Part 16 (1/2)

She turned from the window to hear the message Kingdon had just received from the telegraph office in town. An old-time friend had asked him to join a party of men at a ranch a hundred miles distant. His wife urged him to follow his apparent inclination.

”It'll do you good, Louis, to see more of your kind again.”

”I wouldn't consider it if you didn't have such good company,” he said, with a whimsical smile in Pen's direction.

The following morning, Jo drove Mrs. Kingdon, Pen and the children to town to see Kingdon off. When his train had pulled out, they went to the postoffice and Francis was sent in for the mail.

”A letter for you, mother,” he said, running up to the car. ”It's Aunt Helen's writing.”

An anxious look came into Margaret Kingdon's eyes as she read.

”Doris is ill, and my sister wants me to come to her,” she explained to Pen. ”She is quite helpless in a sick room and Doris asks for me. There is a train east in an hour and you can send my luggage on to me. I'll return as soon as Doris is convalescent.”

”I will do all I can to help with the children,” promised Pen.

”I know you will. And Jo can stop at Mrs. Merlin's and take her to Top Hill. She always presides in my absence. She is a good housekeeper and is never disagreeable or officious.”

”Jo says Mrs. Merlin s.h.i.+nnies on her own side,” added Billy.

”Jo is right,” replied his mother.

At the station Mrs. Kingdon drew Pen aside.

”You must tell Kurt, you know,” she cautioned.

Pen looked plaintive, but the conductor's ”all aboard” call ended the conversation.

”We'll say our prayers and our lessons like mother told us,” said Francis as they motored home, ”but of course we can't be too good all the time. I am going to ride a horse, a real horse--not a pony.”

”I am going to sit up late nights,” declared Billy.

”And I shall wear your clothes and play I am a boy,” Betty informed him.

”Well,” thought Pen, ”after all these Declarations of Independence, I feel I must get in the forbidden fruit game, too. I know what I'll do. I'll not tell Kurt--not right away, at least.”

Half way to the ranch they stopped at Mrs. Merlin's cottage.

”She certainly looks the part of propriety to perfection,” thought Pen, as she surveyed the tall, angular, spectacled woman, who came to the car, and whose grim features relaxed slightly after a keen glance at the young girl.

”I'll have four children this time instead of three,” she said.

”What would she think,” reflected Pen, ”if Kind Kurt should tell her what kind of a child the fourth one is!”

Back at Top Hill, Pen packed the luggage to be expressed to Mrs. Kingdon, and Jo made another trip to town, planning to go from there to Westcott's.

At dinner time Kurt arrived, and Pen chuckled as she easily read his dismay at the situation.

”He's foreseeing and dreading all sorts of terrible things I may do or am capable of doing. Just because he is looking for trouble, I have no desire to give it. I'll play a new role and show him what a tame, good little girl I can be; maybe I'll like being one and it'll turn out to be a real reform. It would be awfully odd if he found his pedalled ideal in The Thief!”

She was conscious of his searching eyes upon her. She looked demurely down. In a soft, subdued voice she read little stories to the children, and when their bedtime hour came, she went upstairs with them.

Later she joined him on the library veranda where he was smoking his pipe, for it was one of the few nights when it was warm enough for such indulgence.