"Perhaps I put it back somewhere else." She tried to comfort herself with this thought, but she could not get rid of the queer feeling that some other hands were touching her loves, and that other eyes were seeing into her enchanted pages. She puzzled over it as she rowed home, but it was impossible to come to any conclusion. Martha was waiting for her in the hall; her face was even whiter than it had been earlier in the day. "Miss Janet, you're back, thank goodness; your grandmother has been calling for you all afternoon." "When did Mrs. Todd leave!" Janet enquired. "She hasn't left at all," Martha gasped. "She's sat in there the whole blessed day. Only an hour ago she came into my kitchen as smiling as you please, and said she and Mrs. Page would have a cup of tea and some toast and jam. I took it in, and, well, Miss Janet, it's beyond me; indeed it is!" "But, Martha, why shouldn't they have tea? Grandmother always has it for her guests." Janet laughed. Martha sighed profoundly. "If you knew all that I know of those two and then to see them smiling and laughing together," Martha shook her head, unable to give vent to her feelings in mere words. Janet raced upstairs and changed her dress, and in a very few minutes she was knocking at her grandmother's door. "Oh, it's you, is it, dear child!" Mrs. Todd called as she entered. "I was hoping you would get back in time to drive me home." "Ann, don't presume too far," Mrs. Page said tartly. "Janet, where have you been?" Janet decided that the change in her grandmother was not as great as Martha had led her to suppose, so she answered as she always did. "I have been out most of the time." "To whom are you speaking!" Mrs. Page inquired. Janet sighed and blushed a little; it was not like her grandmother to find fault before people. "I'm sorry, 'I have been out most of the time, grandmother,'" she corrected, but a second later she almost laughed aloud for she was sure she had heard Mrs. Todd say "fiddlesticks" under her breath. "I wanted you all afternoon," Mrs. Page went on. "However, we will let that pass. Mrs. Todd wishes you to help this year at the church fair and I have given my consent under one condition--that you are home here by nine o'clock." "Ten," corrected Mrs. Todd crisply. "What did you say, Ann?" Mrs. Page's eyes flashed. "I said ten," Mrs. Todd repeated. "Ten was the hour we agreed on. And now I must be going, as my eyes are not what they used to be and these new roads puzzle me. I must ask you to let Janet drive me home." For a long minute there was silence, and then Mrs. Page did something she was rarely ever seen to do; she smiled. [Illustration: For a long minute there was silence, and then Mrs. Page did sometning she was rarely ever seen to do; she smiled.] "You are a very smart woman, Ann Todd, and I'm a very old one. Have your own way, but remember your promise," she said.