She smiled and shook her head. “I’m not at all the sort of person you appear to think me,” she said. Her grave blue eyes looked straight into his. “But don’t let’s waste time trying to be clever: I want to ask you if you are willing, for a fair salary, to take charge of the outdoor improvements at Bolton House.” She colored swiftly at sight of the quizzical lift of his brows. “I’ve decided to call my place ‘Bolton House’ for several reasons,” she went on rapidly: “for one thing, everybody has always called it the Bolton place, so it will be easier for the workmen and everybody to know what place is meant. Besides, I—” “Yes; but the name of Bolton has an ill-omened sound in Brookville ears,” he objected. “You’ve no idea how people here hate that man.” “It all happened so long ago, I should think they might forgive him by now,” she offered, after a pause. “I wouldn’t call my house after a thief,” he said strongly. “There are hundreds of prettier names. Why not—Pine Court, for example?” “You haven’t told me yet if you will accept the position I spoke of.” He passed his hand over his clean-shaven chin, a trick he had inherited from his father, and surveyed her steadily from under meditative brows. “In the first place, I’m not a landscape gardener, Miss Orr,” he stated. “That’s the sort of man you want. You can get one in Boston, who’ll group your evergreens, open vistas, build pergolas and all that sort of thing.” “You appear to know exactly what I want,” she laughed. “Perhaps I do,” he defied her. “But, seriously, I don’t want and won’t have a landscape-gardener from Boston—with due deference to your well-formed opinions, Mr. Dodge. I intend to mess around myself, and change my mind every other day about all sorts of things. I want to work things out, not on paper in cold black and white; but in terms of growing things—wild things out of the woods. You understand, I’m sure.” The dawning light in his eyes told her that he did. “But I’ve had no experience,” he hesitated. “Besides, I’ve considerable farm-work of my own to do. I’ve been hoeing potatoes all day. Tomorrow I shall have to go into the cornfield, or lose my crop. Time, tide and weeds wait for no man.” “I supposed you were a hunter,” she said. “I thought—” He laughed unpleasantly. “Oh, I see,” he interrupted rudely: “you supposed, in other words, that I was an idle chap, addicted to wandering about the woods, a gun on my shoulder, a cur—quite as much of a ne’er-do-well as myself—at my heels. Of course Deacon Whittle and Mrs. Solomon Black have told you all about it. And since you’ve set about reforming Brookville, you thought you’d begin with me. Well, I’m obliged to you; but—” The girl arose trembling to her feet. “You are not kind!” she cried. “You are not kind!” They stood for an instant, gazing into each other’s eyes during one of those flashes of time which sometimes count for years.