The afternoon was well advanced.  Mrs. Harold, the captain and Dr. Llewellyn had reached the limit of their appetites and were now watching and listening to the merry chatter of the young people who sat sipping the cider—­they had long since passed beyond the drinking point—­and eating the black walnuts and hickory nuts which had been gathered upon the estate, for Severndale was famous for its cider and nuts.  The cider was made from a brand of apples which had been grown in the days of Peggy’s great-grandfather and carefully cultivated for years.  They ripened late, and needed a touch of frost to perfect them.  The ciderhouse and press stood just beyond the meadow in which the Severndale cows led a luxurious life of it, and the odor of the rich fruit invariably drew a line of them to the dividing fence, where they sniffed and peered longingly at “forbidden fruit.”  But if every dog, as we are told, has his day, certainly a cow may hope to have hers some time.  That it should have happened to be Wheedles’ day also was merely accidental.

As in most respectable communities there is almost invariably an individual or two whose conduct is open to criticism, so in Severndale’s eminently irreproachable herd of sleek kine there was one obstreperous creature and her offspring.  They were possessed to do the things their more well conducted sisters never thought of doing.  The cow had a strain of distinctly plebian blood which, transmitted to her calf, probably accounted for their eccentricities.  If ever a fence was broken through, if ever a brimming pail of milk was overturned, if a stable towel was chewed to ribbons, a feed bin rifled, it could invariably be traced to Betsy Brindle and her incorrigible daughter Sally Simple, and this afternoon they surpassed themselves.  As Peggy’s guests sat in that blissful state of mind and body resulting from being “serenely full, the epicure would say,” they were startled by an altogether rowdy, abandoned “Moo-oo-oo-oo,” echoed in a higher key, and over the lawn came two as disreputable-looking animals as one could picture, for Betsy Brindle and her daughter, a pretty little year-old heifer, were unquestionably, undeniably, hopelessly intoxicated.  Betsy was swaying and staggering from side to side, wagging her head foolishly and mooing in the most maudlin manner, while Sally, whose potations affected her quite differently, was cavorting madly thither and yonder, one moment almost standing upon her head, with hind legs and tail waving wildly in mid-air, the next with the order reversed and pawing frantically at the clouds.