"Come down? Why, that's easy! But I don't want to come down." Mrs. Kennedy's lips grew stern. "Genevieve," she said, with an obvious effort to speak quietly; "if you can come down, I desire you to do so at once." Genevieve came down. Her eyes flashed a little, and her cheeks were redder than usual. She did not once glance toward the girls, clustered in a silent, frightened little group. She did not appear to notice even her father, standing by. She went straight to Mrs. Kennedy. "I've come down, Aunt Julia." Mrs. Kennedy had been seriously disturbed, and genuinely frightened. To her, Genevieve's climb to the top of the windmill tower was very dangerous, as well as very unladylike. Yet it was the fright, even more than the displeasure that made her voice sound so cold now in her effort to steady it. "Thank you, Genevieve. Please see that there is no occasion for you to _come down_ again," she said meaningly. Then she turned and went into the house. Just how it happened, Genevieve did not know, but almost at once she found herself alone with her father on the back gallery. The girls had disappeared. Genevieve was very angry now. "Father, it wasn't fair, to speak like that," she choked, "before the girls and you, when I hadn't done a thing--not a thing! Why, it--it was just like Miss Jane! I never knew Aunt Julia to be like that." For a moment her father was silent. His face wore a thoughtful frown. "I know it, dearie," he said at last. "But I don't think Mrs. Kennedy quite realized, quite understood--how _you'd_ feel. She didn't think it just right for you to be there." "But I was in my gym suit, Father. I skipped in and put it on purposely, while the others were doing something else; then I climbed the tower. I'd planned 'way ahead how I'd surprise them." The man hesitated. "I know, dearie," he nodded, after a moment; "but I reckon it was just a little too much of a surprise for Mrs. Kennedy. You know she isn't used to the West; and--do Boston young ladies climb windmill towers?" In spite of her anger, Genevieve laughed. The mention of Boston had put her in mind of some Boston friends of Mrs. Kennedy's, whom she knew. She had a sudden vision of what Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Butterfield's faces would have been, had their stern, sixty-year-old eyes seen what Mrs. Kennedy saw. "I reckon, too," went on Mr. Hartley, with a sigh, "that I have sort of spoiled you, letting you have your own way. And maybe Mammy Lindy and I, in our anxiety that you should be well and strong, and sit the saddle like a Texas daughter should, haven't taught you always just the dainty little lady ways--that you ought to have been taught." "You've taught me everything--everything good and lovely," protested the girl, hotly. He shook his head. A far-away look came into his eyes. "I haven't, dearie--and that's why I sent you East." Genevieve flushed.