news she brought he would have picked holes in it and wrangled all
the way home. But this is his masterpiece. It contrives to get the
most annoyance out of both plans. I often wonder"--here Hetty
clasped her knee again, and, leaning back against the turf, let her
eyes wander over the darkening landscape--"if our father and mother
love each other the better for living together in one perpetual rasp
of temper?"

"What is the hour?" asked Emilia.

Hetty glanced at the sun.

"Six, or a few minutes past."

"She cannot be here before half-past seven, and by then the moon will
be rising. We will give her a regal harvest-supper, and enthrone her
on the last sheaf. I have sent word to have it saved. And there
shall be a fire, and baked potatoes."

Kitty clapped her hands.

"And," Hetty took up the tale, "she shall sit by the embers and tell
us all her wanderings, like Aeneas, till the break of morning.
But before we bid Johnny Whitelamb desist from drawing and build a
fire, let us be six princesses here and choose the gifts our mother
shall bring home from town."

"You know well enough she has no money to buy gifts," objected Patty.

"Be frugal, then, in wishing, dear Pat. For my part, I demand only a