Old lady Gordon glanced at her impatiently, as she would have done at any hindrance. She had not the faintest inkling of what was passing through Sidney's mind. She had never thought it as well worth while to try to understand Sidney, as Sidney had always found it useful and easy to understand her. Old lady Gordon simply wished to take Sidney along in order that she might hear the news, as she would have taken the morning paper,--had Oldfield had one,--to toss it aside after turning it inside out. She saw plainly enough that for some reason Sidney was unwilling to come with her, but she did not care about people's unwillingness if they did what she wished. Old lady Gordon never made any mystery of her selfishness. She was too scornful of the opinion of others to care what anybody else felt or thought, or said or did, so long as she got what she wanted. All this was well known to Sidney; it was also perfectly plain to her that, if she did not take the seat in the carriage, old lady Gordon would make Lynn take it and go at least part of the way. Like the philosopher that she was, Sidney accordingly took the seat. One of the wide folding steps was then shut up, and on the remaining step the little negro perched himself,--just as Lady Castlewood's page used to perch on hers. No reason for his going was apparent then, or ever. But a little negro boy always had ridden on the step of old lady Gordon's coach, and the fact that a thing always had been done, has always been a good and sufficient reason for many singular things in this Pennyroyal Region--as already remarked ere this. And thus, everything now being settled to old lady Gordon's entire satisfaction, the ancient coach rumbled heavily away through the dust. However, the heavy wheels had hardly made a dozen revolutions before they were at the Watson homestead, which was the place nearest to old lady Gordon's. There Sidney called to Enoch Cotton to put her down; and get down she would and did, in spite of old lady Gordon's impatient protest that there had been no time for the telling of news; regardless even of her hasty, half-contemptuous offer to send Uncle Watty and the children a bag of flour. Sidney had her own ideas of dignity and self-respect; moreover, she held to them more firmly than prouder people, having finer ones, often hold to theirs. Yet she was always good-natured, no matter how firm, and she now merely laughed, as old lady Gordon drove away as angry as she ever thought it worth while to be over anything save some interference with the regularity and the perfection of her meals.