air. It is hot enough in summer all around here, and hot enough at
Daniel's, but the air is pure there."

There was no gossip about Daniel and Miss Sarah Dean. Gossip would have
seemed about as foolish concerning him and a dry blade of field-grass.
Sarah Dean looked like that. She wore rusty black gowns, and her
gray-blond hair was swept curtainwise over her ears on either side
of her very thin, mildly severe wedge of a face. Sarah was a notable
housekeeper and a good cook. She could make an endless variety of cakes
and puddings and pies, and her biscuits were marvels. Daniel had long
catered for himself, and a rasher of bacon, with an egg, suited him much
better for supper than hot biscuits, preserves, and five kinds of cake.
Still, he did not complain, and did not understand that Sarah's fare was
not suitable for the child, until Dr. Trumbull told him so.

"Don't you let that child live on that kind of food if you want her to
live at all," said Dr. Trumbull. "Lord! what are the women made of, and
the men they feed, for that matter? Why, Daniel, there are many people
in this place, and hard-working people, too, who eat a quantity of food,
yet don't get enough nourishment for a litter of kittens."

"What shall I do?" asked Daniel in a puzzled way.

"Do? You can cook a beefsteak yourself, can't you? Sarah Dean would fry
one as hard as soleleather."

"Yes, I can cook a beefsteak real nice," said Daniel.

"Do it, then; and cook some chops, too, and plenty of eggs."

"I don't exactly hanker after quite so much sweet stuff," said Daniel.
"I wonder if Sarah's feelings will be hurt."

"It is much better for feelings to be hurt than stomachs," declared Dr.
Trumbull, "but Sarah's feelings will not be hurt. I know her. She is
a wiry woman. Give her a knock and she springs back into place. Don't
worry about her, Daniel."

When Daniel went home that night he carried a juicy steak, and he cooked
it, and he and little Dan'l had a square meal. Sarah refused the steak
with a slight air of hauteur, but she behaved very well. When she
set away her untasted layer-cakes and pies and cookies, she eyed them
somewhat anxiously. Her standard of values seemed toppling before her
mental vision. "They will starve to death if they live on such victuals
as beefsteak, instead of good nourishing hot biscuits and cake," she
thought. After the supper dishes were cleared away she went into the
sitting-room where Daniel Wise sat beside a window,