with black-eyed
Susans from the fields and hollyhocks from an old self-seeded colony at
Opal Farm, and every available vase, bowl, and pitcher had something in
it. How I laboured! I washed jars, sorted colours, and freshened still
passable arrangements of the day before, and all the while I felt sure
that Maria was watching me, with an amused twinkle in the tail of her
eye!

One day, the middle of last week, the temperature dropped suddenly, and
we fled from camp to the house for twenty-four hours, lighted the logs
in the hall, and actually settled down to a serious game of whist in the
evening, Maria Maxwell, _The Man_, Bart, and I. Yes, I know how you
detest the game, but I--though I am not exactly amused by it--rather
like it, for it gives occupation at once for the hands and thoughts and
a cover for studying the faces and moods of friends without the reproach
of staring.

By the way, _The Man_ has hired half the house from Amos Opie--it was
divided several years ago--and established helter-skelter bachelor
quarters at Opal Farm. Bart has told him, over and over again, how
welcome he is to stay here, under any and all conditions, while he works
in the vicinity, but he says that he needs a lot of room for his traps,
muddy boots, etc., while Opie, a curious Jack-at-all-trades, gives him
his breakfast. I'm wondering if _The Man_ felt that he was intruding
upon Maria by staying here, or if she has any Mrs. Grundy ideas and was
humpy to him, or even suggested that he would better move up the road.
She is quite capable of it!

However, he seems glad enough to drop in to dinner of an evening now,
and the two are so delightfully cordial and unembarrassed in their talk,
neither yielding a jot to the other, in the resolute spinster and
bachelor fashion, that I must conclude that his going was probably a
natural happening.

This evening, while Maria and I were waiting together for the men to
finish toying with their coffee cups and match-boxes and emerge
refreshed from the delightful indolence of the after-dinner smoke, the
odour of the flowers--intensified both by dampness and the
woodsmoke--was very manifest.

"How do you like your employment?" asked Maria.

"I like the decorative and inventive part of it," I said, thinking into
the fire, "but I believe"--and here I hesitated as a chain of peculiar
green flame curled about the log and held my attention. "That it is
quite as possible to overdo the house decoration with