put to any real test by the discovery of
her home, and she was quite sure her modest suit of blue serge and her
$2.99 pongee blouse proclaimed her as a working girl of the mill
city. "I've been to Hampton," he declared, just as though it were four
thousand miles away instead of four.

"But I've never been here before, to Silliston," she responded in the
same spirit: and she added wistfully, "it must be nice to live in such a
beautiful place as this!"

"Yes, it is nice," he agreed. "We have our troubles, too,--but it's
nice."

She ventured a second, appraising glance. His head, which he carried a
little flung back, his voice, his easy and confident bearing--all these
contradicted the saw and the hammer, the flannel shirt, open at the
neck, the khaki trousers still bearing the price tag. And curiosity
beginning to get the better of her, she was emboldened to pay a
compliment to the fence. If one had to work, it must be a pleasure to
work on things pleasing to the eye--such was her inference.

"Why, I'm glad you like it," he said heartily. "I was just hoping some
one would come along here and admire it. Now--what colour would you
paint it?"

"Are you a painter, too?"

"After a fashion. I'm a sort of man of all work--I thought of painting
it white, with the pillars green."

"I think that would be pretty," she answered, judicially, after a
moment's thought. "What else can you do?"

He appeared to be pondering his accomplishments.

"Well, I can doctor trees," he said, pointing an efficient finger at the
magnificent maple sheltering, like a guardian deity, the old farmhouse.
"I put in those patches."

"They're cement," she exclaimed. "I never heard of putting cement in
trees."

"They don't seem to mind."

"Are the holes very deep?"

"Pretty deep."

"But I should think the tree would be dead."

"Well, you see the life of a tree is right under the bark. If you can
keep the outer covering intact, the tree will live."

"Why did you let the holes get so deep?"

"I've just come here. The house was like the tree the shingles all
rotten, but the beams were sound. Those beams were hewn out of the
forest two hundred and fifty years ago."

"Gracious!" said Janet. "And how old is the tree?"

"I should say about a hundred. I suppose it wouldn't care to admit it."

"How do you know?" she inquired.

"Oh, I'm very intimate with trees. I find out their secrets."

"It's your house!" she exclaimed, somewhat appalle