"My brother and sister are giving the party. I'm not in it." "I suppose your invitation got lost in the mail," suggested Phil, this being a form of explanation frequently proffered by local humorists for their failure to appear at Montgomery functions. "Nothing like that! I didn't expect to be here to-day. In fact, I've been off trying to borrow a team of horses; one of mine went lame. I've just brought them home, and I'm wondering how long I've got to wait before the rumpus is over and those folks get out of there and give the horses a chance. It's going to rain before morning." Phil had heard the same prognostication from her father, and it was in the young man's favor that he was wise in weather lore. The musicians had begun to play a popular barn dance, and the two spectators watched the dancers catch step to it. Then Phil, having by this time drawn a trifle closer to the fence and been reassured by her observations of the clean-shaven face of the young man, became personal. "Are you Charlie Holton?" "No; Fred. Charlie's my brother." "And your sister's name is Ethel." "O. K. I'm trying to figure you out. If you weren't so tall I'd guess you were Phyllis Kirkwood." "That's all of my name," replied Phil. "I remember you now, but you must have been away a long time. I hadn't heard that anybody was living over there." "The family haven't been here much since I was a kid. They have moved out their things. What's left is mine." Mr. Frederick Holton turned and extended the hand that held his hat with a comprehensive gesture. There was a tinge of irony in his tone that Phil did not miss. "What's left here--house, barn, and land--belongs to me. The town house has been sold and Charlie and Ethel have come out here to say good-bye to the farm." "Oh!" This time Phil's "Oh" connoted mild surprise, polite interest, and faint curiosity. The wind rustled the leaves among the corn-shocks. The moon gazed benevolently upon the barn, tolerant of the impertinence of man-made light and a gayety that was wholly inconsonant with her previous knowledge of this particular bit of landscape. Fred Holton did not amplify his last statement, so Phil's "Oh," in so far as it expressed curiosity as to the disposition of the Holton territory and Mr. Frederick Holton's relation to it, seemed destined to no immediate satisfaction. "I must skip," remarked Phil; though she did not, in fact, skip at once. "Staying over at your grandfather's?" The young man's arm pointed toward the north and the venerable farmhouse long occupied by tenants of the Montgomerys. Old Amzi had acquired much land in his day and his grandson, Amzi III, clung to most of it. But this little availed Phil, as we shall see. Still it was conceivable and pardonable that Fred Holton should assume that Phil was domiciled upon soil to which she had presumably certain inalienable rights. "No; I've been camping and my father's waiting for me down there in Turkey Run. We've been here a month."