What further information Griggs gleaned I had no means of knowing, for Paul was doing so well that I thought it better not to interrupt the conversation, and I took the opportunity of having a brief talk with Andy Taylor before returning to the veranda. Griggs was obviously distraught and had little to say except that he was in a hurry to get back to the city, but he looked at me as if he were mentally formulating charges to lay before the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he neglected to thank me for holding the gate open as he drove through, then I had difficulty in impressing upon his mind what he should say to Harold Jones. "Tell him," I concluded, holding the horse's head, "that I consider it an impertinence for a mere acquaintance to pry into my private affairs. Is it anyone's business but my own, Mr. Griggs, whether I keep only a few fowls or a large assortment of domestic animals? Tell him that I would never dream of asking you how many firkins of butter and crates of eggs you handled in a year, or if your profits exceed the commission you----" "G'lang there!" shouted Griggs. V PAUL AND THE CHICKENS "I have no fancy for the country, as you know, my dear Marion," wrote Aunt Sophy, in conclusion, "but your description of Waydean makes me long to accept your invitation. When I heard that Henry had rented a farm I thought you must be simply crazy to let him do it, but your letter has reassured me. Of course, if he has quite determined not to go to any expense in the expectation of making money out of the land, and if you _both_ want to live there, it is a different thing. I think it is a splendid idea not to work any more land than he can attend to with a spade, a rake and a hoe. Take my advice, Marion, and keep him to that--no matter what arguments he may use--and you will be perfectly safe. If your poor uncle had only been guided by my advice, or if I had been less easily swayed by his hopefulness, I would have had more than a pittance to live on now. But no,--it was buy this, and buy that, till.... "How lovely it must be to have your own milk and butter and cream and fruit, and, above all, to know that they're _clean_! And the chickens! Do you know, I can't touch chickens in the city; I haven't tasted one for a year, I am so disgusted at the thought of how they may be fed,--and yet I am just longing for a taste of plump, clean, ... grain-fed----" Marion's voice wavered; she stopped reading. I uttered a prolonged whistle, then laughed in a hollow mirthless tone that brought a responsive gleam to Marion's worried face. She left the breakfast table and looked anxiously out of the window at the back of the room, then sat down again with a sigh of thankfulness. "What a mercy Paul wasn't within hearing," she said; "how he would have howled!"