ith him, and when the Colonel
wished he talked house. Besides himself and his paint Lapham had not
many other topics; and if he had a choice between the mare and the
edifice on the water side of Beacon Street, it was just now the latter.
Sometimes, in driving in or out, he stopped at the house, and made
Corey his guest there, if he might not at Nantasket; and one day it
happened that the young man met Irene there again. She had come up
with her mother alone, and they were in the house, interviewing the
carpenter as before, when the Colonel jumped out of his buggy and cast
anchor at the pavement. More exactly, Mrs. Lapham was interviewing the
carpenter, and Irene was sitting in the bow-window on a trestle, and
looking out at the driving. She saw him come up with her father, and
bowed and blushed. Her father went on up-stairs to find her mother,
and Corey pulled up another trestle which he found in the back part of
the room. The first floorings had been laid throughout the house, and
the partitions had been lathed so that one could realise the shape of
the interior.

"I suppose you will sit at this window a good deal," said the young man.

"Yes, I think it will be very nice. There's so much more going on than
there is in the Square."

"It must be very interesting to you to see the house grow."

"It is. Only it doesn't seem to grow so fast as I expected."

"Why, I'm amazed at the progress your carpenter has made every time I
come."

The girl looked down, and then lifting her eyes she said, with a sort
of timorous appeal--

"I've been reading that book since you were down at Nantasket."

"Book?" repeated Corey, while she reddened with disappointment. "Oh
yes. Middlemarch. Did you like it?"

"I haven't got through with it yet. Pen has finished it."

"What does she think of it?"

"Oh, I think she likes it very well. I haven't heard her talk about it
much. Do you like it?"

"Yes; I liked it immensely. But it's several years since I read it."

"I didn't know it was so old. It's just got into the Seaside Library,"
she urged, with a little sense of injury in her tone.

"Oh, it hasn't been out such a very great while," said Corey politely.
"It came a little before DANIEL DERONDA."

The girl was again silent. She followed the curl of a shaving on the
floor with the point of her parasol.

"Do you like that Rosamond Vincy?" she asked, without looking up.

Corey smiled in his kind way.

"I didn'