss Prudence laughed merrily. "You ought to talk to people like Marjorie West! Like a child and not like a minister."