Vicious old watchdog and they four small kittens.

Melanie's soft voice, tinged with indignation, went on and on as

she told of the recent outburst of temperament on the part of the

Lady Harpists. Unable to agree with the Gentlemen's Glee Club as

to the program for their next recital, the ladies had waited on

Melanie that afternoon and announced their intention of withdrawing

completely from the Musical Circle. It had taken all of Melanie's

diplomacy to persuade them to defer their decision.

Scarlett, overwrought, could have screamed: "Oh, damn the Lady

Harpists!" She wanted to talk about her dreadful experience. She

was bursting to relate it in detail, so she could ease her own

fright by frightening the others. She wanted to tell how brave she

had been, just to assure herself by the sound of her own words that

she had, indeed, been brave. But every time she brought up the

subject, Melanie deftly steered the conversation into other and

Innocuous channels. This irritated Scarlett almost beyond

endurance. They were as mean as Frank.

How could they be so calm and placid when she had just escaped so

terrible a fate? They weren't even displaying common courtesy in

denying her the relief of talking about it.

The events of the afternoon had shaken her more than she cared to

admit, even to herself. Every time she thought of that malignant

black face peering at her from the shadows of the twilight forest

road, she fell to trembling. When she thought of the black hand at

her bosom and what would have happened if Big Sam had not appeared,

she bent her head lower and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. The

longer she sat silent in the peaceful room, trying to sew,

listening to Melanie's voice, the tighter her nerves stretched.

She felt that at any moment she would actually hear them break with

the same pinging sound a banjo string makes when it snaps.

Archie's whittling annoyed her and she frowned at him. Suddenly it

seemed odd that he should be sitting there occupying himself with a

piece of wood. Usually he lay flat on the sofa, during the

evenings when he was on guard, and slept and snored so violently

that his long beard leaped into the air with each rumbling breath.

It was odder still that neither Melanie nor India hinted to him

that he should spread a paper on the floor to catch his litter of

shavings. He had already made a perfect mess on the hearth rug but

they did not seem to have noticed it.

While she watched him, Archie turned suddenly toward the fire and

spat a stream of tobacco juice on it with such vehemence that

India, Melanie and Pitty leaped as though a bomb had exploded.

"NEED you expectorate so loudly?" cried India in a voice that

cracked with nervous annoyance. Scarlett looked at her in surprise

for India was always so self-contained.

Archie gave her look for look.

"I reckon I do," he answered coldly and spat again. Melanie gave a

little frowning glance at India.

"I was always so glad dear Papa didn't chew," began Pitty, and

Melanie, her frown creasing deeper, swung on her and spoke sharper

words than Scarlett had ever heard her speak.

"Oh, do hush, Auntie! You're so tactless."

"Oh, dear!" Pitty dropped her sewing in her lap and her mouth

pressed up in hurt. "I declare, I don't know what ails you all

tonight. You and India are just as jumpy and cross as two old

sticks."

No one answered her. Melanie did not even apologize for her

crossness but went back to her sewing with small violence.

"You're taking stitches an inch long," declared Pitty with some

satisfaction. "You'll have to take every one of them out. What's

the matter with you?"

But Melanie still did not answer.

Was there anything the matter with them, Scarlett wondered? Had

she been too absorbed with her own fears to notice? Yes, despite

Melanie's attempts to make the evening appear like any one of fifty

they had all spent together, there was a difference due to their

alarm and shock at what had happened that afternoon. Scarlett

stole glances at her companions and intercepted a look from India.

It discomforted her because it was a long, measuring glance that

carried in its cold depths something stronger than hate, something

more insulting than contempt.

"As though she thought I was to blame for what happened," Scarlett

thought indignantly.

India turned from her to Archie and, all annoyance at him gone from

her face, gave him a look of veiled anxious inquiry. But he did

not meet her eyes. He did however look at Scarlett, staring at her

in the same cold hard way India had done.

Silence fell dully in the room as Melanie did not take up the

conversation again and, in the silence, Scarlett heard the rising

wind outside. It suddenly began to be a most unpleasant evening.

Now she began to feel the tension in the air and she wondered if it

had been present all during the evening--and she too upset to

notice it. About Archie's face there was an alert waiting look and

his tufted, hairy old ears seemed pricked up like a lynx's. There

was a severely repressed uneasiness about Melanie and India that

made them raise their heads from their sewing at each sound of

hooves in the road, at each groan of bare branches under the

wailing wind, at each scuffing sound of dry leaves tumbling across

the lawn. They started at each soft snap of burning logs on the

hearth as if they were stealthy footsteps.

Something was wrong and Scarlett wondered what it was. Something

was afoot and she did not know about it. A glance at Aunt Pitty's

plump guileless face, screwed up in a pout, told her that the old

lady was as ignorant as she. But Archie and Melanie and India

knew. In the silence she could almost feel the thoughts of India

and Melanie whirling as madly as squirrels in a cage. They knew

something, were waiting for something, despite their efforts to

make things appear as usual. And their inner unease communicated