Tears came into her eyes, as she turned and gave her hand to the little
child. "Well, I'm going in to get breakfast," she said, a glad,
tremulous light showing across her face. "You better bring these boys in
to breakfast, Jim. If they've just slept in the barn they must be
hungry." Then turning back again with a heartier laugh, "I feel that
glad to see everything, even to the chickens, just as we left them, that
I wouldn't object to asking the President of the United States to
breakfast. You ain't from around here, are you?" she asked, looking at
the boys. "I thought not. And you're hungry, I'll wager," she said, as
she bustled away with the little girl tugging at her skirts, not waiting
for the boys to disaffirm, as they most assuredly would have done had a
chance been given them, for they were not in the least hungry. But
then, what was a cold luncheon taken from a bicycle basket compared with
a warm breakfast that might include ham and eggs?

"She's awfully nervous, Nancy is," said the young farmer, a trifle
apologetically; "she would have it at brother Ed's that she was being
burned out of house and home. We oughtn't to have stayed, but brother
Ed urged us to go home with him. She's always that way when she's away.
We've ridden nineteen miles since daybreak, and she believed every mile
that we were going to see a burned-down house at the end."

"Well," said Old Tilly in a quiet way, so as not to alarm the young
farmer, "I guess she was about right this time. If we hadn't happened
here--" Then he slipped back into the barn, and the young farmer
followed after, and Old Tilly pointed to the blackened corner, while the
other two drew near interestedly.

"You see how it struck," Old Tilly said quietly, "but we put it out