house, north or south? I must have a north
light, you know."

"Yes--north; looking straight up into your freezing cold country, sir!
This way! Come along!" she cried joyously as she mounted the stairs,
little Phil, as usual, tumbling after them.

Adam entered first and stood in the middle of the floor looking about
him.

"Superb!" he cried. "Just the very place! What a magnificent light--so
direct, and not a reflection from anything."

It was, indeed, an ideal studio to one accustomed to the disorder of
beautiful things. Not only was there a hip roof, with heavy, stained
beams and brown shingles, but near its crotch opened a wide,
round-topped window which shed its light on the dilapidated relics of
two generations--old spinning-wheels, hair trunks, high-post,
uncoupled bedsteads; hair-cloth sofas, and faded curtains of yellow
damask, while near the door rested an enormous jar brought up from the
garden to catch the drip of a leaky shingle--all so much lumber to
Olivia, but of precious value to the young painter, especially the
water jar, which reminded him of those he had seen in Sicily when he
was tramping through its villages sketching.

"Just the place--oh, wonderful! Wonderful! Let me shout down for Bundy
and we'll move everything into shape right away."

"Are you going to take them out or push them back?" exclaimed Olivia,
her eyes growing wide with wonder as she watched him begin work.

"No, not going to move out one of them. You just wait--I'll show you!"
The boy in him was coming out now.

And Olivia did wait, uttering little cries of delight or inquiry
meanwhile, as she tripped after him, her skirts lifted above her
dainty ankles to keep them from the dust. "Oh, that ugly old bureau;
shan't we send it away?" followed by "Yes, I do think that's better."
And, "Oh, are you going to put that screen there!" gouty old Bundy
joining in with "Well, fo' de Lawd, Miss 'Livy, I neber did see no ol'
trunk come to life agin befo' by jes' shovin' it 'roun'."

"And now get a sheet!" cried Adam, when everything had been arranged
to his liking. "We'll tack it across the lower half of the window.
Then Bundy, please go down and bring up two buckets of water and pour
it into this jar. Now, Mrs. Colton, come along, you and I will bring
up blossoms enough to fill it," and the two dashed downstairs and out
into the orchard with a swoop of two swallows out for an airing.

Even Bundy had to admit to old Dinah, when he had