“Never mind about my gown. I want to hear more about this man Carleton,” she said. Her face was alight with the pleasure of his tribute, but she spoke as though she had hardly heard it. “What have you done to him to make him hate you?” “Nothing but try to keep him from ruining the work.” “And you told him he was ruining it?” “Certainly; there was nothing else to do. He’s got the concrete now six inches out of level; you can see it plainly at low water.” “No wonder he takes his revenge,” she said, cutting straight into the heart of the matter with that marvelous power peculiar to some women. “What else has gone wrong?” She meant him to tell her everything, knowing that to let him completely unburden his mind would give him the only real rest that he needed. She liked, too, to feel her influence over him. That he always consulted her in such matters was to Kate one of the keenest pleasures that his friendship brought. “Everything, I sometimes think. We are very much behind. That concrete base should have been finished two weeks ago. The equinoctial gale is nearly due. If we can’t get the first two courses of masonry laid by the middle of November, I may have to wait until spring for another payment, and that about means bankruptcy.” “What does Captain Joe think?” “He says we shall pull through if we have no more setbacks. Dear old Captain Joe! nothing upsets him. We certainly have had our share of them this season: first it was the explosion, and now it is Carleton’s spite.” “Suppose you _do_ lose time, Henry, and _do_ have to wait until spring to go on with the work. It will not be for the first time.” There was a sympathetic yet hopeful tone in her voice. “When you sunk the coffer-dam at Kingston, three years ago, and it lay all winter in the ice, didn’t you worry yourself half sick? And yet it all came out right. Oh, you needn’t raise your eyebrows; I saw it myself. You know you are better equipped now, both in experience and in means, than you were then. Make some allowance for your own temperament, and please don’t forget the nights you have lain awake worrying over nothing. It will all come out right.” She leaned toward him and laid her hand on his, as an elder sister might have done, and in a gayer tone added, “I’m going to Medford soon, myself, and I’ll invite this dreadful Mr. Carleton to come over to luncheon, and you’ll get your certificate next day. What does he look like?” Sanford broke into a laugh. “You wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs, and I wouldn’t let you,—even with them.” “Then I’ll do it, anyway, just to show you how clever I am,” she retorted, with a pretty, bridling toss of her head. She had taken her hand away. Sanford still held his own extended. Kate’s tact was having its effect. Under the magic of her sympathy his cares had folded their tents. Carleton was fast becoming a dim speck on the horizon, and his successive troubles were but a string of camels edging the blue distance of his thoughts.