his dressing table and thrust it into
his pocket that it might be out of sight. He had written it the night
before and the writing of it was going to cost him several things--a
prospective million among others. So it is hardly to be wondered at if
the sight of it did not reconcile him to the joys of early rising.

"Dear life and heart!" exclaimed Mrs. Emory, pausing in the act of
scalding a milk-can when Murray emerged from a side door. "What on
earth is the matter, Mr. Murray? You ain't sick now, surely? I told
you them pond fogs was p'isen after night! If you've gone and got--"

"Nothing is the matter, dear lady," interrupted Murray, "and I haven't
gone and got anything except an acute attack of early rising which is
not in the least likely to become chronic. But at what hour of the
night do you get up, you wonderful woman? Or rather do you ever go to
bed at all? Here is the sun only beginning to rise and--positively
yes, you have all your cows milked."

Mrs. Emory purred with delight.

"Folks as has fourteen cows to milk has to rise betimes," she answered
with proud humility. "Laws, I don't complain--I've lots of help with
the milking. How Mrs. Palmer manages, I really cannot comperhend--or
rather, how she has managed. I suppose she'll be all right now since
her niece came last night. I saw her posting to the pond pasture not
ten minutes ago. She'll have to milk all them seven cows herself. But
dear life and heart! Here I be palavering away and not a bite of
breakfast ready for you!"

"I don't want any breakfast until the regular time for it," assured
Murray. "I'm going down to the pond to see the sun rise."

"Now don't you go and get caught in the ma'sh," anxiously called Mrs.
Emory, as she never failed to do when she saw him starting for the
pond. Nobody ever had got caught in the marsh, but Mrs. Emory lived in
a chronic state of fear lest someone should.

"And if you once got stuck in that black mud you'd be sucked right
down and never seen or heard tell of again till the day of judgment,
like Adam Palmer's cow," she was wont to warn her boarders.

Murray sought his favourite spot for pond dreaming--a bloomy corner of
the pasture that ran down into the blue water, with a dump of leafy
maples on the left. He was very glad he had risen early. A miracle was
being worked before his very eyes. The world was in a flush and
tremor of maiden loveliness, instinct with all the marvellous fleeting
charm of girlhood