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Show l'- t & TWIATrinrc i !sllffifl.VVi HKfcVB :Mim PRICHARD !E?flW COPyftlOHT DOOEM FDAV DAf,P r-. ! SYNOPSIS. ' a ;u--n.r u,t t.y N..w KnuUiml fan'i I , ' '" ''' d Ko to '-il ul l.,-, t 1 ,.,,.!,. ,. ,. nii, , V.e .:,,..,,.,. a,, ,.u,u,., lu.,, , , ' ""l'--nt,.r. ,timt..a ii. repair ""!""!"" l'iol,, 1 , ,.,. llu. '".I tie . Il.ud t'l.-f Im.H.N l.ok-tase. l.ok-tase. sr,.,nu! the lwi n.-,.pi..,-s Mrs hu.s Mrs ..;!S (,- , u rin:,Vl.,.,r. uiul Knn,nm,, the t-,.M,ln of . iH.ar.ler li,.,:, New V...k. a h.,1,. ,' n wl,. iw,)( n,,. ,-,.,, trv t.r 1 0. -, ,.v , r tl..,t Stel! , t;.im will I n t..:ri:l eemr.tTi'.oii an. I believe i : e et.wt t .,.. to let.,1 ,i to the hot , 0.,tv e t v for a lotu tune 1 .,. her ; h:'d l.y. loether e .le,lu:,:e -rin I nr- j u la there a better time to make w , lovo than tha last day of May f, or a better place than a romantic old country home where there's o M a murmuring brook, a lovely I J quiet pine flrove. a rose oarden ' ay and myriad song birds? J CHAPTER IX. Acteon and Diana. Memorial day dawned fair ami warm. liert and h!a wife an.l all their "help" went off to the village after breakfast. There were no painters In my house, and Mike had milked the cows nn.l irone home before I arrived. Miss Coodwln and I seemul to have , that little sevtion of llentford quite to eurse'.ves. after the last of the rarry-I rarry-I alls had rattled past, takint: the veterans vet-erans from Slab City to the town. Ilav- lng no C.ic yet of my own. I borrowed I one from Hort. and we hunc it from ( a seoond-story window, faolnff the road, as our tiny contribution to the sentiment of the day. Then we tackled the rose trellis, speedily completing It. for only two arohos remained to be built, one of the carpenters havlni; built three for me the day before, while waiting for some sliinples to come for the barn. Indeed, we had lt done by ten o'clock. "Now what?" paid she. I looked about the sarden. The roses had not yet come, so we couldn't very well plant them. I judged that the i nmrnlnc of a warm, sunny day was no ! time to transplant seedlings. The painting was not yet completed Inside, In-side, so I could fix up no more of my rooms. The vegetable garden didn't appear to need cultivation. We couldn't paint the trellis, as there was no green pnlnt. "Good fraclousl" I eiclaimed, "this Is the first time I've been at a loss for something to do. It's a terrible sensation." "Couldn't we build a bird bath?" she suggested. "Madam." said I, "yon are a genius!" "At the brook?" she added. I "No, not the brook. I've a better ! Idea," said I. "My plan Is to put the I bird bath on the east edge of the lawn, halfway between the house and the rose aqueduct, corresponding to the sundial in the center, and to a white bench which will be placed at the west side when the grape arbor Is built." "Approved," laughed Miss Goodwin. We measured off the spot, and I mixed a lot of cement laid It over thick, set the bottomless box frame down upon It, and built up the four sides. As the girl had no gloves, 1 would not allow her to handle the cement (for nothing cracks the skin so badly, as I had discovered in my orchard work). But she kept busy mixing mix-ing with the hoe, and handing me bricks. Some I broke and put in endwise, end-wise, and I was careful to give all as Irregular a setting as possible, till the top was reached. Then, of course, I laid an even line of the best bricks all the way around, and leveled them carefully care-fully We had scarcely got the last brick on when we heard Bert's carryall carry-all rattle over the bridge and Bert's voire yelling "Dinner!" "Oh dear! That oeitir.t in the box will harden!" I cried. "Dump lt all In " Then, mixing more cement I laid a square bowl, as lt were, two Inches deep, on the top of the little brick pile neep, ou me ii' , We let it settle a few moments, and then carefully broke away the box. There stood the bird bath "Can we put water In it yet? the Ce.v,dI. "Cement will harden hard-en under water. And we'll plant cl.mb-Ing cl.mb-Ing nasturtiums around lt, too. We passed through the house. The kitten' dining room, and hall were fin-,shed fin-,shed and the paint dry "B They looked very fresh and bright. The rard.h:hneePwrgJrd baU, Upon Us Ti teet'and breast daintily - rog the trembling little mirror of water. Then camo a robin and drove thein both away. "The pig!" latiithetl Miss Goodwin. "Do you know, I've got a poorer opinion opin-ion of robins slnoe 1 cnine here. We city dwellers think of robins as harbingers har-bingers of spring, anil all that, and they epItouiUe the bird world. Hut when you really are In that world, you lind they are rather largo ami vulgar and and sort of upper West side y. They aren't hall' so nice as the song sparrows, spar-rows, or the rcabodlos. and, of course, compared with the thrushes well, it's like comparing Owen Meredith with Keats. Isn't It?" "Don't bo too hard on the robins," I smiled. We looked our fill at the new bird bath, 'which was already functioning, as she said her boss on the dictionary would put It. and at the white sundial pillar, and at our prospective aqueduct of roses, and at the farm and the far hills beyond and then she suddenly announced with great energy that shy was going to saw wood. "You may saw Just one piece." said I. "and then you are going to take a book and rest. I'm going to work, myself. my-self. Twin I-'iros is getting in shape fast enough now so I can give up part of the daytime to the purely mundane task of paying the bills." I wheeled up a hig dead apple branch from the orchard to the wood shed, put "That's Why You Wanted Me to Work Until Five o'clock!" it on the buck, gave her the buck-saw. and watched her first efforts, grinning. "Go away," she laughed. "You bother me." So I went, opened the west window by my desk to the wandering summer sum-mer breeze, and went at my toil. Presently Pres-ently I heard her tiptoeing Into the room. "Done?" said I. She nodded. "Now I want let's see what I want well, I guess 