“Why, Will!” exclaimed Jinny, and there was now a strange softness in her face and voice. “How stupid of me not to recognize you when I’ve got your box all the time!”

His mind, still perturbed about the right-of-way, and bent now upon home, could not adjust itself so suddenly to the new situation. Again his mouth opened without issue. Her smile faded.

“I’m Daniel Quarles’s granddaughter,” she said with a little quaver. “Little Jinny of Blackwater Hall.”

“So you’ve remembered me at last!” His voice came out harsh, though inwardly he was melted by this new sweetness.

“Then did you know me all the time?”

“Of course—the moment I clapped eyes on you.” He was not consciously romanticizing.

“That’s what I’ve been thinking as I waited here for you. I’m so glad. Because that shows you were only teasing me, saying all those horrid things.” Then a new thought struck her to self-mockery. “Of course—I’m getting silly—it wasn’t so wonderful of you recognizing me, with the name of Daniel Quarles on the cart.” And she laughed merrily. “Do you know why I didn’t recognize you? It wasn’t only Miss Flippance put me off, and that I couldn’t connect you with drums and marionettes—it was you yourself that blocked the way.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The old you, I mean—I was thinking about him all the time we were talking, and that funny new you wasn’t like him one bit.”

“Thinking of me!” He was touched.... “Whatever made you think of me?”

“Didn’t I just tell you I’ve got your box? And of course I knew you were coming back. We’ve been expecting you for days.”

“Oh, then mother did get my letter!” His latent ill-humour flowed into the new channel.

“Of course.”

“Then why didn’t dad come to meet me?”

Her mouth twitched humorously at the corners with the suspicion the letter was still unread, but she replied: “I suppose because he’s old and hasn’t got a trap any more, and he knew that Tuesday was my day. Jump up, I’m ever so late!”

He shook his head. “I can’t jump up.”

“Why, what’s the matter, Will?” Her voice was anxious and tender. “Have you hurt your ankle, running?”

“No, no!” he said petulantly. “Didn’t you hear me say I’d never patronize a woman carrier?”

She smiled in relief. “Yes—I heard you say it. But that was the silly you.”

His face hardened. “Silly or sensible, I stick to my word.”

“Drumsticks!” she mocked again. “Jump up and tell me all about your affair with Miss Flippance.”

“Don’t be saucy, Jinny. It don’t become you:”

For the life of him he could not accept her as grown up, much less as an equal, though she sat on high, dominating the situation, whip in hand and horn at girdle, spick and span and cool; while he, astride the stile, was a forlorn figure, with dusty shoes and hot, lowering look.

“It becomes me as much as silliness does you,” said Jinny.

“I don’t see the silliness.”

“Why, you can’t live a week at Frog Farm without patronizing me. Who else is there? There isn’t hardly a trap to be had even miles around. Why there was a young man I drove out to Frog Farm last week, and a fine to-do he had getting home!”

It was not calculated to soothe him. “And what need had you to drive a young man?”

“It was for Maria—your mother’s pig. She was ill; her whole litter might have been lost.”

He frowned more darkly. Pigs, he had but just admitted, might reasonably come into the feminine ambit: still, if girls did get to know coarse facts, they might at least have the decency not to talk about them. “And did he call you Jinny?” he grunted.

“He didn’t call me Maria.”

“Well, traps or no traps,” he said sullenly, “you’ll get no orders from me. I’ve fended for myself in the Canadian backwoods, where there wasn’t even a woman to sew on buttons, and I certainly don’t need one now.”

But she was still smiling. “Do you know the song of the dashing young lad from Buckingham?”

“I know you do. But what’s that to do with it?”

She re-started the merry tune, but markedly altered the words:

“No, he won’t.”

“Don’t interrupt. You’ve already given it.

“What order have I given you?”

“To carry your box, of course—

“But that was before I had the ghost of an idea——”

“Do join in the chorus:

“I’ll have my trunk at once!” he cried furiously, and sprang off the stile.

“Fol de rol arilol lay!” she wound up with easy enjoyment.

“Give me my trunk,” he commanded again.

“What—on this lonely road—in this weather!”

“That’s my business!”

“No, it isn’t—it’s mine.” She touched up Methusalem and turned his eager nose homewards.

Will ran round with the turning animal.

“Give me my trunk!” He was white with determination.

“And don’t you call that an order?” She cracked her great whip.

He sprang to the tail-board, hanging on by one arm, and clutched at the trunk with the other, dragging it out. But he had forgotten to reckon with the faithful guardian. Nip, excited as at a rabbit, sprang from the basket in which he had been resting his four weary limbs and growled ominously, and as the burglarious arm did not draw back, the terrier—O almost human ingratitude!—sprang at it and made his beautiful white teeth meet in its fleshy middle.

“You little beast!” Alarmed more for his finery than his flesh, he snatched back the elegant London sleeve and dropped off the cart, which soon disappeared down a grim and lonely lane.