“Certainly,” said Nancy Ellen, “and my pink sun-bonnet.  I think maybe the bonnet started it.”

Kate sat down limply on the first chair and studied the toes of her shoes.  At last she roused and looked at Nancy Ellen, waiting in smiling complaisance as she returned the picture to her end of the bureau.

“Well, why don’t you go ahead?” cried Kate in a thick, rasping voice.  “Empty yourself!  Who is he?  Where did he come from?  Why was he in our blackberry patch?  Has he really been to see you, and is he courting you in earnest? —­ But of course he is!  There’s the lilac bush, the lawn-mower, the house to be painted, and a humdinger dress.  Is he a millionaire?  For Heaven’s sake tell me —­”

“Give me some chance!  I did meet him in the blackberry patch.  He’s a nephew of Henry Lang and his name is Robert Gray.  He has just finished a medical course and he came here to rest and look at Hartley for a location, because Lang thinks it would be such a good one.  And since we met he has decided to take an office in Hartley, and he has money to furnish it, and to buy and furnish a nice house.”

“Great Jehoshaphat!” cried Kate.  “And I bet he’s got wings, too!  I do have the rottenest luck!”

“You act for all the world as if it were a foregone conclusion that if you had been here, you’d have won him!”

Nancy Ellen glanced in the mirror and smiled, while Kate saw the smile.  She picked up her comb and drew herself to full height.

“If anything ever was a ‘foregone conclusion,’” she said, “it is a ‘foregone conclusion’ that if I had been here, I’d have picked the blackberries, and so I’d have had the first chance at him, at least.”

“Much good it would have done you!” cried Nancy Ellen.  “Wait until he comes, and you see him!”

“You may do your mushing in private,” said Kate.  “I don’t need a demonstration to convince me.  He looks from the picture like a man who would be as soft as a frosted pawpaw.”

Nancy Ellen’s face flamed crimson.  “You hateful spite-cat!” she cried.

Then she picked up the picture and laid it face down in her drawer, while two big tears ran down her cheeks.  Kate saw those also.  Instantly she relented.

“You big silly goose!” she said.  “Can’t you tell when any one is teasing?  I think I never saw a finer face than the one in that picture.  I’m jealous because I never left home a day before in all my life, and the minute I do, here you go and have such luck.  Are you really sure of him, Nancy Ellen?”

“Well, he asked Father and Mother, and I’ve been to visit his folks, and he told them; and I’ve been with him to Hartley hunting a house; and I’m not to teach this winter, so I can have all my time to make my clothes and bedding.  Father likes him fine, so he is going to give me money to get all I need.  He offered to, himself.”

Kate finished her braid, pulled the combings from the comb and slowly wrapped the end of her hair as she digested these convincing facts.  She swung the heavy braid around her head, placed a few pins, then crossed to her sister and laid a shaking hand on her shoulder.  Her face was working strongly.