“He’s a great blarneyer is Val Tracy,” Harriot remarked calmly. “He seems to think that every girls wants him to be in love with her. Such silliness!” Dorothea did not reply to this observation. She looked after the troop till it was out of sight, then turned back into the house. “What’s come over you all of a sudden?” Harriot demanded. “You look as if you’d lost your best friend.” “Nonsense!” Dorothea declared, but her cousin was not convinced. It was not until well on in the afternoon that Dorothea saw Miss Imogene alone and then there was a little satisfaction to be gotten out of talking things over. The elder lady could offer no solution to the problems that perplexed them both. Whether Val Tracy had helped Stanchfield to escape or whether, on the other hand, he was at that moment trying to effect his capture they neither of them could determine. There was plenty of evidence to confirm either conclusion. “All we can do is to wait till Val comes back,” Miss Imogene remarked disconsolately. “But even then we may not be able to tell, unless he says something about it,” Dorothea replied. “That is true too, honey,” Miss Imogene conceded. “But there is nothing else for it. I only pray the boy has escaped. It was a bold move to take Val’s horse, but it was only boldness that offered a chance of escape.” “But we thought Val had helped him,” Dorothea suggested, and Miss Imogene, nodding her head in agreement, replied, “We only hoped, honey, but it was most improbable. At all events we don’t know anything, we’ll just have to wait.” The day passed slowly enough. Harriot attached herself to Dorothea but complained that her cousin wasn’t like herself. “I bring you cake and you just nibble it as if you were at a party being polite,” she protested. “Then I beg Aunt Decent to make some goober pralines and you don’t even look at them. You’re getting just like April.” Dorothea forced a laugh. “That’s a compliment,” she said with as much gayety of manner as she could muster. “Oh, is it?” Harriot drawled scornfully. “Well, I didn’t mean it that way. If growing up means just falling in love, then—” “What are you talking about?” Dorothea interrupted sharply. “You,” Harriot answered blandly, munching one of the scorned pralines energetically. “I’ve been puzzling my head, trying to think who it could be. Of course there’s Val Tracy, but ’most everybody thinks he’s in love with April, and ’most everybody is, so I don’t be—” “Stop talking nonsense!” Dorothea broke in again. “I’m not in love with anybody.” “Hum!” murmured Harriot doubtfully. “I don’t know anything else that would take your appetite away, and you needn’t deny it’s gone.” “It seems to me I’ve been eating ever since you woke me up this morning,” Dorothea protested. “I didn’t wake you up,” Harriot insisted, thus changing the subject much to Dorothea’s delight.