"Don't worry," he said in a voice full of tenderness. "He won't be long gone--only a month, he says; and don't be unhappy--I'm going to do everything to cheer you up." "But I'm never lonely," she answered with an air of bravado, "and I try never to be unhappy. I always have Phil. And now," and she broke out into a laugh, "I have you, and that makes me feel just as I did as a girl when one of the boys came over to play with me. Come upstairs, right away, and let me show you the big garret. I'm just crazy to see you begin work, and I really believe that's the best place, after all. It's full of old trunks and furniture, but there's a splendid window----" "On which side of the house, north or south? I must have a north light, you know." "Yes--north; looking straight up into your freezing cold country, sir! This way! Come along!" she cried joyously as she mounted the stairs, little Phil, as usual, tumbling after them. Adam entered first and stood in the middle of the floor looking about him. "Superb!" he cried. "Just the very place! What a magnificent light--so direct, and not a reflection from anything." It was, indeed, an ideal studio to one accustomed to the disorder of beautiful things. Not only was there a hip roof, with heavy, stained beams and brown shingles, but near its crotch opened a wide, round-topped window which shed its light on the dilapidated relics of two generations--old spinning-wheels, hair trunks, high-post, uncoupled bedsteads; hair-cloth sofas, and faded curtains of yellow damask, while near the door rested an enormous jar brought up from the garden to catch the drip of a leaky shingle--all so much lumber to Olivia, but of precious value to the young painter, especially the water jar, which reminded him of those he had seen in Sicily when he was tramping through its villages sketching. "Just the place--oh, wonderful! Wonderful! Let me shout down for Bundy and we'll move everything into shape right away." "Are you going to take them out or push them back?" exclaimed Olivia, her eyes growing wide with wonder as she watched him begin work. "No, not going to move out one of them. You just wait--I'll show you!" The boy in him was coming out now. And Olivia did wait, uttering little cries of delight or inquiry meanwhile, as she tripped after him, her skirts lifted above her dainty ankles to keep them from the dust. "Oh, that ugly old bureau; shan't we send it away?" followed by "Yes, I do think that's better." And, "Oh, are you going to put that screen there!" gouty old Bundy joining in with "Well, fo' de Lawd, Miss 'Livy, I neber did see no ol' trunk come to life agin befo' by jes' shovin' it 'roun'."