"I am not cookin' fer hawses!" observed Gloomy Gus; but at the same time he glanced apprehensively toward a long pile of cord-wood which flanked his fire to the south; and as if to verify his suspicions a summer hat appeared from behind the tiers of crooked juniper and a lady stepped into view. She was a very beautiful lady, middle-aged and with haunting brown eyes; and the moment she turned them upon Bowles he knew she was Dixie Lee's mother. Not that she looked so much like the elusive Dixie May, but she had the same way with her eyes--and, besides that, she was very contained and quiet, and looked as if she came from the East. She gazed at him for a moment with a kind, motherly air--as if she had heard all he said--and addressed herself to the cook. "Well, really, Gus," she began, speaking in the low-pitched tones of the drawing-room, "I can't imagine what happens to those eggs. I have over forty hens, and surely they lay more than seven eggs a day. There's one nest, away in there, but----" "Well, _I_ ain't took none," grumbled Gus, turning sulkily to his pots and kettles; "that's all I got to say." "Pardon me," broke in Bowles, swinging lightly down from his horse and standing hat in hand, "perhaps I could creep in and----" He smiled as he had smiled at the ladies who attended the Wordsworth Society, and Mrs. Lee glanced at him approvingly. "Oh, don't trouble yourself," she said politely. "If it were humanly possible to reach them, I am sure they would be gone by now. I didn't mean to blame you at all, Mr. Mosby,"--this to the cook--"but, really, I was trying to save enough eggs to make the boys a cake." A wave of indignation swept over Bowles. He remembered those graceless "boys" roasting eggs by the fire at night, and he thought how little they deserved her kindness; but all he did was to murmur his appreciation. At this the lady looked at him again, like one who knows her own kind, and her voice was very pleasant as she said: "Oh, you are the young man that rode Wa-ha-lote this morning, aren't you? Ah, he is such a beautiful horse!" She came over and stroked his neck thoughtfully while Bowles stood by his head and smiled. "Don't you know," she said, "I have always claimed that a horse could be conquered by kindness. And I'm so glad!" she murmured, with a confidential touch of the hand. "Won't you come up to the house, and I'll give you that lump of sugar." CHAPTER VII THE QUEEN AT HOME