track."

"I enjoy it," said Eugene. "It's such a rest for me. I don't know what I
would have done if your mother hadn't taken me in. It's rather hard to
find any place, doing what I am."

"You've taken a pretty strenuous way to get health, I should say," she
observed. "Day labor sounds rough to me. Do you mind it?"

"Not at all. I like it. The work is interesting and not so very hard.
It's all so new to me, that's what makes it easy. I like the idea of
being a day laborer and associating with laborers. It's only because I'm
run down in health that I worry. I don't like to be sick."

"It is bad," she replied, "but this will probably put you on your feet.
I think we're always inclined to look on our present troubles as the
worst. I know I am."

"Thanks for the consolation," he said.

She did not look at him and he rocked to and fro silently. Finally the
dinner gong struck. Mrs. Hibberdell came down stairs and they went in.

The conversation at dinner turned on his work for a few moments and he
described accurately the personalities of John and Bill and Big John the
engineer, and little Suddsy and Harry Fornes, the blacksmith. Carlotta
listened attentively without appearing to, for everything about Eugene
seemed singular and exceptional to her. She liked his tall, spare body,
his lean hands, his dark hair and eyes. She liked the idea of his
dressing as a laboring man in the morning, working all day in the shop,
and yet appearing so neat and trim at dinner. He was easy in his manner,
apparently lethargic in his movements and yet she could feel a certain
swift force that filled the room. It was richer for his presence. She
understood at a glance that he was an artist, in all probability a good
one. He said nothing of that, avoided carefully all reference to his
art, and listened attentively. She felt though as if he were studying
her and everyone else, and it made her gayer. At the same time she had a
strong leaning toward him. "What an ideal man to be associated with,"
was one of her repeated thoughts.

Although she was about the house for ten days and he met her after the
third morning not only at dinner, which was natural enough, but at
breakfast (which surprised him a little), he paid not so very much
attention to her. She was nice, very, but Eugene was thinking of another
type. He thought she was uncommonly pleasant and considerate and he
admired her style of dressing and her beauty, studying her with
interest