Miss Miflin smiled again. It was time to begin school, and she supposed it was all one of the twins' tricks. "Put the gun in the corner and go to your seats," she said. An hour later Miss Miflin heard a stir in the back of the room. "Ellen--" she began. Then she followed the children's gaze toward the window. Sarah Wenner stood there, looking in, as though she only meant to assure herself of the twins' presence. But what a changed, wild-eyed Sarah! Miss Miflin dropped chalk and ruler and went to the door. "Sarah!" she called. Sarah came hurriedly from the other side of the schoolhouse. "I didn't mean anything," she explained. "I wanted just to see if Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen were in school, that was all." She did not say that the twins had added another frightened hour to those which had made her face so white. They had slipped away while she went to the barn. "Didn't you want them to come to school?" asked Miss Miflin. "Ach, yes!" cried Sarah. "I want them to go every day in the school." Belief and the sight of Miss Miflin were already patting some color into her cheeks. "Are you well, Sarah?" asked Miss Miflin. "Ach, yes!" answered Sarah. "But now I must go home. You must excuse me while I disturbed the school for you. Here is lunch for Ellen Louisa and Louisa Ellen, then they need not come all the way home for dinner. Will you--will you watch them, so they do not go off to play at recess? Just give it to them if they are not good. I will then walk a piece way along to meet them when they come home from school." Sarah was gone before Miss Miflin could ask any more questions. She saw her look back as she tramped along the muddy road, then she vanished behind a hedge of alders. Miss Miflin was puzzled and disturbed. It was almost an hour before Sarah reached the Eberts' door. She was inexpressibly tired, and the roads were deep with mud. She had not been sleeping well at night. Uncle Daniel had made no farther move, but she felt that the delay was only a truce. She had seen nothing of Albert, though it had been several weeks since his uncle had carried him away. They were guarding him well. Ebert had not come to plough, and Sarah was worried. She had looked for him day after day, and now she feared that he was sick. She could get no answer when she knocked at the door. The house was closed, yet in the field near by the earth had been turned up that morning. Why did they not answer? She could not know that Mrs. Ebert watched her from an upper window, with tears in her eyes. "I wasn't going to tell her that you wouldn't plough for her," she said to her husband at noon. "Well, I guess I am not going to plough and then let Swartz have the benefit," answered Ebert.