"_You_ take the reins and drive," she commanded. Diana questioned her with a glance, but obeyed and climbed on board. Ruth was helping Mrs. Harry to mount after her when Lady Caroline thrust herself forward, by the step. Now since Diana had hold of the reins, and Mrs. Harry was for the moment in no condition to lend a hand, and since Lady Caroline would as lief have touched leprosy as have accepted help from Ruth Josselin, her ascent into the van fell something short of dignity. The rearward of her person was ample; she hitched her skirt in the step, thus exposing an inordinate amount of not over-clean white stocking; and, to make matters worse, Farmer Cordery cast off at the wrong moment and stood back from the horse's head. "Losh! but I'm sorry," said he, gazing after the catastrophic result. "Look at her, there, kickin' like a cast ewe. . . ." He turned a serious face on Ruth and added, "Vigorous, too, for her years." Ruth, returning to the verandah, bent over little Miss Quiney, who sat unsmiling, with rigid eyes. "Dear Tatty,"--she kissed her--"were they so very dreadful?" Miss Quiney started as if awaking from a nightmare. "That woman--darling, whatever her rank, I _cannot_ term her a lady!--" "Go on, dear." "I cannot. Sit beside me, here, for a while, and let me feel my arm about you. . . ." They sat thus for a long while silent, while twilight crept over the plain and wrapped itself about the homestead. Ruth was thinking. "If I forfeit this, it will be hardest of all." Chapter XIV. MR. SILK PROPOSES. Farmer Cordery had six grown sons--Jonathan, George, William, Increase, Homer, and Lemuel--the eldest eight-and-twenty, the youngest sixteen. All were strapping fellows, and each as a matter of course had fallen over head and ears in love with Ruth. They were good lads and knew it to be hopeless. She had stepped into their home as a goddess from a distant star, to abide with them for a while. They worshipped, none confessing his folly; but it made them her slaves, and emulous to shine before her as though she had been a queen of tournay. Because of her presence (it must be sadly owned) challengings, bickerings, even brotherly quarrels, disturbed more and more the patriarchal peace of Sweetwater Farm. "I dunno what's come over the boys," their father grumbled; "al'ays showing off an' jim-jeerin'. Regilar cocks on a dunghill. A few years agone I'd 've cured it wi' the strap; but now there's no remedy."