"How do you do, Mis' Gray. Won't you come in?" said she civilly, looking mildly surprised. "No, thank you--yes--I mean--I came to see you," stammered Emily confusedly. "You're very good," murmured the woman, still standing in the doorway. "Your flowers are so pretty," ventured Mrs. Gray, unable to keep the wistfulness out of her voice. "Do you think so?" carelessly; "I s'pose they need weedin'. What with my babies an' all, I don't get much time for posies." "Oh, please,--would it be too much trouble to let me come an' putter around in the beds?" queried the little woman eagerly. "Oh, I would like it so much!" The other laughed heartily. "Well, I really don't see how it's goin' to trouble me to have you weedin' my flowers; in fact, I should think the shoe would be on the other foot." Then the red showed in her face a little. "You're welcome to do whatever you want, Mis' Gray." "Oh, thank you!" exclaimed Emily, as she quickly pulled up an enormous weed at her feet. It took but a few hours' work to bring about a wonderfully happy change in that forlorn garden, and then Mrs. Gray found that she had a big pile of weeds to dispose of. Filling her apron with a portion of them, she started to go behind the house in search of a garbage heap. Around the corner she came face to face with her husband, hoe in hand. "Why, Reuben Gray! Whatever in the world are _you_ doing?" For a moment the man was crushed with the enormity of his crime; then he caught sight of his wife's dirt-stained fingers. "Well, I guess I ain't doin' no worse than you be!" And he turned his back and began to hoe vigorously. Emily dropped the weeds where she stood, turned about, and walked through the garden and up the hill, pondering many things. Supper was strangely quiet that night. Mrs. Gray had asked a single question: "Reuben, do you want the little house back?" A glad light leaped into the old man's eyes. "Em'ly--would you be willin' to?" After the supper dishes were put away, Mrs. Gray, with a light shawl over her head, came to her husband on the back stoop. "Come, dear; I think we'd better go down to-night." A few minutes later they sat stiffly in the best room of the farmhouse, while the buxom woman and her husband looked wonderingly at them. "You wan't thinkin' of sellin', was ye?" began Reuben insinuatingly. The younger man's eyelid quivered a little. "Well, no,--I can't hardly say that I was. I hain't but just bought." Reuben hitched his chair a bit and glanced at Emily. "Well, me and my wife have concluded that we're too old to transplant--we don't seem to take root very easy--and we've been thinkin'--would you swap even, now?" * * * * * It must have been a month later that Reuben Gray and his wife were contentedly sitting in the old familiar kitchen of the little brown house.