“Why should that old person come in this very morning?” she thought.

But in an instant the front of the bonnet was raised toward Ralph, and upon the young face under it there was not a shadow of dissatisfaction.

“Of course I must go in and see her,” she said, and then, speaking as if Ralph were one on whom she had always been accustomed to rely for counsel, “do you think I need go upstairs and change my dress?  If this is good enough for you and Miriam, isn’t it good enough for Miss Panney?”

As Ralph gazed into the blue eyes that were raised to his, it was impossible for him to think of anything for which their owner was not good enough.  This impression upon him was so strong that he said, with blurting awkwardness, that she looked charming as she was, and needed not the slightest change.  The value of this impulsive remark was fully appreciated by Dora, but she gave no sign of it, and simply said that if he were suited, she was.

They were moving toward the house when Dora suddenly laid her hand upon his arm.

“You have forgotten the horse, Mr. Ralph,” she said.

The touch and the name by which she called him for the first time made the young man forget, for an instant, everything in the world, but the girl who had touched and spoken.

“Have you anything to tie her with?  Oh, yes, there is a chain on that post.”

As Ralph turned the horse toward the hitching-post, Dora ran before him, and stood ready with the chain in her hand.

“Oh, no,” she said, as he motioned to take it from her, “let me hook it on her bridle.  Don’t you want to let me help you at all?”

As side by side Dora and Ralph entered the drawing-room, Miss Panney declared in her soul that they looked like an engaged couple, coming to ask for her blessing.  And when Dora saluted her with a kiss, and, drawing up a stool, took a seat at her feet, the old lady gave her her blessing, though not audibly.

As Miss Panney was in a high good humor, she wanted everybody else to be so, and in a few minutes even the sedate Miriam was chatting freely and pleasantly.

“And so that graceless Phoebe has left you,” said the old lady; “to board the minister, indeed!  I will see that minister, and give him a text for a sermon.  But you cannot keep up this sort of thing, my young friends; not even with Dora’s help.”  And she stroked the soft hair of Miss Bannister, from which the sunbonnet had been removed.

“I will see Mike before I go, and send him for Molly Tooney.  Molly is a good enough woman, and if I send for her, she will come to you until you have suited yourselves with servants.  And now, my dear child, where did you find that gay dress?  Upstairs in some old trunk, I suppose.  Stand over there and let me look at you.  It is a good forty years since I have seen that gown.  Do you know to whom it used to belong?  But of course you do not.  It was Judith Pacewalk’s teaberry gown.”