Kate drew a deep breath.

“Isn’t life the most amusing thing?” she asked.  “I had almost forgotten my wings.  I guess we’d better take them, and fly straight home.”

She arose and called the office to learn about trains, and then began packing her trunk.  As she folded her dresses and stuffed them in rather carelessly she said:  “I don’t know why I got it into my head that I could go away and have a few days of a good time without something happening at home.”

“But you are not sure anything has happened at home.  This call may be for me,” said Nancy Ellen.

“It may, but this is July,” said Kate.  “I’ve been thinking hard and fast.  It’s probable I can put my finger on the spot.”

Nancy Ellen paused and standing erect she looked questioningly at Kate.

“The weak link in my chain at the present minute is Polly,” said Kate.  “I didn’t pay much attention at the time, because there wasn’t enough of it really to attract attention; but since I think, I can recall signs of growing discontent in Polly, lately.  She fussed about the work, and resented being left in the house while I went to the fields, and she had begun looking up the road to Peters’ so much that her head was slightly turned toward the north most of the time.  With me away —­ "

“What do you think?” demanded Nancy Ellen.

“Think very likely she has decided that she’ll sacrifice her chance for more schooling and to teach, for the sake of marrying a big, green country boy named Hank Peters,” said Kate.

“Thereby keeping in her own class,” suggested Nancy Ellen.

Kate laughed shortly.  “Exactly!” she said.  “I didn’t aspire to anything different for her from what she has had; but I wanted her to have more education, and wait until she was older.  Marriage is too hard work for a girl to begin at less than eighteen.  If it is Polly, and she has gone away with Hank Peters, they’ve no place to go but his home; and if ever she thought I worked her too hard, she’ll find out she has played most of her life, when she begins taking orders from Mrs. Amanda Peters.  You know her!  She never can keep a girl more than a week, and she’s always wanting one.  If Polly has tackled that job, God help her.”

“Cheer up!  We’re in that delightful state of uncertainty where Polly may be blacking the cook stove, like a dutiful daughter; while Robert has decided that he’d like a divorce,” said Nancy Ellen.

“Nancy Ellen, there’s nothing in that, so far as Robert is concerned.  He told me so the evening we came away,” said Kate.

Nancy Ellen banged down a trunk lid and said:  “Well, I am getting to the place where I don’t much care whether there is or there is not.”

“What a whopper!” laughed Kate.  “But cheer up.  This is my trouble.  I feel it in my bones.  Wish I knew for sure.  If she’s eloped, and it’s all over with, we might as well stay and finish our visit.  If she’s married, I can’t unmarry her, and I wouldn’t if I could.”