Agnes and Cecile had gone down town on a brief shopping trip, and Ruth, with Luke Shepard, was on the wide veranda of the old Corner House.

The great front yard that had been weed grown and neglected when the Kenway sisters and Aunt Sarah had come here to live, was now a well kept lawn, the grass and paths the joint care of Uncle Rufus and Neale O'Neil. For nowadays Neale had time to do little other work than that of running the Kenways' car and working about the old Corner House when he was not at school.

Ruth was busy, of course, with some sewing, for she, like Aunt Sarah, did not believe in being entirely idle while one gossiped. Whenever Ruth looked up from her work there was somebody passing along Main Street or Willow Street whom she knew, and who bowed or spoke to the Corner House girl.

"You have such hosts of friends, Miss Ruth," Luke Shepard said. "I believe you Corner House girls must be of that strange breed of folk who are 'universally popular.' I have rather doubted their existence until now."

"You are a flatterer," Ruth accused him, smiling. "I am sure you and Cecile make friends quite as easily as we do."

"But Grantham is not Milton. There are only a handful of people there."

Ruth bit off a thread thoughtfully.

"Cecile was telling us about 'Neighbor' last evening," she said.

Luke flushed quickly and he looked away from the girl for a moment.

"Oh!" he said. "The poor old gentleman is a character."

"But a very good friend of yours?"

"I am not so sure about that," and Luke tried to laugh naturally. "To tell the truth I'm afraid he's a bit cracked, don't you know."

"Oh, you do not mean that he is really—er—crazy!"

"No. Though they say—somebody has—that we are most of us a little crazy. Neighbor Northrup is more than a little peculiar. Cecile told you he is a woman-hater?"

"Yes. And that he carries his hatred to extremes."

"I should say he does!" exclaimed Luke with vast disgust. "He wants me to promise never to marry."

"Well?"

"My goodness, Miss Ruth! You say that calmly enough. How would you like to be nagged in such a way continually? It's no fun I can assure you."

Ruth laughed one of her hearty, delightful laughs that made even the vexed Luke join in.

"It's like Aunt Sarah," confessed Ruth. "She thinks very poorly of men, and is always advising Agnes and me to 'escape the wrath to come' by joining the spinster sisterhood."

"But you haven't—you won't?" gasped Luke in horror.

At that the oldest Corner House girl laughed again, and Luke found himself flushing and feeling rather shamefaced.

"Oh, well," he said, "you know what I mean. You girls wouldn't really be influenced by such foolishness?"

"Doesn't Neighbor influence you?" Ruth asked him quickly.

"No, indeed. Not even when he tries to bribe me. He can keep his old money."

"But he has been your good friend," the girl said slowly and thoughtfully. "And Cecile says he has promised to do much for you."

"And if he got tiffed he would refuse to do a thing. Oh, I know Neighbor!" growled Luke. "Yet you must not think, Miss Ruth," he added after a moment, "that I do not appreciate what he has already done for me. He is the kindest old fellow alive, get him off the subject of women. But he must have been hurt very much by a woman when he was young—he never speaks about it, but so I surmise—and he cannot forget his hatred of the sex.

"Why," continued the young man, "if it would do him a bit of good—my promising never to marry—any good in the world, there'd be some sense in thinking of it. But it's downright foolishness—and I'll never agree," and the young fellow shook his head angrily.

"If it would cure him of any disease, or the like, I might be coaxed to wear blinders so as not to see the pretty girls at all," and Luke tried to laugh it off again. "But he's wrong—utterly wrong. And old folks should not be encouraged in wrong doing."

"You feel yourself susceptible to the charms of pretty girls, then," suggested Ruth, smiling down at her sewing.

He tried to see her full expression, but could see only the smile wreathing her lips.

"Well, now, Miss Ruth," he said, in defense, "who isn't made happier by seeing a pretty and cheerful face?"

"Some of them say they are made miserable for life by such a sight," Ruth declared demurely. "Or, is it only a manner of speaking?"

"I shall begin to believe you are a man-hater, just as Neighbor is a woman-hater," laughed Luke.

"I have my doubts," confessed Ruth. "But you, Luke, have your own way to win in life, and if this man can and will help you, shouldn't you be willing to give up a little thing like that for policy's sake?"

"A little thing like what?" exclaimed Luke Shepard, rather warmly.

