There was a touch of pride in her tone. "James," said Mrs. Ellison. "Leave her to me. I'll say all that's needed, I don't think she'll do it again." "Indeed I won't--truly," said Bess Thornton. Farmer Ellison walked to the door, with half a twinkle in his eye. "Clear across the pool under water," he muttered to himself. "Sure enough, I didn't need them burdock bitters." A few minutes later, Bess Thornton, seated at the breakfast table in the Ellison home, was eating the best meal she had had in many a day. A motherly-looking woman, setting out a few extra dainties for her, wiped her eyes now and again with a corner of her apron. "She'd have been about her age," she whispered to herself once softly, and bent and gave the girl a kiss. When Bess Thornton left the house, she carried a basket on one arm that made Grannie Thornton stare in amazement when she looked within. "No, no," she said, all of a tremble, as the girl drew forth some of the delicacies, and offered them to her. "Not a bit of it for me. I'll not touch it. You can. And see here, don't go up on the hill again, do you hear? Keep away from the Ellisons'." She had such a strange, excited, almost frightened way with her that the child urged her no further, but put the basket away, put of her sight. "Mrs. Ellison asked me to come again," she said to herself, sighing. "I don't see why gran' should care." CHAPTER V SOME CAUSES OF TROUBLE It was early of a Saturday afternoon, warm and sultry. Everything in the neighbourhood of the Half Way House seemed inclined to drowsiness. Even the stream flowing by at a little distance moved as though its waters were lazy. The birds and the cattle kept their respective places silently, in the treetops and beneath the shade. Only the flies, buzzing about the ears of Colonel Witham's dog that lay stretched in the dooryard, were active. They buzzed about the fat, florid face of the colonel, presently, as he emerged upon the porch, lighted his after-dinner pipe and seated himself in a big wooden arm-chair. But the annoyance did not prevent him from dozing as he smoked, and, finally, from dropping off soundly to sleep. He enjoyed these after-dinner naps, and the place was conducive to them. The long stretch of highway leading up from Benton had scarcely a country wagon-wheel turning on it, to stir the dust to motion. In the distance, the mill droned like a big beehive. Near at hand only the fish moved in the stream--the fish and a few rowboats that swung gently at their ropes at the end of a board-walk that led from the hotel to the water's edge. The colonel slumbered on. But, far down the road, there arose, presently, a cloud of dust, amid which there shone and glittered flashes of steel. Then a line of bicyclists came into view, five youths, with backs bent and heads down, making fast time.