“You are certainly very practical, Mrs Null, and very sensible, and very, very kind; and nothing could suit me better under the circumstances than the plan you propose.  But I am extremely anxious not to give offence to your aunt.  She has treated me with the utmost kindness and hospitality.”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself about that,” said Miss Annie, with a little laugh.  “I am getting to know her so well that I think I can manage an affair like this, very easily.  And now I must be off, or it will be too late for me to go to Howlett’s, this afternoon, and I am a very slow driver.  Are you sure there is nothing you want?  I shall go directly past the store, and can stop as well as not.”

“Thank you very much,” said Lawrence, “but I do not believe that Howlett’s possesses an article that I need.  One thing I will ask you to do for me before you go.  I want to write a letter, and I find that I am out of paper; therefore I shall be very much obliged to you, if you will let me have some, and some envelopes.”

“Why, certainly,” said Miss Annie, and she went into the house.

She looked over the stock of paper which her aunt kept in a desk in the dining-room, but she did not like it.  “I don’t believe he will want to write on such ordinary paper as this,” she said to herself.  Whereupon she went up-stairs and got some of her own paper and envelopes, which were much finer in material and more correct in style.  “I don’t like it a bit,” she thought, “to give this to him to write that letter on, but I suppose it’s bound to be written, anyway, so he might as well have the satisfaction of good paper.”

“You must excuse these little sheets,” she said, when she took it to him, “but you couldn’t expect anything else, in an Amazonian household like ours.  Cousin Junius has manly stationery, of course, but I suppose it is all locked up in that secretary in your room.”

“Oh, this will do very well indeed,” said Lawrence; “and I wish I could come out and help you into your vehicle,” regarding the spring wagon which now stood at the door, with Plez at the head of the solemn sorrel.

“Thank you,” said Miss Annie, “that is not at all necessary.”  And she tripped over to the spring wagon, and mounting into its altitudes without the least trouble in the world, she took up the reins.  With these firmly grasped in her little hands, which were stretched very far out, and held very wide apart, she gave the horse a great jerk and told him to “Get up!” As she moved off, Lawrence from his open door called out:  “Bon voyage” and in a full, clear voice she thanked him, but did not dare to look around, so intent was she upon her charioteering.

Slowly turning the horse toward the yard gate, which Plez stood holding open, her whole soul was absorbed in the act of guiding the equipage through the gateway.  Quickly glancing from side to side, and then at the horse’s back, which ought to occupy a medium position between the two gateposts, she safely steered the front wheels through the dangerous pass, although a grin of delight covered the face of Plez as he noticed that the hub of one of the hind wheels almost grazed a post.  Then the observant boy ran on to open the other gate, and with many jerks and clucks, Miss Annie induced the sorrel to break into a gentle trot.