"It's like that man Moody," the bishop was saying angrily, "to send the
girl--"

"Piffle!" snarled Mr. Thoburn. "If ever a woman was able to take care
of herself--" And then they saw me, and they all stopped and stared.

"Good gracious, girl!" said the bishop, with his dressing-gown blowing
out straight behind him in the wind. "We thought you'd been buried in a
drift!"

"I don't see why!" I retorted defiantly. "Can't I go out to my own
spring-house without having a posse after me to bring me back?"

"Ordinarily," said Mr. Thoburn, with his snaky eyes on me, "I think
I may say that you might go almost anywhere without my turning out to
recover you. But Mrs. Moody is having hysterics."

Mrs. Moody! I'd forgotten the Moodys!

"She is convinced that you have drowned yourself, head down, in the
spring," Mr. Pierce said in his pleasant way. "You've been gone two
hours, you know."

He took my arm and turned me toward the house. I was dazed.

"In answer to your urgent inquiry," Mr. Thoburn called after me,
disagreeably, "Mr. Moody has not died. He is asleep. But, by the way,
where's the spring water?"

I didn't answer him; I couldn't. We went into the house; Mrs. Moody and