"You play your fiddle any now?" He started out of his maze at life. "No," he owned, "no!" as if he hardly remembered such a thing had been. "I dropped that more'n fifteen year ago." "Seems if my feet never could keep still when you played 'Money Musk,'" avowed Amelia, her eyes shining. "'The Road to Boston,' too! My! wa'n't that grand!" "'Twas mostly dance-music I knew," said Jared. "She never liked it," he added, in a burst of weary confidence. "Your wife?" "She was a church member, old-fashioned kind. Didn't believe in dancin'. 'The devil's tunes,' she called 'em. Well, mebbe they were; but I kinder liked 'em myself." "Well," said Amelia, in a safe commonplace, "I guess there's some harm in 'most everything. It's 'cordin' to the way you take it." Then one of her quick changes came upon her. The self that played at life when real life failed her, and so kept youth alive, awoke to shine in her eyes and flush her pretty cheek. She looked about the room, as if to seek concurrence from the hearthside gods. "Jared," she said, "you goin' to stay round here long?" He made an involuntary motion toward his hat. "No, oh, no," he answered. "I'm goin' 'cross lots to the Junction. I come round the road. I guess 'tain't more'n four mile along by the pine woods an' the b'ilin' spring," he added, smiling at her. "Leastways it didn't use to be. I thought if I could get the seven-o'clock, 'twould take me back to Boston so 's I could ketch my train to-night. She's kinder dull, out there alone," he ended, wearily. "'Twas some o' her property I come to settle up. She'll want to hear about it. I never was no kind of a letter-writer." Amelia rose. "I'll tell you what, then," she said, with a sweet decision, "you stay right here an' have dinner. I'm all alone to-day." "Ain't old lady Knowles--" He paused decorously, and Amelia laughed. It seemed to her as if old lady Knowles and the house would always be beneficently there because they always had been. "Law, yes," she said. "She's alive. So's old Ann. They've gone to Wareham, to spend the day." Jared threw back his head and laughed. "If that don't make time stand still," he said, "nothin' ever did. Why, when we was in the Third Reader old lady Knowles an' Ann harnessed up one day in the year an' drove over to Wareham to spend the day." "Yes," Amelia sparkled back at him, "'tis so. They look pretty much the same, both of 'em." "They must be well along in years?" Amelia had begun putting up the leaves of the mahogany dining-table. She laughed, a pretty ripple.