"You have had a month in which to get used to your duties while Joe was in the hospital; that is sufficient for the present. Joe will drive the waggonette and you will follow with the supper--I wish you to help Tom put new netting in the screen-doors this afternoon." Her tone precluded argument. As soon as she was out of hearing, Joe remarked softly, "Now, if she'd only said Mary instead of Annie I 'spose----" "Aw, let up," Peter growled, and he fell to rubbing in the grease with unnecessary vehemence. His misunderstanding with Annie was a subject he would stand no fooling about, even from his chief. At five o'clock, Peter, in a spotless top-hat and shining boots, looking as stiff as if he were clothed in steel armour, drew up before the kitchen door and piled the hampers and pails he found on the back veranda onto the seat beside him. He climbed to the box again with an air of finality, and gathering his reins together made a feint of starting. "Peter!" Nora called from the kitchen window. "Where is it ye're goin'? Wait for Annie." "Annie?" Peter looked as if he had never heard the name before. "Yes, Annie. Did ye think ye was to cook the supper yerself?" "I didn't think nothin'," said Peter. "Me orders was to stop for the lunch at five o'clock, an' I done it. If she wants to come along she'll have to sit on the back seat. I ain't a goin' to change these baskets again." Annie appeared in the doorway in time to hear this ungracious speech; she clambered up to the somewhat uncomfortable footman's seat in silence, and they drove off back to back, as stiff as twin ramrods. The cart rolled along over the smooth roads, past country clubs and summer cottages, and the only sign either of the two gave of being alive was an occasional vicious crack of the whip from Peter when patient little Trixy showed signs of wishing to take a quieter pace. At such times Annie would instinctively stretch out a deterring hand and form her mouth as if to say, "Please, Pete, don't whip her; she's doin' her best," and then suddenly remembering that formidable vow, would straighten up again and stare ahead with flushed cheeks. The beach was five miles away, and there is an element of ludicrousness in the spectacle of two people in one small dog-cart riding five miles without speaking. Annie's sense of humour was keen; it struggled hard with her sense of wrong. She was never an Indian to cherish vengeance; her anger could be fierce at the moment, but it rarely lasted. And Peter was sorry for what he had said, she reminded herself; he had already tried to make up. By the end of the second mile two dimples appeared in her cheeks. At the third mile she shut her mouth tight to keep a laugh from escaping. At the fourth mile she spoke. "Say, Pete, why don't ye talk to me? Are ye mad?"