the first day and show you how it's worked. You could have the time
of your life in this thing, and give yourself a fine vacation. It
would give your brother a good surprise, too. Why not?"

I don't know whether it was the neatness of his absurd little van,
or the madness of the whole proposition, or just the desire to have
an adventure of my own and play a trick on Andrew, but anyway, some
extraordinary impulse seized me and I roared with laughter.

"Right!" I said. "I'll do it."

I, Helen McGill, in the thirty-ninth year of my age!



CHAPTER THREE


"Well," I thought, "if I'm in for an adventure I may as well be spry
about it. Andrew'll be home by half-past twelve and if I'm going to
give him the slip I'd better get a start. I suppose he'll think I'm
crazy! He'll follow me, I guess. Well, he just shan't catch me,
that's all!" A kind of anger came over me to think that I'd been
living on that farm for nearly fifteen years--yes, sir, ever since
I was twenty-five--and hardly ever been away except for that trip
to Boston once a year to go shopping with cousin Edie. I'm a
home-keeping soul, I guess, and I love my kitchen and my preserve
cupboard and my linen closet as well as grandmother ever did, but
something in that blue October air and that crazy little red-bearded
man just tickled me.