Mrs. Dodd detected subdued animation in his demeanour when he appeared at breakfast the following morning, and wondered what had occurred. "You look 's if sunthin' pleasant had happened, Israel," she began in a sprightly manner. "Sunthin' pleasant has happened," he returned, applying himself to his imitation coffee with renewed vigour. "I disremember when I've felt so good about anythin' before." "Something pleasant happens every day," put in Elaine. The country air had made roses bloom on her pale cheeks. Her blue eyes had new light in them, and her golden hair fairly shone. She was far more beautiful than the sad, frail young woman who had come to the Jack-o'-Lantern not so many weeks before. "How optimistic you are!" sighed Mr. Perkins, who was eating Mrs. Smithers's crisp, hot rolls with a very unpoetic appetite. "To me, the world grows worse every day. It is only a few noble souls devoted to the Ideal and holding their heads steadfastly above the mire of commercialism that keep our so-called civilisation from becoming an absolute hotbed of greed--yes, a hotbed of greed," he repeated, the words sounding unexpectedly well. "Your aura seems to have a purple tinge this morning," commented Dorothy, slyly. "What's a aura, ma?" demanded Willie, with an unusual thirst for knowledge. "Something that goes with a soft person, Willie, dear," responded Mrs. Holmes, quite audibly. "You know there are some people who have no backbone at all, like the jelly-fish we saw at the seashore the year before dear papa died." "I've knowed folks," continued Mrs. Dodd, taking up the wandering thread of the discourse, "what was so soft when they was little that their mas had to carry 'em around in a pail for fear they'd slop over and spile the carpet." "And when they grew up, too," Dick ventured. "Some people," said Harlan, in a polite attempt to change the conversation, "never grow up at all. Their minds remain at a fixed point. We all know them." "Yes," sighed Mrs. Dodd, looking straight at the poet, "we all know them." At this juncture the sensitive Mr. Perkins rose and begged to be excused. It was the small Ebeneezer who observed that he took a buttered roll with him, and gratuitously gave the information to the rest of the company. Elaine flushed painfully, and presently excused herself, following the crestfallen Mr. Perkins to the orchard, where, entirely unsuspected by the others, they had a trysting-place. At intervals, they met, safely screened by the friendly trees, and communed upon the old, idyllic subject of poetry, especially as represented by the unpublished works of Harold Vernon Perkins. "I cannot tell you, Mr. Perkins," Elaine began, "how deeply I appreciate your fine, uncommercial attitude. As you say, the world is sordid, and it needs men like you."