Shortly after supper, Mrs. Arthur Wright--Kitty they still called her--came out of the front gate whistling, and going to the middle of the road, there being no sidewalk that far out from town, she turned to the left and set out for the Chautauqua meeting at Captain Chase's. Claxton road, coming in from the county-seat, changed its name a mile or so out of Thornton and became Claxton Road. The Wright residence may be said to have been located just where the capital R began. At this point the barb wire of the prairie thoroughfare gave way, on the left-hand side, to the white fences of suburban estates with big front yards and windmills and stables; and on the right there came, at the same time, an unfenced vacancy, or "free grass," which, though it had a private owner somewhere, might be called a common. The estates along Claxton Road faced this big common, looking across it toward the cottages which marked the edge of town on the other side, and there was nothing to obstruct the view except a time-blackened frame house which, for some reason, had posted itself right in the middle of this spacious prospect. These places along Claxton Road were the homes of cattle and sheep-men who owned vast ranches in adjacent counties. They had thus herded themselves together, largely, if not entirely, on account of Woman and her institutions. As the Wright place was the farthest out in this row of suburban estates, Mrs. Wright was frequently the first to start to a Chautauqua or other social affair; indeed, had it not been that she made a practice of hurrying up the others as she went along, she would usually have been the first to arrive. A short walk brought her to Harmon's, and here bringing to a hurried conclusion the Wedding March from "Lohengrin,"--an excellent tune to march by,--she changed her flutelike notes for a well-known piercing trill. At the second shrill summons Mrs. Harmon came to the door. "Just a minute, Kitty--I 'm coming." "Don't forget your specimen," called Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Harmon, after a somewhat protracted minute, came out with nothing on her arm but a book. "I 've just been too busy for anything," she explained. "You know I had the dressmaker two days--I thought I 'd take the opportunity while George was away at the ranch. And, besides," she added, after a short pause, "I did n't think of it." "That's right, Statia. Always tell the truth, even as an afterthought." "My! but you 're coming out bright this evening," responded Mrs. Harmon. "I hope we can depend upon the others," mused Kitty. Mrs. Dix and Mrs. Norton came out of their respective homes empty-handed except for books. So also Mrs. Plympton and her mother.