William is now! He's just as good as he can be. There for a
while he was so cross and out of sorts. I don't see what could have come
over him. But now he's just as good as he can be."

Hollanden told him, "Come up to the inn more, you fool."

"I was up there yesterday."

"Yesterday! What of that? I've seen the time when the farm couldn't hold
you for two hours during the day."

"Go to blazes!"

"Millicent got a letter from Grace Fanhall the other day."

"That so?"

"Yes, she did. Grace wrote---- Say, does that shadow look pure purple
to you?"

"Certainly it does, or I wouldn't paint it so, duffer. What did she
write?"

"Well, if that shadow is pure purple my eyes are liars. It looks a kind
of slate colour to me. Lord! if what you fellows say in your pictures is
true, the whole earth must be blazing and burning and glowing and----"

Hawker went into a rage. "Oh, you don't know anything about colour,
Hollie. For heaven's sake, shut up, or I'll smash you with the easel."

"Well, I was going to tell you what Grace wrote in her letter. She
said----"

"Go on."

"Gimme time, can't you? She said that town was stupid, and that she
wished she was back at Hemlock Inn."

"Oh! Is that all?"

"Is that all? I wonder what you expected? Well, and she asked to be
recalled to you."

"Yes? Thanks."

"And that's all. 'Gad, for such a devoted man as you were, your
enthusiasm and interest is stupendous."

* * * * *

The father said to the mother, "Well, William's going back to New York
next week."

"Is he? Why, he ain't said nothing to me about it."

"Well, he is, anyhow."

"I declare! What do you s'pose he's going back before September for,
John?"

"How do I know?"

"Well, it's funny, John. I bet--I bet he's going back so's he can see
that girl."

"He says it's his work."

CHAPTER XIX.

Wrinkles had been peering into the little dry-goods box that acted as a
cupboard. "There are only two eggs and half a loaf of bread left," he
announced brutally.

"Heavens!" said Warwickson from where he lay smoking on the bed. He
spoke in a dismal voice. This tone, it is said, had earned him his
popular name of Great Grief.

From different points of the compass Wrinkles looked at the little
cupboard with a tremendous scowl, as if he intended thus to frighten the
eggs into becoming more than two, and the bread into becoming a loaf.
"Plague take it!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, shut up