“Nothing is amusing,” I said. “I am not amused. I am happy.” “Oh,” he said, and then he laughed too. By and by he asked: “Ought I to have waited longer?” “Why should you?” “I shall paint here half the year or more,” he explained. “Then, when I must, I shall go to the cities. It will be necessary. I must hold my exhibits, visit the art academies, see what other men are doing—keep in touch with the world. But this shall be my home—our home.” “Shall we give it a name?” “I have thought of hundreds and rejected them.” “Perhaps Jim can name it for us.” We went to look for him and found him star-gazing. His teeth were beginning to chatter a little, I am afraid, with the sharp chill of the air. “Jim,” I said, giving him a good hug and kiss, “I didn’t think you would keep a secret from your Zalie.” Dear old Jim! He gave me such a squeeze and let loose a big, blundering kind of a laugh, and then we brought him in and we all sat around the fire and talked. I never knew just how much like a brother he seemed to me till that moment. We asked him to name the cottage for us, but he could think of nothing, and then, quite suddenly it came to me. I would call it “Delight Cottage” in honor of my own dear Delight Ravanel. Don’t you agree with me that it is a good idea? But I haven’t told her yet. I thought I would keep it a secret until she came to visit me, which will be in a few days now. Keefe said he would himself make the sign and place it at the gateway—the same gateway being nothing less than two of my beloved tulip trees. Keefe told me he had come down to finish some paintings, and that he would go on living right there in the cottage, working on certain parts of the house himself, such as the staining of the wood, the making of fire screens and benches for the chimney side, and various other things. He said there was work enough to keep him busy in his odd moments for a year or two. Mrs. Babb is coming over to cook for him and to keep “Delight Cottage” tidy. Well, a little later in the evening Jim started me on my way again, only this time both he and Keefe were my cavaliers, and I burst into the drawing-room at the Shoals expecting to give them the greatest sort of a surprise, but I was vastly disappointed. They only laughed at me. They had known all along that Keefe was building the house, and they had met him at the train and had taken him up to Delight Cottage themselves, I all the while toiling away in my shop. He wanted, it seems, to make the place look as well as it could in its incomplete state before I saw it. Ah, what a happy, happy girl I am! Only one thing troubles me, and that is your possible disapproval. Keefe is writing you, I believe. He said to me more than once: