"It's dreary out there," the professor complained; "these winter days are going to be hard for him." "Don't worry! I've never seen a man less inclined to be doleful!" "Do you think so," said the professor eagerly, "now, lately he hasn't seemed so--so bright as he used to be. I thought perhaps he was finding it lonely. He is an excellent farmer, do you know," he said with sudden enthusiasm, "he has sold enough wood off the place to pay half of the cost of it." "Oh! what a pity!" "Pity!" "The hills will look so bare; I shall always remember the beautiful forest sweeping up to the mountain tops." "Oh! the wood will be cut far up the range and there is enough about there for the country not to suffer for the want of it. We went over it together." "Then I know it is all right!" teased Frances. "He's working too hard," the professor went on, keeping to the topic in which he was so keenly interested. "You know this is a busy season; after a while he can rest. You know what you often say, winter is the farmer's holiday." "Yes, but shut up out there! I must send him some books." Frances watched in amusement as her father went to the shelves where his light literature was kept. "Pope's Iliad," he said thoughtfully, "read it in the original of course; Herodotus, I wonder how much Greek he knows; Carlyle, hm! Drummond, that will make him think at least--What?" for Frances was leaning against his shoulder and was laughing. "What do you like yourself when you are idle or half sick, when there's a good hot fire to read and dream before?" The professor reddened with conscience-stricken remembrance of a pile of paper-bound novels in the attic. "Get him something yourself, then!" "I will!" "I dare say he will like it better," retorted her father, who, blind to Lawson's attentions, had begun to suspicion Montague's, and to think with a half-pleased apprehension that it might be a desirable thing for some far-off day. Frances was about to answer when the bell rang insistently. "Good Lord!" groaned the professor. "I don't think it is a visitor," soothed Frances. "What is it, Susan?" The old woman came briskly into the room. "I dunno! Some sassy niggah jes' poked dis box at me an' run off." Susan was always ready to find fault with the manners of the rising generation; she put the box down gingerly just on the professor's papers. "Here!" he snatched it up and set it forcibly on the hearth. "Flowers! And the thing is wet!" Frances, delighted, knelt by the box. "Miss Frances Holloway," she read; "give me your knife! Oh!" for the top wrenched off disclosed a sheaf of chrysanthemums, white and yellow, and a card, "Mr. Frank Lawson." "They are for all, of course!" she filled her arms with them and got to her feet. "Take this box in the kitchen, Susan." "Wait!" her father called, "what are you going to do to-day?" "We are going shopping in the morning, and there is a tally-ho party to Monticello this afternoon." "You are going?" "This morning."