"Splendid! Fine! Such eyes, such wonderfully expressive gray eyes I have never seen. And he has such a strong face. Of course, his clothes are a bit shabby. He'd be great if he fixed up." "Yes," Amanda agreed mechanically. She was ill-pleased with the dissection of her knight. Mrs. Reist, with true rural, Pennsylvania Dutch hospitality, invited Isabel to have supper with them, an invitation readily accepted. At the close of the meal Isabel said suddenly to Mrs. Reist, "How would you like to have me board with you for a few weeks--a month, probably?" "Why, I don't know. All right, I guess, if Millie, here, don't think it makes too much work. Poor Millie's got the worst of all the work to do. I ain't so strong, and there's much always to do. Of course, Amanda helps, but none of us do as much as Millie." "But me, don't I get paid for it, and paid good?" asked the hired girl, sending a loving glance at Mrs. Reist. "Far as I go it's all right to have Isabel come for a while. Mebbe she can help, too, sometimes with the work." "I wouldn't be much help, I'm afraid. I never peeled a potato in my life." Millie looked at the girl with slightly concealed disfavor. "Why, that's a funny way, now, to bring up a girl! I guess it's time you learn such things once! You dare come, and I'll show you how to do a little work. But why do you want to board when your folks live just in Lancaster?" "Father and Mother are going to the Elks' Convention and to California. They expect to be gone about a month. I was going to stay in Lancaster with my aunt, but I just thought how much nicer it would be to spend that time in the country." "Well, I guess, too!" Millie was quick to understand how one would naturally prefer the country to the city. So it was settled that Isabel Souders was to spend June at the Reist farmhouse. Everybody concerned appeared well pleased with the arrangement. But Amanda's heart hurt. "Why did I take her for those moccasins?" she thought drearily after Isabel had gone back to the city with her precious flowers. "I know Martin will fall in love with her and she with him. Oh, I'm a mean, detestable thing! But I wish she'd go to the coast with her parents!" CHAPTER XI THE BOARDER The big automobile that brought Isabel Souders to the Reist farmhouse one day early in June brought with her a trunk, a suitcase, a bag, an umbrella and a green parasol. Aunt Rebecca was visiting there that day and she followed Amanda to the front door to receive the boarder. "My goodness," came the exclamation as the luggage was carried in, "is that girl comin' here for good, with all _that_ baggage? And what did you let her come here for on a Friday? That's powerful bad luck!" "For me," thought Amanda as she went to meet Isabel.