"That's all easily answered, Leslie dear. The some one that you describe is the soul of a house. When a house has the misfortune not to have such an one in it, it has no soul; the other members are merely forms, moving forms, with impulses." I knew that she meant to compliment me, but I would not appear to know it. "I suppose, then," I returned, with affected resentment, "that I am a form with impulses. One of the impulses just now is to eat breakfast." "Me hundry; me eat breakfuss, too," proclaimed a shrill, familiar voice at my elbow. I had already taken my seat at the table. "Eat your breakfast, Leslie," said Jessie; "I'll dress Ralph. After breakfast, perhaps, I had better go with you after the cows?" She spoke with some hesitation. As a matter of fact, she does not begin to know the cattle trails as I know them. "No," I said; "I'll go alone, Jessie; I can find them much quicker than you could." "They may not have gone far." Jessie advanced this proposition hopefully. "Far enough, I'll warrant. I believe there's nothing that a cow likes so well as to chase around on a morning like this; especially if she thinks some one is hunting for her." "You can take one of the horses--" Jessie began, and, in the irritated state of my mind, it was some satisfaction to be able to promptly veto that proposition. "Oh, no, indeed! I shall have to go on foot. It seems you turned them out to pasture last night. I think you must have forgotten how hard it is to catch either of the horses when they are both let out at once." My sister had the grace to blush slightly, which consoled me a good deal. I hoped that, either as a soul or a form with impulses, she remembered that father or Joe had never made a practice of letting both horses out at once. When one was in the barn, his mate in the pasture could be easily caught. Otherwise, the catching was a work of labor and of pain. Once, indeed, when both had been inadvertently turned out together, father had been obliged to hire a cowboy to come with his lariat and rope Jim, the principal offender. When Jim, with the compelling noose about his neck, had been led ignominiously back to the stable, father had told us never to let them out together again, a warning that Jessie evidently recalled now for the first time. "Dear me, Leslie! I'm dreadfully sorry!" she exclaimed, lifting Ralph into his high chair; "I just meant to save a little work, and I guess I've brought on no end of it!" "Perhaps not; we'll leave the barn door open. It's so cold that they may go in of their own accord after a while." And that was what they did do, along in the afternoon, when it was quite too late for them to be of any service that day. My hasty breakfast finished, I got up from the table. "I am going right away, Jessie; it will never do to let the cows lie out all day."