“I think that’s a capital idea,” John said.  “Oh, you’d better take the big car with Pete.  It would be rather a long drive for you all by yourself in the little one.”

This was not the real reason, of course.  He wouldn’t want a chauffeur under foot while he was honeymooning about with Paula.

Owing to a late start and an errand which at the last moment Paula wanted done in Chicago, it was getting on toward four o’clock when Pete drove Mary up to the loading platform of the old apple house at Hickory Hill.  The farm Ford was standing there idling in a syncopated manner and apparently on the point of departure somewhere.  Where, was explained a moment later by the emergence of Sylvia Stannard in her conventional farm costume of shirt and breeches with a two-gallon jug in each hand.

“Oh,” she said, “then the big car can take Miss Wollaston over to Durham, can’t it?—­so she won’t have to ride in the Ford which she hates.  How do you do?  I’m awfully glad you’ve come.  We weren’t expecting you, were we?  Was anybody, I mean?”

Mary allowed herself a laugh at this young thing with her refreshing way of saying first whatever first came into her head and letting this serve as a greeting, said she was sure the big car and Pete were equal to taking her aunt to the four-miles-distant village.

“That’s all right then.  I won’t have to wait for her,” said Sylvia, letting down her jugs into the tonneau of the Ford.  “I’ll run straight along with this.  They must be simply perishing for it.  Isn’t it hot, though!”

Mary wanted to know who they were and what they were perishing for.

“Lemonade,” said Sylvia, “for the boys out in the hay field.  It’s perfectly gorgeous out there but hot enough to frizz your hair.”

“Where is the hay field?” Mary asked.  “Is it very far?”

“It’s just over in the northeast eighty,” said Sylvia, with a rather conscious parade of her mastery of bucolic vernacular.  “But you don’t want to walk.  It would be awfully jolly if you would come along with me.”

“Wait two minutes until I’ve said hello to Aunt Lucile and I will,” said Mary, and turned to go into the house.

“Don’t step on any of the piano,” Sylvia called after her.  “It’s spread all over the place.”

They had made a good many changes in the apple house since Mary had gone to Ravinia, but the thing that drew a little cry of surprise from her was this old square piano.  The case of it stood snugly in the corner of the west wall.  But the works were spread about the room in a manner which made Sylvia’s warning less far-fetched than it seemed.

The feeling that caught Mary at sight of it was more than just surprise.  Its dismantled condition brought to her a half-scared but wholly happy reassurance that Anthony March was really here.