So it rested. Joe was still inclined to be a little perverse where Shad was concerned, and would sulk when scolded. Only Jean had been able to make him see the error of his ways. He would tell the others he guessed he’d run away. But Jean had promptly talked to him, and said if he wanted to run away, to run along any time he felt like it. Joe had looked at her in surprise and relief when she had said it, and had seemed completely satisfied about staying thereafter. It was Cousin Roxy who had given her the idea. “I had a colt once that was possessed to jump fences and go rambling, so one day after we’d been on the run hunting for it nearly every day, I told Hiram to let all the bars down, and never mind the pesky thing. And it was so nonplussed and surprised that it gave right up and stayed to home. It may be fun jumping fences, but there’s no real excitement in stepping over open bars.” So Joe had faced open bars for some time, and if he could only get along with Shad, Jean knew he would be safe while she was away. He was an odd child, undemonstrative and shy, but there was something appealing and sympathetic about him, and Jean always felt he was her special charge since she had coaxed him away from Mr. Briggs. The start next morning was made at seven, before the sun was up. Princess was breathing frostily, and side stepping restlessly. The tears were wet on Jean’s cheeks as she climbed into the seat beside Shad, and turned to wave goodbye to the group on the veranda. She had not felt at all this way when she had left for New York to visit Bab, but someway this did seem, as the Motherbird had said, like her first real flight from the home nest. “Write us everything,” called Kit, waving both hands to her. “Come back soon,” wailed Doris, and Helen, running as Kit would have put it, true to form, added her last message, “Let us know if you meet the Contessa.” But the Motherbird went back into the house in silence, away from the sitting-room into a little room at the side where Jean had kept her own bookcase, desk, and a few choice pictures. A volume of Browning selections, bound in soft limp tan, lay beside Jean’s old driving gloves on the table. Mrs. Robbins picked up both, laid her cheek against the gloves and closed her eyes. The years were racing by so fast, so fast, she thought, and mothers must be wide eyed and generous and fearless, when the children suddenly began to top heads with one, and feel their wings. She opened the little leather book to a marked passage of Jean’s, “The swallow has set her young on the rail.”