“You don’t know how much it means to Constance and Janet to find two girls of their own sort so near,” declared Donald Ferry, bringing his cup to take it with Josephine close beside the doorway.  “I think they’ve been feeling a little dubious over finding us out here in a place which had neither lake, seashore, nor mountains to recommend it.”

“Perhaps they’re still feeling so,” suggested Josephine.  “There’s not much about tea in a shower to cheer their spirits.”

“Do they look as if they needed cheering?”

Josephine glanced from Janet, laughing whole-heartedly at something Max was apparently describing with great eloquence, to Constance Carew, leaning back in her chair and looking up at Jarvis, who stood beside her, with the smile which made her face a picture to study.

“It’s delightful for us, I’m sure, that they’ve come,” Josephine said warmly.

“You’ll find Janet up to the wildest schemes for sport you can devise.  And Constance, though she looks so stately, can unbend like a school-girl.  As for her voice—­you must hear her pretty soon.  Janet is anxious to touch her old piano again, and both are always obliging with their music.  They are equal to quite a concert between them.”

“So we’ve been hoping.  Sally has dusted the piano no less than five times to-day in anticipation.  You can’t think what a pleasure it is to Sally just to see that piano standing there.  It happens to be almost the precise duplicate of the one that was sold when her old home was broken up.”

“I’m glad.  I hope she uses it?”

“Not in a way that she would let me call using it.  She sits down and plays little bits—­mostly out of her head, I think.  She—­Why, what’s that?”

It was Bob, tearing by the front door and yelling as he ran: 

“Team running away in the south meadow—­man knocked down!”

In an instant three teacups clinked and clattered as they were set hastily down, and three male figures bolted out of the door, without apology further than three ejaculations of surprise and chagrin.  Mr. Rudd followed at a brisk walk.  As for the portion of the company remaining, they also put aside teacups and plates, and followed Sally to the living-room.

They ran in to the four windows of the long room, between two of which stood the piano.  Janet Ferry gave it a private nod and pat as she went by, whispering, “You dear old thing!  I’ll speak to you as soon as I can.”

They could see the runaway team, a plough jerking at their heels, dashing madly across the furrows, one of the horses apparently much wilder than the other.  They saw Jarvis, Ferry, and Max reach the rail fence at nearly the same moment, and go over it at a rate of speed which suggested danger to trousers-legs.  Bob could be discerned, racing frantically in the wake of the careering horses, and in the nearer distance Mr. Rudd could be heard shouting something wholly unintelligible.