"Halt! who goes there?" demanded Colesworth, in a sepulchral voice.
"Advance, friend, and give the countersign," commanded the young man.
"Chickens!" gasped 'Phemie, convulsed with laughter.
"You'd have had fried eggs, maybe, for all your interest in the incubator," said Harris, with a chuckle. "So 'Chickens' is no longer the password."
"Oh, they didn't get too hot?" pleaded the girl, in despair.
"Nope. This is the second time I've been out. To tell you the truth," said Harris, laughing, "I think the incubator is all right and will work like a charm; but I understand they're a good deal like ships--likely to develop some crotchet at almost any time."
"But it's good of you to take the trouble to look at it for us."
"Sure it is!" he laughed. "But that's what I'm on earth for--to do good--didn't you know that, Miss 'Phemie?"
She told her sister about Harris Colesworth's kindness in the morning. But Lyddy took it the other way about.
"I declare! he can't keep his fingers out of our pie at any stage of the game; can he?" she snapped.
"Oh--don't talk to me!" returned her older sister, who seemed to be rather snappish this morning. "That young man is getting on my nerves."
It was Sunday and the Colesworths had engaged a two-seated carriage in town to take Mrs. Castle and Mr. Bray with them to church. There was a seat beside Mr. Somers, behind Old Molly, for one of the girls. The teacher plainly wanted to take Lyddy, but that young lady had not recovered from her ill-temper of the early morning.
"Lyd got out of bed on the wrong side this morning," said 'Phemie. However, she went with Mr. Somers in her sister's stead.
And Lyddy Bray was glad to be left alone. No one could honestly call Hillcrest Farm a lonesome place these days!
"I'm not sure that I wouldn't be glad to be alone here again, with just 'Phemie and father," the young girl told herself. "There is one drawback to keeping a boarding house--one has no privacy. In trying to make it homelike for the boarders, we lose all our own home life. Ah, dear, well! at least we are earning our support."
For Lyddy Bray kept her books carefully, and she had been engaged in this new business long enough to enable her to strike a balance. From her present boarders she was receiving thirty-one and a half dollars weekly. At least ten of it represented her profit.