Another happening that day lent wings to her spirit, though the thing was both practical and humble. Bisbee, the stableman, upon the strength of having seen the Sign of the Fox when it was at the blacksmith’s being framed in iron (for the rings had not held), ordered a sign for his newly completed stable, offering the generous price (to him) of twenty-five dollars for it, he to furnish the wood. “There’s a regular horse painter over in Gordon will do me a race-horse in a sulky, driver included, for fifteen,” said Bisbee, a big, jolly, liberal man, whose rosy cheeks plainly told that they were not made in New England; “but he’s done that same one fer everybody within ten miles. Besides, what sense in a race-horse sign fer a family stable, say I? Give me something safe and assuring, yet not too safe!” So Brooke had eagerly accepted the commission, for with the return of Keith West, two or three hours a day for work had become a joyful possibility, and she conceived the idea of painting the heads of two horses upon the sign-board he had sent up. One must represent a staid family horse, and the other a more speedy roadster, and as she looked across the pasture, the natural position of the two gossips by the stone fence gave her the motive in a flash. If she only had the board there, she might sketch in the grouping at once, she thought, and the light also was exactly as she would wish it. The sign was in the barn, but it was too heavy for her to carry, and Adam had gone up to Windy Hill for the day, to do double work, as Robert Stead was expecting Dr. Russell to go on their annual trouting excursion to Stony Guzzle the next day. Well, there was no help for it, but still Brooke gazed about as if expecting help would fall from the skies or spring Jack-in-a-box fashion from the ground. It was the latter that happened, for at that moment the head of the farmer-on-shares appeared above the fence of the potato field, where he had just completed his task of planting, and was about to follow along the little brook to the road. As Brooke hesitated to ask him to do an errand that certainly had nothing to do with farming, he paused involuntarily. Meanwhile Brooke thought, “I can surely ask it as a courtesy such as any man would do me,” and said, “Good morning, Mr. Maarten” (she did not call him by his Christian name as she would have one distinctly in service, for instinct hinted to her that he might have been driven to his present vocation by hard luck), “would you do me a favour?” Instantly the tools and potato bag were dropped, but he did not take the advantage of coming nearer, as he might easily have done. Then Brooke explained her need in the frank way she had of taking people into her confidence, yet without gush or familiarity, that had always been one of her charms; and Maarten hastened to the barn while she went to the house for her chalk and sketching stool.