ur clothes. I mean you--yourself--you've
changed."

"I've changed! How, for mercy sakes?"

"Oh, lots of ways. You pay the ladies compliments now. You
wouldn't have done that a year ago."

"Eh? Pay compliments? I'm afraid you're mistaken. Your pa says
I'm so absent-minded and forgetful that I don't pay some of my
bills till the folks I owe 'em to make proclamations they're goin'
to sue me; and other bills I pay two or three times over."

"Don't try to escape by dodging the subject. You HAVE changed in
the last few months. I think," holding the tail of the silver fox
before her face and regarding him over it, "I think you must be in
love."

"Eh?" Jed looked positively frightened. "In love!"

"Yes. You're blushing now."

"Now, now, Maud, that ain't--that's sunburn."

"No, it's not sunburn. Who is it, Jed?" mischievously. "Is it the
pretty widow? Is it Mrs. Armstrong?"

A good handful of the hardware fell to the floor. Jed thankfully
scrambled down to pick it up. Miss Hunniwell, expressing
contrition at being indirectly responsible for the mishap, offered
to help him. He declined, of course, but in the little argument
which followed the dangerous and embarrassing topic was forgotten.
It was not until she was about to leave the shop that Maud again
mentioned the Armstrong name. And then, oddly enough, it was she,
not Mr. Winslow, who showed embarrassment.

"Jed," she said, "what do you suppose I came here for this morning?"

Jed's reply was surprisingly prompt.

"To show your new rig-out, of course," he said. "'Vanity of
vanities, all is vanity.' There, NOW I can take up a collection,
can't I?"

His visitor pouted. "If you do I shan't put anything in the box,"
she declared. "The idea of thinking that I came here just to show
off my new things. I've a good mind not to invite you at all now."

She doubtless expected apologies and questions as to what
invitation was meant. They might have been forthcoming had not the
windmill maker been engaged just at that moment in gazing
abstractedly at the door of the little stove which heated, or was
intended to heat, the workshop. He did not appear to have heard
her remark, so the young lady repeated it. Still he paid no
attention. Miss Maud, having inherited a goodly share of the
Hunniwell disposition, demanded an explanation.

"What in the world is the matter with you?" she asked. "Why are
you staring at that stove?"

Jed started and c