“We were there last Sunday,” Shirley said.  “I’m afraid we were rather late; it’s a pretty old church, isn’t it?  I suppose you live in that square white house next to it?”

“Yes,” Pauline answered.  “Father came to Winton just after he was married, so we girls have never lived anywhere else nor been anywhere else—­that counted.  Any really big city, I mean.  We’re dreadfully tired of Winton—­Hilary, especially.”

“It’s a mighty pretty place.”

“I suppose so.”  Pauline slapped old Fanny impatiently.  “Will you go on!”

Fanny was making forward most reluctantly; the Boyd barn had been very much to her liking.  Now, as the three dogs made a swift rush at her leaping and barking around her, she gave a snort of disgust, quickening her pace involuntarily.

“Don’t call them off, please!” Pauline begged Shirley.  “She isn’t in the least scared, and it’s perfectly refreshing to find that she can move.”

“All the same, discipline must be maintained,” Shirley insisted; and at her command the dogs fell behind.

“Have you been here long?” Pauline asked.

“About two weeks.  We were going further up the lake—­just on a sketching trip,—­and we saw this house from the deck of the boat; it looked so delightful, and so deserted and lonely, that we came back from the next landing to see about it.  We took it at once and sent for a lot of traps from the studio at home, they aren’t here yet.”

Pauline looked her interest.  It seemed a very odd, attractive way of doing things, no long tiresome plannings of ways and means beforehand.  Suppose—­when Uncle Paul’s letter came—­they could set off in such fashion, with no definite point in view, and stop wherever they felt like it.

“I can’t think,” Shirley went on, “how such a charming old place came to be standing idle.”

“Isn’t it rather—­run down?”

“Not enough to matter—­really.  I want father to buy it, and do what is needed to it, without making it all new and snug looking.  The sunsets from that front lawn are gorgeous, don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” Pauline agreed, “I haven’t been over there in two years.  We used to have picnics near there.”

“I hope you will again, this summer, and invite father and me.  We adore picnics; we’ve had several since we came—­he and I and the dogs.  The dogs do love picnics so, too.”

Pauline had given up wanting to hurry Fanny; what a lot she would have to tell her mother when she got home.

She was sorry when a turn in the road brought them within sight of the old manor house.  “There’s father!” Shirley said, nodding to a figure coming towards them across a field.  The dogs were off to meet him directly, with shrill barks of pleasure.

“May I get down here, please?” Shirley asked.  “Thank you very much for the lift; and I am so glad to have met you and your sister, Miss Shaw.  You’ll both come and see me soon, won’t you?”