one o'clock Jack, appearing at the door, immediately recognized the situation. Both Frank and Frieda appeared exhausted. Frieda announced that she would not come to lunch, but would prefer to lie down all the afternoon. As a matter of fact the possibility that her husband might make his appearance at Kent House was the real reason which kept Frieda in her own room, although offering the excuse of a headache.

Therefore, about four o'clock, when Professor Henry Tilford Russell finally did arrive, he was able to see only Lord and Lady Kent, his brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

Personally, Jack was uncertain how she should greet him. Of what actual unkindness he was guilty of to Frieda she was not yet certain. Nevertheless, the fact remaining that he had not made her little sister happy filled Lady Kent with resentment and dislike. Certainly, Professor Russell should have realized how much older he was than[68] Frieda and not expected her to conform to his dullness and routine.

[68]

As a matter of fact Jack also would have preferred not to have to come in contact with her sister's husband until she understood the situation between them more thoroughly. Yet, when Professor Russell was announced, it was she who was forced to go first into the drawing room.

There must have been a delay of about five minutes since she had waited that length of time for her husband, who chanced to have gone out to the stables to give an order. Then, fearing to appear intentionally rude, Jack approached their visitor alone.

He could not have heard her as she entered, for he was sitting in a large chair with his head resting in his hand and looked so exhausted, possibly from his trip, that Lady Kent forgot for the moment to be angry. When he aroused himself and later held out his hand, she took it at once, although a moment before she had not been sure whether she ought, because of her own loyalty to Frieda.

"Is Frieda well? If you only realized the relief to find she is safe here with you! At first I did not know where the child had gone,"[69] Professor Russell began so simply, that any human being would have been disarmed.

[69]

It will be remembered, that in the last volume of the "Ranch Girls At Home Again," Professor Russell is introduced to the Ranch girls by Ralph Merritt, who told them of the Professor's intense dislike for girls. At first 

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