Although the girls had talked so late of Aunt Anna’s story and the strange thought they had concerning it, they were up early next morning and still discussing the matter busily as they prepared breakfast.

“The question is,” said Nancy, plying her egg-beater with vigor, “shall we tell Aunt Anna what we think?”

“If we should be mistaken, and John Herrick should turn out to be, oh, just anybody, she would be so disappointed. Perhaps we had better wait.”

They had hardly finished breakfast when there was a knock at the door, followed by Dr. Minturn’s tall presence on the threshold. He inspected his patient and announced a very great improvement, and then said he must go on at once, since he hoped to visit the town and start back over the mountain that same day. Beatrice walked down with him through the pines, for he had tied his horse at the gate.

“Your aunt seems less worried and far more cheerful than before,” he said.

“Yes,” assented Beatrice, “I think it is because she has told us at last why she came.” She went on to give the substance of Aunt Anna’s story.

“I surmised it was something like that,” he observed when he had heard her to the end, “and I have been thinking about it ever since. I don’t know any man in this neighborhood by the name of Deems but—I believe he is not so far away after all.”

Beatrice looked at him steadily.

“I believe that too,” she said.

Dr. Minturn stopped, for they had reached the bars, but he made no move to mount his horse.

“I’m going to give you some advice that isn’t medical,” he began. “I think more of John Herrick than of any other man in the world, barring my own son, perhaps, and I love Hester as though she were mine. And you three here, your aunt and your sister and you, I have come to think of you all as better friends than I had ever thought to make again. Your aunt—why, she has more pluck in one inch of that little sick body of hers than I have in my whole big self, and her girls aren’t far behind her. I’d like to see her have what she wants, I’d like to see you all happy.”

He drew a long breath and spoke lower.

“Whatever you think is or isn’t so,” he warned, “don’t—press anybody too hard, don’t push some one by letting him know too quickly that you have guessed who he is. Your aunt is eager and overwrought; who wouldn’t be, after ten years of anxiety and sorrow? She and you might be in too much of a hurry and ruin everything. John thinks he is safe under his assumed name and with your aunt too ill to be about. He knows who you are and perhaps why you have come, but he can’t yet make up his mind to conquer his stubborn pride. Give him time, that is all I say, give him time. He rode away into the hills the first day he saw you, but he must have thought things out up there in the mountains, for he came back again. But he can’t come all the way yet.”

“Do you think he ever will?” Beatrice asked anxiously.

“Yes, I think he will. Does your aunt have any suspicion of who he is?”

“I am sure she hasn’t,” Beatrice declared. “She thinks of him as Hester’s father, some one too old to be her brother. No, she doesn’t dream it.”

“Then don’t tell her and don’t tell him,” he urged. “Wait until John is ready to tell her himself. You must go gently with a man who has been hurt to his very soul.”

Beatrice held out her brown hand and the doctor shook it solemnly. She watched him ride away; then returned to the house to saddle Buck and set off presently up the mountain. Her mind was full of new, excited hopes that seemed to dance to the music of Buck’s flying feet.

Nancy, meanwhile, was not thinking so much of their new problem. She had the faculty of being completely absorbed in the object in hand and to-day that object was a cake. Christina had given her a Scandinavian recipe, dwelling so much on the unusual deliciousness of the result that Nancy could scarcely wait to try it. With the greatest of care she mixed and measured and weighed and stirred.

“It is rather a long cake,” she reflected after she had spent an hour combining the ingredients, but she felt certain that the completed dish would amply repay her toil.

She had just got it into the oven when a knock sounded on the kitchen door to announce the boy whom Hester had sent with a basket of eggs.

“Thank you, Olaf,” she said as he set them down; then flushed since she had not meant to speak his name. The color flooded his face also. “I beg your pardon,” she added quickly. “We have been guessing who you were, but we didn’t mean to pry into any secrets.”

“It does not matter,” he assured her. “My mother and John Herrick made me promise that I would not go to the village while things were so upset, since he says there is no use in stirring up bad feeling again. Your sister’s letter caught me in San Francisco, just as I was to sail; but I couldn’t help coming home, once I knew that my mother really wanted to see me. But I don’t like this hiding away, and I only agreed to it because I would do anything John Herrick says.”

Old Tim came in to put away his tools and to sit down upon the doorstep for a moment to rest.

“I can’t think of another thing to do to this cabin,” he confessed. “I have to own that it is time for me to go home.”

He was just getting up to take his leave when a step was heard on the path and Dabney Mills came around the corner of the house, smiling and quite unabashed by any memories of his departure some days before.

“I heard voices,” he said, “so I just thought I wouldn’t disturb any one by knocking at the front door and would——”

“Would see if you couldn’t overhear something,” Tim cut him short. “Well, we’re not speaking of anything you shouldn’t hear, so our talk wouldn’t interest you.”

He walked away leaving the intruding youth looking after him in speechless indignation. Nancy turned to the stove to look at her cake.

“I don’t know this gentleman,” she heard Dabney say, staring at Olaf, and she heard Tim reply over his shoulder, “Nor do you need to know him, so far as I can see.”

“I heard you talk of going berrying the other day, Miss Nancy,” Olaf said, coming to the door and quite disregarding the inquisitive reporter. “This is the best sort of a day for it, and I can show you just where to go. Your sister is coming up the hill, so your aunt won’t be left alone. Wouldn’t you like to come?”

“I would indeed! Will you excuse us?” she added politely to Dabney Mills, to which he gave a gruff assent and stalked out of sight around the corner of the house. She felt anxious to escape from his questions, and was sure that, in the hands of the determined Beatrice, he could find out very little. She fetched her hat and her basket and set off gaily, since to look for berries had been a cherished project for some days.

“If I could just square off and hit him,” Olaf said regretfully looking back for a final glare at Dabney, “that might settle him once for all.”

“No,” Nancy returned wisely, “it would only begin a lot of trouble that would involve more people than yourself.”

“So John Herrick says,” the boy agreed with a sigh, “though it still seems............