"What do you mean?" thundered Uncle Mat and Austin in the same breath; so Mrs. Gray tried again. "Why, Ruth had a new baby a month ago, another little girl, an' the dearest child! They're all comin' home to-morrow, sure's the world, an' you'll see her then--they've named her Mary, for me, an' of course I'm real pleased. But as I was sayin'--it did seem as if some one had got to take hold an' help them get straightened out if they was goin' to put it through, an' of course, there's no one like Sylvia for jobs like that. Land! I don't know how we ever got along before she come! Anyway, she's up there now. Rode up with Hiram on the Rural Free Delivery--he was tickled most to death. She left her love, an' said maybe one of the boys would take the pair an' her big double sleigh, an' start up to get 'em all in real good season to-morrow mornin'." "That means me, of course," said Thomas importantly. "Of course," echoed both his brothers, quite unanimously. Mr. Stevens said nothing, but calmly went up to bed, where he apparently slept well, as he did not reappear until after nine o'clock the following morning. He sought out Mrs. Gray in the sunny, shining kitchen, but did not evince as much surprise as she had expected when she told him, while she bustled about preparing fresh coffee and toast for him, that when Thomas, at seven o'clock, had gone to the barn to "hitch up" he had found that the double sleigh, the pair, and--Austin had all mysteriously vanished. "Austin always was a dreadful tease," she ended, "but I can't help sayin' this is downright mean of him, when he knows how Thomas feels." "My dear lady," said Mr. Stevens, cracking open the egg she had set before him with great care, "where are your eyes? What about Austin himself?" Mrs. Gray set down the coffee-pot, looking at him in bewilderment. "What do you mean?" she asked. "I hope Austin is grateful to her now--an' that he'll _say_ so. At first he didn't like her at all, an' he's never taken to her same as the rest of us have--seems to feel she's bossy an' meddlesome. Howard an' I have spoken of it a thousand times. He began by resenting everything she did, an' then got so he didn't even mention her name."