"Why—er—getting married," and Ruth Kenway's eyes danced as she looked at him again for an instant.

"The greatest thing in the world!" he almost shouted.

"You mean love is the greatest thing in the world," said Ruth still demurely smiling. "They say marriage hasn't much to do with that—sometimes."

"I believe you are pessimistic regarding the marriage state."

"I don't know anything about it. Never thought of it, really."

Tess just then came singing through the house, having been to see Miss Ann Titus, the dressmaker, regarding certain dresses that were to be got ready for the little girls to wear to school. She had refused to tell Dot where she was going because one of the dresses was to be a surprise to the smallest Corner House girl.

It needed no seer to discover that Tess had been to see the seamstress. She was a polite little girl and she did not like to break in upon other people's conversation; but she was so chock full of news that some of it had to spill over.

"D'juno, Ruthie, that Mr. Sauer, the milkman got 'rested because he didn't have enough milk in his wagon to serve his customers? The inspector said he didn't have a license to peddle water, and he took him down to the City Hall."

"I had not heard of it, Tess, no," replied her older sister.

"You know that awfully big man, Mr. Atkins—the awfully fat man, you know, who is a lawyer, or something, and always walks down town for exercise, and I s'pose he needs it? He stepped on a banana peel on Purchase Street the other day and almost fell. And if he had fallen on that hard walk I 'most guess he'd've exploded."

"Oh, Tessie!" exclaimed Ruth, while Luke laughed openly.

"And d'juno, Ruthie, that they are going to stop people from keeping pigs inside the city limits? Mr. Con Murphy can't have his any more, either. For the other day a pig that belonged to Hemstret, the butcher, got away and scared folks awful on Deering Street, 'cause he looked as though he had the yaller janders—"

"The what?" gasped her sister, while Luke actually roared.

"The yaller janders," repeated Tessie.

"Do you mean the yellow jaundice? Though how a pig could get such a disease—"

"Maybe. Anyway he was all yellow," Tess went on excitedly. "'Cause some boys took some ock-er-ra paint out of Mr. Timmins' shop—Timmins, the lame man, you know—and painted him and then let him out."

"Painted Mr. Timmins—the lame man?" gasped Luke, in the midst of his laughter.

"No. The pig that I was telling you about," said the small girl. "And Mrs. Bogert says that the next time Bogert goes to the lodge and stays till two o'clock in the morning, she's going home to her mother and take the children with her," and Tess ended this budget of news almost breathless.

Ruth had to laugh, too, although she did not approve of the children carrying such gossip. "I should know you had called upon Miss Ann Titus," she observed. "I hope you didn't hear anything worse than this."

"I heard her canary sing," confessed Tess; "and her little dog, Wopsy, was snoring dreadfully on the sofa. But I guess I didn't hear anything else. Where's Dot?"

"I'm sure I do not know," Ruth said placidly, while Luke wiped his eyes, still chuckling in a subdued way. He saw that he was beginning to hurt Tess' feelings and he was too kind-hearted to wish to do that. "Dot must be somewhere about the house."

Tess went to look for her. Her tender conscience punished her for having spoken to her little sister so shortly when she was starting on her errand to Miss Ann Titus. But how else could she have gotten rid of the "tagging" Dorothy!

Just now, however, Dot seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. Nobody had seen her for more than an hour. Tess went to the fence between their own and the Creamers' yard and "hoo-hooed" until Mabel appeared.

"Ain't seen her," declared that young person, shaking her head. "I tried to get you and her over here a long time ago. My mother let me make some 'lasses taffy, and I wanted you and Dot to come and help. But I had to do it all alone."

"Was it good?" asked Tess, longingly.

"It looked luscious," admitted Mabel scowling. "But that young 'un got at it when it was cooling on the porch and filled it full of gravel. I broke a tooth trying to eat a piece. Want some, Tess?"

"No-o," Tess said. "I guess not. I must find Dot."

But she did not find Dot. She wandered back to the front of the Corner House just as Mrs. Pinkney, rather wild-eyed and disheveled, appeared at the side fence on Willow Street and called to Ruth:

"Have you seen Sammy?"

"Have you seen Dot?" repeated Tess, quite as earnestly.

Ruth was finally shaken out of her composure. She rose from her seat, folding the work in her lap, and demanded:

"What do you suppose has become of them? For of course, if neither Sammy nor Dot can be found, they have gone off somewhere together."