"I say, Rache," called her brother Ike, a youth of fifteen, who was just then half-hidden in the boughs of the summer apple-tree by the garden gate, "they's somebody coming." "Who is it, Ike?" "Henry Miller and the two Miller girls." "Oh! is that all?" said Rachel, in a teasing tone. "Is that _all_?" said Ike. "You don't care for anybody but Tom Grayson these days. I'll bet you Tom'll be here to-night." "What makes you think so?" asked Rachel, trying not to evince any interest in the information. "Don't you wish you knew?" he answered, glad to repay her teasing in kind. "Did you see him to-day?" "Say, Sis," said Ike, affecting to dismiss the subject, "here's an awful nice apple. Can you ketch?" Rachel held up her hands to catch the apple, baring her pretty arms by the falling back of her loose sleeves. The mischievous Ike threw a swift ball, and Rachel, holding her hands for it, could not help shrinking as the apple came flying at her. She shut her eyes and ducked her head, and of course the apple went past her, bowling away along the porch and off the other end of it into the grass. "That's just like a girl," said Ike. "Here's a better apple. I won't throw so hard this time." And Rachel caught the large striped apple in her two hands. "I say, Ike," she said, coaxingly, "where did you see Tom?" "Oh! I met him over on the big road as I went to mill this morning; he was going home to his mother's, an' he said he was coming over to see you to-night. An' I told him to fetch Barbara, so 's I'd have somebody to talk to, 'cause you wouldn't let me get a word in ageways with him. An' Tom laughed an' looked tickled." "I guess you won't talk much to Barbara while Ginnie Miller's here," Rachel said; and by this time Henry Miller and his two sisters were nearing the white gate which stood forty feet away from the cool front porch of the house.