For some distance the ladies went forward without saying a word. A spell of utter silence had fallen upon the party. Then Mrs. Wright spoke.

"Statia."

"Yes."

"Do you remember what we studied about gravity?"

"Why, certainly. Every certain number of feet a thing falls it goes twice as fast."

"Well, I have made a discovery just as good as Sir Isaac Newton's.

Every foot you carry a rock it gets twice as heavy."

Some one among them dropped her burden; instantly they all let go. The boulders struck the road with almost as simultaneous a thump as when the drill-sergeant calls out "Ground arms."

"Oh! I 'm nearly dead," said Mrs. Norton.

"So 'm I," gasped Mrs. Dix, sinking down on the roadside gra.s.s.

"O-h-h-h!" gasped Mrs. Plympton.

The next minute or two was devoted to breathing.

"Why did n't you _say_ you were nearly dead?" demanded Mrs. Harmon, when she had somewhat recovered.

"Why did n't _you_ say something?" replied Mrs. Dix.

"Why did n't we all say something?" inquired Mrs. Norton. "I did n't know the rest of you were as tired as me."

Mrs. Wright, despite she was the smallest of the number, was evidently the hardiest; she had calmly turned her stone over and sat down upon it.

"It's a wonder you don't all blame it on me," she said philosophically.

"Well, whatever I learn about this stone I 'll never forget," remarked Mrs. Dix. "Never as long as I live. Let's take them back."

"Yes; but it's farther to go back than it is to keep on," said Mrs.

Harmon. "And we certainly can't leave them here. We are responsible for them."

A very evident state of affairs. Being begun it had to be done.

"Come on, stone, we're going," said Mrs. Wright, taking hers up again.

The others followed. Again the rock-laden ladies went manfully onward.

When next they reached the limit of endurance, Chase's big red gate was so near that they hung on with final determination, and when they were almost to it they rushed forward to get inside the goal before the rocks fell. They all succeeded except Mrs. Plympton, who lost hers in the middle of the road and then finished its journey by rolling it.

"I was never so glad in my life before that I am not a horse," she said.

Virginia Chase had come down the path to shut the gate, which some one among the earlier arrivals had not properly fastened, and she was the bearer of bad news. The Professor, after all, would not be able to be present. He had one of his sick headaches again.

"And who else do you think is sick?" added Virginia. "Aberdeen Boy. I wish Jonas Hicks was back, because Uncle Israel does not know very much, really, about stock. I am so worried. He held his head out so funny, I thought maybe it was something the matter with the ring in his nose. But it wasn't. He is just sick."

"I am su-u-u-ure," said Grandma Plympton, "that if Jonas Hicks were back he could give him something that would relieve him."

When the specimen-hunters had recovered from their labors they accompanied Virginia up the driveway, explaining, as they went, the whole case of the abducted rockery. In the Chase's big sitting-room the earlier contingent was drawn together in conversation as close as chairs would permit, and as the belated ones entered they were greeted with exclamations in which there was an extra touch of the joy of life, it being in the very nature of gossip to seek new openings and exploit itself in mystery and surprise.

"Hurry up, Statia; get your things off and come here---- Wait, Mrs.

Osgood; don't tell anymore till Kitty is here---- Sh-h-h-h; be careful what you say before Grandma Plympton."

The newcomers, returning from the bedroom divested of their wraps, began at once to relate their own experiences in geology, but they had no more than stated the bare facts when they became aware that there was a more absorbing topic in the air. Somebody had told Mrs. Osgood's hired man, who had told his wife, who told Mrs. Osgood--but for that matter there was no great secret about it.

"Have n't you heard a thing about it, Mrs. Plympton--re-e-eally?"

This was asked by one who had herself heard of it only a few minutes before.

"Why, no; what is it?"

"You tell it, Mrs. Osgood. You can tell it best."

Then followed the story. In the course of its travels it had not suffered any loss of detail; it had rather prospered. Each person to whom it had been intrusted had sent it on its way richer and better; it became longer and truer. And so Mrs. Osgood told it, ably a.s.sisted by those who had just heard it and kept seeing new phases of it. Finally the case was rested.

"What do you think of it, Mrs. Plympton? You live nearest to him."

"I must say that I am surprised. But then, I don't know whether a person ought to be surprised at anything like that."

"And to think of it!" said Mrs. Dix. "Away out there where n.o.body is likely to come along once in two weeks. What an idea!"

"Well," remarked Mrs. Harmon, who had been taking time, and might therefore be supposed to have given the matter her weightier consideration, "it is, in fact, just what one might expect. He has always been so steady and sober-minded. It is n't as if he had had a greater variety of interests and more social inclination and--wilder, you know. He was entirely devoted to his mother; and he has n't the resources and flexibility to make so complete a change easily, and naturally."

"He has been acting quite strangely since his mother died,"

interpolated Mrs. Dix. "He cooks and eats and sleeps out on that kitchen porch, and does n't seem to take any pleasure in being invited out, or spending an evening at other people's houses."

"That's it," said Mrs. Harmon. "In his position, and especially his _dis_position, a man is just ripe for the first adventuress that comes along. In considering such things we ought to make allowances."

"I suppose so," remarked Mrs. Norton. "But to think of it being _her_.

The low calculating thing!"

Grandma Plympton was out in the dining-room with Virginia sipping a gla.s.s of wine, and having admired an embroidered sideboard scarf, a recent work of Virginia's, she was now engaged in examining other things as they came forth from a lower drawer, which creations interested her so much that Virginia went still deeper into the family treasury and finally brought forth a sampler and counterpane which her own grandmother had wrought. The examination of these things, together with reminiscence of her own early achievements, kept Grandma Plympton so long that by the time she reached the sitting-room the absorbing topic had subsided from its first exclamatory stage and was being treated in a more allusive and general way. Grandma soon gathered from the allusions that Stephen Brown had at last met the lady of his choice.

"Indeed!" she exclaimed. "Now I am sure he will settle down and make an excellent husband. Not that there was anything bad about him, not at all; but he was rather wild when he was a boy, and gave his mother a great deal of worriment--especially, I mean, when he took his cattle up into the Territory. And in those days she could hardly keep him from joining the Rangers. But now he is older and more sensible and has had responsibilities; and I am su-u-u-ure it will be a fine match for any young lady."

It is hardly in human nature to shatter such illusions. Thereafter, the subject of the evening was more guardedly treated, pending her departure. Grandma Plympton, valiant as she was in the social cause, could seldom stay up for more than the first few numbers of a dance, and she could never, of late, remain to the end of an evening party.

Before a great while she signified her readiness to go, and after her usual courtly leave-taking she went away on the arm of her daughter-in-law.

"Do you know," said Mrs. Dix, "I hardly felt like saying anything before her. She is so old and innocent."

"Is n't she!" said Mrs. Osgood.

Virginia, much exercised over the health of Aberdeen Boy, had gone out to the barn to have a talk with Uncle Israel, who, with a peac.o.c.k fly-fan moving majestically back and forth, was sitting up with eighteen hundred pounds of sick bull. Aberdeen Boy, a recent importation, and one of the n.o.blest of those who were to refine the wild-eyed longhorns of Texas, was having no more trouble with acclimation than his predecessors; he manifested his illness simply by lying down and looking more innocent than usual, and heaving big sighs which wrung Virginia's heart.