ind the dam, was destined to be more serious--more actual,
anyway--before very long.

The question where Rose and Rodney were going to live after their lease
on the McCrea house ended, had begun to press for an answer. October
first was when the lease expired and it wasn't far from the date at
which they expected the baby. Rose wouldn't be in any condition for
house hunting during the hot summer months. Things would have to be
settled somehow before then. A heavy calendar of important cases had
kept Rodney from giving as much attention to the problem as he himself
felt it needed. He had delighted Rose with the suggestion that they go
out into the country somewhere. Not the real country of course, but up
along the shore, where the train service was good and the motor a
possible alternative.

They spent some very lovely afternoons during the early days of the
emerging spring, cruising about looking at possible places. They talked
of building at first, but long before they could make up their minds
what they wanted it had become too late for that, and they shifted to
the notion of buying an old place somewhere and remodeling it. One
reason why they made no more progress was because they were looking for
such different things. Rodney wanted acres. He'd never gardened a bit,
and never would; was an altogether urban person, despite the physical
energy which took him pounding off on long country walks. But when he
heard there was a tract just west of Martin Whitney's, up at Lake
Forest, that could be had at a bargain--thirty-five thousand dollars--he
let his eye rove over it appreciatively. And Frank Crawford and Howard
West knew of advantageous sites, also, on which to expatiate with
convincing enthusiasm. The kind of house you'd have to build on that
sort of place would cost you an easy thirty thousand more.

Rose didn't even yet know much about money, to be sure, but she knew
enough to be aghast at all that. What she tried to make Rodney look for
was a much more modest establishment--a yard big enough to hold a tennis
court, perhaps, and a house, well, that could be added to as they needed
room.

Neither of them stuck very close to the main point on these expeditions.
They always had too good a time together--more like a pair of children
on a picnic than serious home-hunters, and they frittered a good deal of
time away that they couldn't well afford.

This was the situation when Harriet took a hand in it. It was a
sit