ly embrasured window, was Susan Brundon.

A slow tide of colour rose to her ordinarily pale cheeks, corresponding
with a formless gladness permeating his own being. She wore ruffled
lavender with a clear lace pelerine caught at her breast by a knot of
straw-coloured ribbon and sprig of rose geranium. "Mr. Penny," she said,
with a little gasp of surprise; but her gaze was unwavering, candid.

"Why not?" he replied lightly. "I have a small interest in Shadrach. You
are surprising--so far from that absorbing Academy."

"It's my eyes again," she explained. "I am obliged to rest. There is a
very good assistant at the school; and Mary sweetly thought the country
would do me good."

"It is really miraculous," Mary Jannan stated, entering from the
kitchen; "she'll almost never. Weren't we lucky?" She was a small woman
with smooth brown hair and an air of quiet capability. "And it's
splendid to see you," she continued to Jasper Penny. "Don't for a
minute think you'll get off before to-morrow, perhaps not then. Graham
is out, chop-chopping wood. Actually--the suave Graham." She indicated a
high row of pegs for Jasper Penny's furs. "Everything is terribly
primitive. Most of the furniture was so sound that we couldn't bring
ourselves to discard it all, however old-fashioned. Little by little."
Graham Jannan entered, a tall, thin young man with crisp, pale yellow
hair and a clean shaven, sanguine countenance with challenging light
blue eyes. He greeted the older man with a firm, cold hand clasp. "I
suppose you've come out to discover what I have learned about iron.
Well, I know now that a sow is not necessarily a lady, and that some
blooms have no bouquet. Good rum has, though, after sleighing."

Upon alternately burning his fingers and throat with a steaming glass of
St. Croix, Jasper Penny and Graham Jannan proceeded to the Furnace
where, in the cast house, they watched the preparations for a flow of
metal. The head founder, McQuatty, bearded to the eyes and swathed in a
hide apron, stood at the Ironmaster's side. "The charcoal you'd get's
not worth a bawbee," he complained; "soft stuff would hardly run lead.
And where they'd cut six thousand cords of wood will no longer show more
than four. Shadrach ought to put out twenty-eight tons of pig in a week;
and you see the statements."

"Stone coal," Jasper Penny replied; "and a hot blast." He turned to
describe the latter to Jannan. "It'll come," the founder agreed, "and
the qua