"If it is the flour you use, I know we shall like it," said Ralph; "but still I am bound to follow your advice." "You would better follow me, now," said Miriam, who had taken some parcels from the wagon, "and bring that bag into the pantry. I do not like Mike to come into our part of the house with his boots." Ralph shouldered the bag, and Dora stepped up to him. "I will stay with the horse until you come out again," she said, not speaking very loudly. Miss Panney, who had heard all that had been said, smiled, and her black eyes twinkled. "Truly," she said to herself, "for so short an acquaintance, this is getting on wonderfully." Miriam, her arms full of parcels, and her mind full of household economy, walked rapidly by Miss Panney without seeing her at all, and, entering the dining-room, passed through it into the pantry. But when Ralph appeared in the open doorway, the old lady rose and confronted him, her finger on her lip. "I have just popped in to make a little call on your sister," she whispered; "but I saw she was pretty well loaded as she passed, and I did not wish to embarrass her--I do not mind embarrassing you. Don't put down the bag, I beg. I shall step into the drawing-room, and you can say I am there. By the way, who is that young woman standing by the horse?" "It is Miss Bannister," answered Ralph, his face unreasonably flushing as he spoke. "She is visiting Miriam and helping her." When Miss Panney wished to influence a person in favor of or against another person, she was accustomed to go about the business in a very circumspect way, and to accommodate the matter and the manner of her remarks to the disposition of the person addressed, and to the occasion. She wished very much to influence Ralph in favor of Miss Bannister, and if she had had the opportunity of a conversation with him, she knew she could have done this in a very easy and natural way. But there was no time for conversation now, and she might not again have the chance of seeing him alone, so she adopted a very different course, and with as much readiness and quickness as Daniel Boone would have put a rifle-ball into the head of an Indian the moment he saw it protrude from behind a tree, so did Miss Panney concentrate all she had to say into one shot, and deliver it quickly. "Help Miriam, eh?" she whispered; "take my advice, my boy, and keep her to help you." And without another word she proceeded to the drawing-room, where she seated herself in the most comfortable chair.