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When Dick and Vera Holmes arrived with Waring in the car on the following afternoon, they discovered Ann, enveloped in a large apron, busy in the kitchen. Mrs. Pratt being no better in the morning, she had telephoned to Dr. Spencer. He pronounced the cook to be suffering from a mild attack of influenza, and ordered her to remain in bed. Ann and Emily between them had managed the housework, and now Ann, a trifle flustered and a good deal flushed, was wrestling with the dinner. She had not been free for a moment all day to run along to the cottage; but she had sent a message by Dan to say that she would try to come down as soon as she was at liberty to leave the homestead. She made some tea, and took it out to the hot and dusty travelers who were seated on the veranda. In a second she realized that the barometer was not “set fair” as far as Vera and Waring were concerned. Holmes, too, looked worried and unhappy. Surely something more than the mere fact of the team’s having done badly at the tournament was at the root of this general depression. “A cheerful trio!” thought Ann. And with Mrs. Pratt ill in bed, it was a cheerful outlook for the governess, whe seemed to have shouldered the responsibilities of the household.