Anne smothered a little sigh.  She loved Diana dearly and they had always been good comrades.  But she had long ago learned that when she wandered into the realm of fancy she must go alone.  The way to it was by an enchanted path where not even her dearest might follow her.

A thunder-shower came up while the girls were at Carmody; it did not last long, however, and the drive home, through lanes where the raindrops sparkled on the boughs and little leafy valleys where the drenched ferns gave out spicy odors, was delightful.  But just as they turned into the Cuthbert lane Anne saw something that spoiled the beauty of the landscape for her.

Before them on the right extended Mr. Harrison’s broad, gray-green field of late oats, wet and luxuriant; and there, standing squarely in the middle of it, up to her sleek sides in the lush growth, and blinking at them calmly over the intervening tassels, was a Jersey cow!

Anne dropped the reins and stood up with a tightening of the lips that boded no good to the predatory quadruped.  Not a word said she, but she climbed nimbly down over the wheels, and whisked across the fence before Diana understood what had happened.

“Anne, come back,” shrieked the latter, as soon as she found her voice.  “You’ll ruin your dress in that wet grain . . . ruin it.  She doesn’t hear me!  Well, she’ll never get that cow out by herself.  I must go and help her, of course.”

Anne was charging through the grain like a mad thing.  Diana hopped briskly down, tied the horse securely to a post, turned the skirt of her pretty gingham dress over her shoulders, mounted the fence, and started in pursuit of her frantic friend.  She could run faster than Anne, who was hampered by her clinging and drenched skirt, and soon overtook her.  Behind them they left a trail that would break Mr. Harrison’s heart when he should see it.

“Anne, for mercy’s sake, stop,” panted poor Diana.  “I’m right out of breath and you are wet to the skin.”

“I must . . . get . . . that cow . . . out . . . before . . .  Mr. Harrison . . . sees her,” gasped Anne.  “I don’t . . . care . . . if I’m . . . drowned . . . if we . . . can . . . only . . . do that.”

But the Jersey cow appeared to see no good reason for being hustled out of her luscious browsing ground.  No sooner had the two breathless girls got near her than she turned and bolted squarely for the opposite corner of the field.

“Head her off,” screamed Anne.  “Run, Diana, run.”

Diana did run.  Anne tried to, and the wicked Jersey went around the field as if she were possessed.  Privately, Diana thought she was.  It was fully ten minutes before they headed her off and drove her through the corner gap into the Cuthbert lane.

There is no denying that Anne was in anything but an angelic temper at that precise moment.  Nor did it soothe her in the least to behold a buggy halted just outside the lane, wherein sat Mr. Shearer of Carmody and his son, both of whom wore a broad smile.