can. And don't you dare tell Molly."

"Catch me telling tales!" returned Alan, with some dignity.
"That's not in my line, Poll; and not on you, anyway."

With an appearance of great carelessness, Polly strolled out to
the hammock soon after two o'clock that afternoon, and settled
herself, book in hand. But for the next hour, there was little
reading done, for Polly's gray eyes often wandered from the pages
before her, and fixed themselves on the distant corner around
which the Shepard family must come. It was a long hour of waiting,
and Polly had begun to think that the train must have been wrecked
by the way, when the distant, shrill whistle was heard. At the
sound, she drew herself into a more dignified position, settled
her skirts about her and fell to reading with a will. But though
her eyes went down the left-hand page and up again to the top of
the right-hand one, she could not have told so much as the title
of the book, so absorbed was she in listening for the wheels that
would pass the house. She heard them drawing near, but continued
to be lost in her reading until just as the carriage was in front
of her. Then she glanced up, as if by accident, and was filled
with confusion to see Alan leaning down from his seat on the box
and pointing at her, while two broad hats and two girl faces were
bent forward to survey her curiously. Alan waved his cap; she
answered his salute, and the carriage went swiftly on, leaving
Polly to stare at the pile of trunks strapped on behind it, with a
vague feeling that her intended effect had been a little marred by
Alan's demonstration.

"Served me right, though!" she remarked philosophically to