ed chap seems to have
made a great impression on you," he complained. "He probably has an
out-door job of some sort--his clothes showed it. Engineering, more than
likely. That was undoubtedly a book on dynamics or hydraulics, or
something of that sort. You can't expect a bank clerk to have a skin like
an Indian's--under electric light. Come on, shall we walk back to the
timber tract? That's what I want to look at. I suppose you won't object
to my cutting there? There must be a lot of stuff fit to sell, and, as I
told you, I need the money. When Sally gets out of the hospital, it will
be a long time before she's fit to work. Uncle Tim says typhoid
convalescents are pretty slow at getting back to the working stage. We'll
have to keep on hiring that Mary Ann Flinders. She polishes the stove
with the napkins, I think--they look it."

"Goodness! How poor Sally would feel if she knew!"

"She does know. I told her the last time I saw her--before she got these
funny notions in her head. To-day she thought I was an Episcopal bishop
come to marry her to the doctor--they got me out right away."

"Max! You must not tell Sally disturbing things about home. She will be
anxious enough when she's herself, without hearing about napkins and
things from you."

"I suppose so. But I've been so blue ever since she went I couldn't
keep in."

"Then keep out."

Max looked at her. Josephine's dark cheeks were pink, partly with
indignation, partly with the brisk progress over the slightly rising
grade of the cartpath through the fields toward the timber tract.

"Well, you _are_ sort of down on your friends to-day, aren't you? I'm an
idiot to think of cutting down the pine grove. I'm a milksop compared
with a red-headed Indian you never saw before. Now I'm a blunderbuss for
answering a simple question asked me by my sister. What do you think I
am, anyhow? Fit to cumber the earth?"

Josephine returned his gaze. She seemed not in the least awed by this
burst of wrath. She replied with spirit, not unmixed with good humour:

"I think you're peppery--as usual. Hasn't an old friend like me a right
to try to keep things straight? You ought to know better than to say one
word to Sally that will give her a minute's anxiety. Goodness knows
she's had enough of it, keeping house for you four people for three
whole years."

"Haven't we been taking care of her all that time?" demanded Max, with
rising colour of his own. "Haven't we all been working