“Why, no, I guess not, thank you. How soon will Joyce be back?” “Why, I’m not just sure,” shifted Nannette uneasily. “Couldn’t I give her a message?”

“Well, you might tell her Martha Bryan called up to know if she would take her Sunday-school class next Sunday. I know it’s a little hard on her to ask her to do it just now when she’s been through trouble, but she isn’t one to sit down and eat her heart out when there’s work to be done, and I thought perhaps it would help her over a hard day to feel she was doing the Lord’s work. She and her Aunt Mary always were ones you could rely on to help. And I wouldn’t ask, only my daughter has been taken sick up at Watsonville, and she wants me. I do hate to go without seeing to my class, and I’m just sure Joyce’ll take it. But I’ve got to leave by three o’clock. Joyce ain’t going to be gone all day is she?”

“Oh, I think not,” said Nannette nonchalantly. What if Joyce should stay all day! How dreadful!

“Well, you ask her to call me just as soon as she gets in. I want to relieve my mind of that class.”

“I’ll tell her,” said Nannette ungraciously, “but she’s got a lot to do at home. I doubt if she can manage it.”

[45]“Oh, but she promised me six weeks ago she would if I had to go.”

[45]

“Well, I’ll tell her.” And Nannette hung up snappily. She didn’t exactly relish everybody in town expecting that Joyce would go right on doing what she always had done, as if her circumstances in life were just as they had been. It was time people began to understand that Joyce was a dependent, and as such was not at the beck and call of every old woman and Sunday-school class. She was tired and angry from loss of sleep last night, and it was high time Joyce came home and did her work. Of course she must be out there in the barn asleep somewhere. Probably she was waiting for somebody to come out and coax her in. Well, she would go out and find her. There was the harness closet and there was the hay loft. Probably Eugene didn’t look very far. She would find her and teach her her duty once for all, and there wouldn’t be much petting about it either.

Nannette marched out of the kitchen door with the air of a conquering hero and sailed into the garage, the very crackle of her step on the gravel foretelling what was in store for any luckless miscreant who might be found lurking in the hay.

But though she searched 

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