'Marius the Epicurean' and 'Alice In Wonderland' will do. I'm going to sit In the orchard. Y'ou work 'here till five or your salary will be docked. Good-by." I heard her go out by tie front door, and then silence settled over the sun-filled, sun-filled, cheerful room, while I plugged nway at my tasks. I don't know how long I worked, but finally my attention began to wander. I wondered If she were still in the orchard. I looked out upon the sweet stretches of my farm, with the golden light of afternoon upon lt, and work became a burden. "Shall I ever be able to work, except nt night, or on rainy days!" I wondered with a smile, as I tossed the manuscript I was reading into a drawer, and went out through the front entrance. The girl was nowhere to be seen. "She's probably in her beloved pines." I reflected. "It would be a good time to clean out a path in the pines. i turned back to get a hatchet, and then went down toward the brook. I trod as noiselessly as I could through the maples, thinking to surprise sur-prise her at her reading, and took care in the pines not to step on any dead twigs. She was nowhere to be seen near the upper end of the grove, but as I advanced I heard a splashing louder than the soft ripple of the brook, and suddenly around a thick tree at a bend in the stream, where the brook ran out toward the tamarack swamp in the corner of my farm, I came upon her She had her shoes and stockings off, and with her skirts held high she was wading with solemn, quiet delight In a little pool. Her back was toward me. I could have discreetly retreated, and she been none the wiser. But, alas! Acteon was neither the first nor the last of his sex. The water rippled so , coolly around her while ankles! The sunlight dappled down so charmingly upon her cheslnut hair! And I said, with a laugh, "So that is why you wanted me to work mil 1 1 live o'clock!" She turned Willi u llllle exclamation, the color flaming to her cheeks. Then she, loo, laughed, as she stood In the brook, holding her skirts above the water. Consider yourself turned to a stag," she said. "All right," I answered, "but don't slay in that cold water too long." "If I do It will be your fault." she smiled, with a sidelong glance. Then she turned and began wading tentatively tenta-tively downstream. But the brook deepened deep-ened suddenly, and she sank almost to her knees, catching her skirts up Just In time. 1 withdrew hastily, and called back to her to come out. When I heard her on the bank, I brought her a big handkerchief for a towel, anil withdrew once more, telling her to hurry and help me plan the path through the pines. In a moment or two she was by my side. We looked at each other. Her face wan still (lushed, but her eyes were merry. We were standing on almost the exact spot where we hail llrst met. But now there seemed In some subtle wise a new bond of intimacy between us, a bond that had not existed before this hour. I could not analyze It. but I felt it, and I knew she felt it. But what she said was: "I told you to work till five o'clock." "It's half-past four." I answered. "Besides, you must have sent for me. Something suddenly prompted me to come out ami hunt you up, at any rate." "To say 1 sent for you Is rather rather forward, under the circumstances, circum-stances, don't you think?" "It might be and it might not be." I answered. "Did you have a good time?" "The best I ever had till you spoiled it," she exclaimed. "Oh, the nice, cold brook! Now, let's build the path you spoke about ouce." We went back to the maples, where the grouj'J was open, and selected a spot on the edge of the pines where the path would most naturally enter. Then we let lt wind along by the brook. When we reached the hayfleld wall beside be-side the house it was nearly six o'clock. "Now, let's just walk back through it!" she cried. "Tomorrow we can bring the wheelbarrow, can't we, and pick up the litter we've made?" "I can, at any rate, while you wade," said I. She shot a little look up Into my face. "I guess I'll help," she smiled. In the low afternoon light we turned about and retraced our steps. There was but a fringe of pines along tbe southern wall, and as Oiey were forty-year-old trees here the view both back to the house anil over the wall into the pext pasture was airy and epen. Then the path led through a corner of the tamarack swamp wherein wet weather I should have to put down some planks, and where the cattails grew Dreasi high on eitlier side. Then it entered the thick pine grove where great many of the trees "were evidently not more than fifteen or twenty years old and grew very close. The sunlight was shut out, save for daggers of blue between be-tween the trunks toward the west. The air seemed hushed, as If twilight were already brooding here. The little brook rippled softly. As we came to the first crossing, I pointed to the pool, already dark with shadow, and said, "It was wrong of me to play Acteon to your Diana, but I am not ashamed nor sorry. You were very charming in the dappled light, aud you were doing a natural tiling, and in among these little pines, perhaps, per-haps, two friends may be two friends, though they are man and woman." She did not reply at once, but stood beside me looking at the dark pool and apparently listening to the whisper of the running water against the stepping-stones. stepping-stones. Finally she said with a little laugh, "I have always thought that per haps Diana was unduly severe. Come, we must be moving on." Ouce more we entered the pines, following fol-lowing the new path over the brook again to the spot where we first had met. There I touched her hand. "Let us wait for the thrush here," I whispered. whis-pered. I could see her glimmering face lifted to mine. "Why here?" she asked. "Because it was here we first heard him." O If he proposed marriage to 2 Stella at this point, do you think sho would accept him or does a 0 girl like to be pursued a little J g while longer when she feels she as has her man ensnared? O c-99s99Ci)oese9(5ttseec (TO BE CONTINUED.) |