They were spared the usual struggle with Frances (who, after being coaxed, bribed, threatened, and bullied, had at last annually to be run away from), for the reason that Frank had not slept well after the martyring, and was still dreaming of creeping, crawling things with blubber-lips and gloating eyes when, in the pellucid dawn, Jack Cody found the Madigans waiting, in clean calicoes, perched on their bottommost step. The sun was barely over the top of Sugar Loaf, and the town, scantily shrubberied (for water costs as many dollars in Virginia as there are weeks in the year), lay sleeping in soft chill shadow below them, looking oddly picturesque and strange in the unfamiliar light. "Say," said Cody, "I think I see that Pemberton kid coming up Taylor. Is he coming along?" "No," said Sissy, promptly. "Yes," said Split, firmly. "Well, _I_ didn't ask him," from Sissy, with a haughty air of saying the last word. The Madigans were quite accustomed to being social arbiters in their own small world. "Well, I did," remarked Split, easily. A pugnacious red overshot Sissy's face. Crosby was her property, to browbeat and maltreat as seemed best to her. She felt that Irene's interference in a matter that was purely personal was unwarranted as it was intolerable. "He always has such good cream-tarts," explained Split. "Well, he can have 'em and keep 'em," declared Sissy, savagely, turning her back as Crosby yodeled a greeting and waved his hat gaily to her. Cody grinned. "I think that kid better stay at home. It won't be much picnic for him, will it, Sissy?" Sissy sniffed. "He's Split's company," she said loftily. "She'll make things pleasant for him." But Crosby, glad to be among the enticing Madigans at any price, and innocently joying in the picnic spirit that possessed him, came whooping to his fate. "Say," he said eagerly, putting down his basket with the air of one who has a good story to tell, "do you know, I almost got caught this morning. Ma said I wasn't to go, but I bet I wouldn't stay at home. So I told Delia to put up my lunch last night, and to put in a lot of those cream-tarts you like, Sissy--you used to like, Sissy...." But Sissy, actuated by a delicate desire not to interfere in the slightest with Split's plans for the entertainment of her guest, was deep in conversation with Jack Cody. Crosby's jaw fell. He saw her give her round tin lunch-bucket--the one he had so often carried to school for her--to Cody, to sling with his own upon a leather strap. And as he watched her start up the ravine carrying one end of the strap, and the washerwoman's boy the other, he wondered passionately within himself at the faithlessness and ingratitude of women.