Mrs. Munn's heart was heavy with dread as she hurried up the lane. Miss Arabella had already arrived, and nearly all the other women of the village were there. As she reached the door a chorus of shouts and screams broke from the enclosed yard at the back of the house. Mrs. Munn shivered. They had evidently tied up the fierce creature in the stable, where it was exercising its four pairs of lungs all at once! But the next Instant the stable door flew open, and four figures, two mop-headed little girls in abbreviated skirts, a small, red-headed toddler, and a queer, limping boy, the fleetest of all, were precipitated into the yard. They flung themselves over the fence and went, shrieking, away across the field. Mrs. Munn drew a great breath; there was relief in it, and yet terror. It was not quite so bad, but bad enough. What was to become of Elmbrook if the Sawyers had adopted four orphans? Mrs. Sawyer was sitting in the middle of a wildly disordered kitchen, surrounded by her neighbors. She had the air of a child who has done wrong, and knows it, but hopes for mercy. Evidently the orphans had refused to be displayed to the visitors, for their foster-mother was apologizing for their non-appearance. "They're kind o' wild yet," she explained meekly, "not ever bein' out of a big city in their lives. But Jake says jist to let them loose, an' they'll kind o' tame down all the sooner. There ain't no use callin' after them," she added resignedly, as Mrs. Winters made a threatening movement toward the door. "It jist makes them run all the harder, an' mebby they'll get as far as the pond. We'd better jist let them be." "Well, go on wi' your story, Hannah," said old Miss McQuarry. "What possessed ye to take all the bairns, wumman?" Mrs. Sawyer folded her hands in her lap and continued: "It kind o' came on us gradual like. Jake an' me jist couldn't help it. Ye see, his idea was always for a little boy with red hair, like our Joey would 'a' been, an' I was always wantin' a little girl with yellow curls. Well, Jake, he knowed what I wanted, and he said if we seen a nice little girl with curly hair we'd take her; but I knowed his heart was set on a red-headed boy all the same, an' I stuck out for a boy. We talked about it so hard all the way there that we near forgot to get off when we got to the station, an' only that Minnie Morrison's aunt was there, we'd 'a' never moved. As it was, we forgot the basket with the pound cake and the cookies and the home-made cheese--and--and the crock o' butter," she faltered, with a contrite glance toward Harriet Munn. "Oh, my, what a pity!" groaned Miss Arabella, remembering all she had suffered in toiling down the lane with the basket.