"I suppose they saw a flock of ducks going over, or heard the honk-honk of wild geese," she answered. "It does not take much to distract them from labor—and they have a soul above it, you know."
Rance Belmont need not have asked her about the twins; he had met them on their way to the Plover Slough and had given Reginald the loan of his gun; he had learned from them that Fred, too, was away.
"But if dear Aunt Patience will only lift her anchor all will yet be well, and the dear twins will not need to be bothered with anything so beastly as farm-work." His tone and manner were so like the twins that Evelyn applauded his efforts. Then he told her the story of the cow, and of how the twins, endeavoring to follow the example of some of the Canadians whom they had seen locking their wagon-wheels with a chain when going down the Souris hill, had made a slight mistake in the location of the chain and hobbled the oxen, with disastrous results.
When he looked at his watch it was nine o'clock.
"I must go," he said, hastily rising; "it would hardly do for me to be found here!"
"What do you mean?" she asked in surprise.
"What do you suppose your husband would say if he came home and found me here?"
Evelyn flushed angrily.
"My husband has confidence in me," she answered proudly. "I don't know what he thinks of you, but I know what he thinks of me, and it would make no difference what company he found me in, he would never doubt me. I trust him in the same way. I would believe his word against that of the whole world."
She held her handsome head high when she said this.