ords. "He wasn't a bad dog.
He was stupid."

When they arrived at the foot of the lane, mounting to the farm, Westover
saw what changes had been made in the house. There were large additions,
tasteless and characterless, but giving the rooms that were needed. There
was a vulgar modernity in the new parts, expressed with a final intensity
in the four-light windows, which are esteemed the last word of domestic
architecture in the country. Jeff said nothing as they approached the
house, but Westover said: "Well, you've certainly prospered. You're quite
magnificent."

They reached the old level in front of the house, artificially widened
out of his remembrance, with a white flag-pole planted at its edge, and
he looked up at the front of the house, which was unchanged, except that
it had been built a story higher back of the old front, and discovered
the window of his old room. He could hardly wait to get his greetings
over with Mrs. Durgin and Jackson, who both showed a decorous pleasure
and surprise at his coming, before he asked:

"And could you let me have my own room, Mrs. Durgin?"

"Why, yes," she said, "if you don't want something a little nicer."

"I don't believe you've got anything nicer," Westover said.

"All right, if you think so," she retorted. "You can have the old room,
anyway."

X.

Westover could not have said he felt very much at home on his first
sojourn at the farm, or that he had cared greatly for the Durgins. But
now he felt very much at home, and as if he were in the hands of friends.

It was toward the close of the afternoon that he arrived, and he went in
promptly to the meal that was served shortly after. He found that the
farm-house had not evolved so far in the direction of a hotel as to have
reached the stage of a late dinner. It was tea that he sat down to, but
when he asked if there were not something hot, after listening to a
catalogue of the cold meats, the spectacled waitress behind his chair
demanded, with the air of putting him on his honor:

"You among those that came this afternoon?"

Westover claimed to be of the new arrivals.

"Well, then, you can have steak or chops and baked potatoes."

He found the steak excellent, though succinct, and he looked round in the
distinction it conferred upon him, on the older guests, who were served
with cold ham, tongue, and corned-beef. He had expected to be appointed
his place by Cynthia Whitwell, but Jeff came to the dining-roo