"I'm never in time to do a single thing on this place, and I don't see how everything gets done for you without my help. Who helps you?" "Everybody," I answered. I had never had the courage to break Adam to Matthew in the long weeks I had been seeing them both every day, and of course Pan had never come out of the woods when Matthew or any of the rest were there. "I'll tell you what you can do for me," I said, with a sudden inspiration about getting rid of him, for the red-headed Peckerwood had promised to come and put some kind of hoodoo earth around the peonies and irises and pinks in my garden, also to bud some kind of a new rose on one of the old blush ones, and I wanted the place quiet so he would venture out of his lair. "You can go on to town and look after Polly carefully. She is going in with Bess for the first time since their infatuation, and I want her eyes to open gradually on the world out over Paradise Ridge." "Ann, ought they ever to open?" asked Matthew, suddenly, with the color coming up to the roots of his hair and burning in his ears like it still does in Bud Corn-tassel's when he comes over to see or help me or to bring me something from Aunt Mary, his mother. "Bess is one of the best of friends I've got in the world, but I just--just couldn't see Corn-tassel dancing in some man's arms in the mere hint of an evening gown that Bess occupied while fox-trotting with Evan Baldwin at the club the other night." "Who was the belle of the ball, Matt?" I asked him, with a flame in my cheeks, for the pink and lavender chiffon gown Bess had worn was one of the Voudaine creations that I had brought from Paris and sold her after the crash. "Oh, Bess always is when you are not there and, Ann, don't for a moment think that I--I--" Poor Matthew was stuttering while I rubbed the tip of my nose against his sleeve in the way of a caress, as I had a feed-bucket in one hand and a water-pan in the other. "Do go and shop with Polly and Bess as a force for protection. I must have a quiet afternoon to commune with my garden," I commanded. "Sometimes you make me so mad, Ann Craddock, that--that--" Matthew was stuttering when Uncle Cradd appeared at the back door to chat with him, and I made my escape through the barn and out into the woods. I had thought that I saw a glint of Peckerwood red pass through the pasture that way, and I was determined that Pan shouldn't give me and the garden the slip as he always did when he saw anybody around.