s a machinist at the Mills; that's what the doctas thought
didn't agree with him. He bought a piece of land he'e, so as to be in
the pine woods, and then we built this house."

"When did you say you came?"

"Two yea's ago, this summa."

"Well! What did you do befoa you built this house?"

"We camped the first summa."

"You camped? In a tent?"

"Well, it was pahtly a tent, and pahtly bank."

"I should have thought you would have died."

The girl laughed. "Oh, no, we all kept fast-rate. We slept in the tents
we had two--and we cooked in the shanty." She smiled at the notion in
adding, "At fast the neighbas thought we we'e Gipsies; and the summa
folks thought we were Indians, and wanted to get baskets of us."

Mrs. Lander did not know what to think, and she asked, "But didn't it
almost perish you, stayin' through the winter in an unfinished house?"

"Well, it was pretty cold. But it was so dry, the air was, and the woods
kept the wind off nicely."

The same shrill voice in the region of the stovepipe which had sent
the girl to the Landers now called her from them. "Clem! Come here a
minute!"

The girl said to Mrs. Lander, politely, "You'll have to excuse me,
now'm. I've got to go to motha."

"So do!" said Mrs. Lander, and she was so taken by the girl's art and
grace in getting to her feet and fading into the background of the
hallway without visibly casting any detail of her raiment, that she was
not aware of her husband's starting up the horse in time to stop him.
They were fairly under way again, when she lamented, "What you doin',
Albe't? Whe'e you goin'?"

"I'm goin' to South Middlemount. Didn't you want to?"

"Well, of all the men! Drivin' right off without waitin' to say thankye
to the child, or take leave, or anything!"

"Seemed to me as if SHE took leave."

"But she was comin' back! And I wanted to ask--"

"I guess you asked enough for one while. Ask the rest to-morra."

Mrs. Lander was a woman who could often be thrown aside from an
immediate purpose, by the suggestion of some remoter end, which had
already, perhaps, intimated itself to her. She said, "That's true,"
but by the time her husband had driven down one of the roads beyond
the woods into open country, she was a quiver of intolerable curiosity.
"Well, all I've got to say is that I sha'n't rest till I know all about
'em."

"Find out when we get back to the hotel, I guess," said her husband.

"No, I can't wait till I get back to t