"Ah, now, Elizabeth," he coaxed, "there you go again!"

"No, I don't. I'm _not_ angry. Only--you went with Blair;
you didn't want--" she choked, and flew back into the house, deaf
to his clumsy and troubled explanations.

In Miss White's room, Elizabeth announced her intention of
entering a convent, and it was then that Cherry-pie fumbled: she
took the convent seriously! The next morning she broke the awful
news to Elizabeth's uncle. It was before breakfast, and Mr.
Ferguson--who had not time to read his Bible for pressure of
business--had gone out into the grape-arbor in his narrow garden
to feed the pigeons. There was a crowd of them about his feet,
their rimpling, iridescent necks and soft gray bosoms pushing and
jostling against one another, and their pink feet actually
touching his boots. When Miss White burst out at him, the pigeons
rose in startled flight, and Mr. Ferguson frowned.

"And she says," Miss White ended, almost in tears--"she says she
is going to enter a convent immejetly!"

"My dear Miss White," said Elizabeth's uncle, grimly, "there's no
such luck."

Miss White positively reeled. Then he explained, and Cherry-pie
came nearer to her employer in those ten minutes than in the ten
years in which she had looked after his niece. "I don't care
about Elizabeth's temper; she'll get over that. And I don't care
a continental about her hair or her religion; she can wear a wig