diplomatic I could have evaded this until morning. Adam, 3d, is
to be over then, prepared to take me anywhere I want to go. What
I have to face now is a way to spend the night without letting the
neighbours know that I am turned out. How can I manage that?"

Nancy Ellen and Robert each began making suggestions, but Kate
preferred to solve her own problems.

"I think," she said, "that I shall hide the telescope under the
privet bush, there isn't going to be rain to-night; and then I
will go down to Hiram's and stay all night and watch for Adam when
he passes in the morning. Hiram always grumbles because we don't
come oftener."

"Then we will go with you," said Nancy Ellen. "It will be a
pleasant evening walk, and we can keep you company and pacify my
twin brother at the same time."

So they all walked to the adjoining farm on the south and when
Nancy Ellen and Robert were ready to start back, Kate said she was
tired and she believed she would stay until morning, which was
agreeable to Hiram and his wife, a girlhood friend of Kate's. As
Nancy Ellen and Robert walked back toward home: "How is this
going to come out?" he asked, anxiously.

"It will come out all right," said Nancy Ellen, serenely. "Kate
hasn't a particle of tact. She is Father himself, all over again.
It will come out this way: he will tell me that Kate has gone
back on him and I shall have to teach the school, and I will say
that is the ONLY solution and the BEST thing to do. Then I shall