"Who _is_ this Mr. Spink?" repeated Lyddy. Her sister explained what she knew of the man who--once a poorhouse boy--was now counted a rich man and the proprietor of Diamond Grits, the popular breakfast food. "He lived here at Hillcrest as a boy, with grandfather," 'Phemie said. "But what's _that_ got to do with his coming up here now--and at night?" "And with Mr. Pritchett?" finished 'Phemie. "Yes. I am going to ask Mr. Pritchett about it. They surely weren't after vinegar so late at night," Lyddy observed. But 'Phemie did not prolong the discussion. In her secret thoughts the younger Bray girl believed that it was Cyrus Pritchett and Mr. Spink whom she had heard about the old house the night she and Lyddy had first slept at Hillcrest. There was no use worrying Lyddy about it, she told herself. A little later the roan ponies appeared with the Pritchett buckboard. Instead of Mrs. Pritchett and her daughter, however, the good lady's companion on the front seat was Lucas, who drove. "Oh, dear me!" cried Lyddy. "I hope we haven't turned Miss Pritchett out of her seat. Surely we three girls could have squeezed in here on the back seat." "Nope," said Mrs. Pritchett. "That ain't it, at all. Sairy ain't goin' to church this mornin'." "She's not ill?" asked Lyddy. "I dunno. She ain't got no misery as I can find out; but she sartainly has a grouch! A bear with a sore head in fly time would be a smilin' work of Grace 'side of Sairy Pritchett ever since she come home from the Temperance Club las' night." "Oh!" came from 'Phemie. "Why----She surely isn't angry because we went home early?" cried Lyddy. "My sister, you see, got nervous----" "I reckon 'taint that," Lucas hastened to say. "More likely she's sore on me." "'Tain't nawthin' of the kind, an' you know it, Lucas," declared his mother. "Though ye might have driven 'round by the schoolhouse ag'in and brought her home." "Wal, I thought she'd ride back with school teacher. She went with him," returned Lucas, on the defensive. "She walked home," said Mrs. Pritchett, shortly. "I dunno why. She won't tell _me_." "I hope she isn't ill," remarked the unconscious Lyddy. But Lucas cast a knowing look over his shoulder at 'Phemie and the latter had hard work to keep her own countenance straight. "Well," said Mrs. Pritchett, more briskly, "ye can't always sometimes tell what the matter is with these young gals. They gits crotchets in their heads." She kept up the fiction that Sairy was a young and flighty miss; but even 'Phemie could no longer laugh at her for it. It was the mother's pitiful attempt to aid her daughter's chances for that greatly-to-be-desired condition--matrimony. The roads were still muddy; nevertheless the drive over the ridge to Cornell Chapel was lovely. For some time the girls had been noting the procession of carriages and wagons winding over the mountain roads, all verging upon this main trail over the ridge which passed so close to Hillcrest.