"You shouldn't do a hand's turn if you didn't want to," he was assuring her, with that entreating look. "We'd keep a girl, an' Mondays I'd stay home an' turn the wringer. Mariana, I know you set everything by your house, but you could fix mine over any way you liked. You could throw out a bay-winder if you wanted, or build a cupelow." "Why," said Mariana, so softly that he bent to hear, "what's set you out to want a housekeeper?" "It ain't a housekeeper," said Jake. "I've had enough o' housekeepin' long as I live, seein' you fetch an' carry for Eb Hanscom. Why, Mariana, I just love you. I want a wife." Mariana walked away from him to the window and stood looking out again, only that, instead of the wet garden with the clumps of larkspur feathering up, she seemed to see long beds of flowers in bloom. She even heard the bees humming over them and the tumult of nesting birds. And all the time Jake Preble waited, looking at her back and wondering if after all the losses of his life he was to forfeit Mariana, who, he knew, was life itself. "Well," said he, in deep despondency, "I s'pose it's no use. I see how you feel about it. Any woman would feel the same." Mariana turned suddenly, and, seeing she was smiling, he took a hurried step to meet her. "I 'most forgot you," she said, with a whimsical lilt in her voice. "I was thinkin' how elegant it is when we get home at last." "Yes," said Jake dejectedly. "I s'pose you're considerin' your own house an' your own gardin-spot's the best there is in the world." "Why, no," said Mariana, with a little movement toward him. "I wa'n't thinkin' o' my house nor my gardin particular. I guess I was thinkin' o' yours. Leastways, I was thinkin' o' _you_." PARTNERS "I guess I shall fetch it," said Newell Bond. He was sitting on the doorstep, in the summer dusk, with Dorcas Lee. She knew just how his gaunt, large-featured face looked, with its hawk-like glance, and the color, as he spoke, mounting to his forehead. There were two kinds of Bonds, the red and the black. The red Bonds had the name of carrying out their will in all undertakings, and Newell was one. Dorcas was on the step above him, her splendid shoulders disdaining the support of the casing, and her head, with its heavy braids, poised with an unconscious pride, no more spirited by daylight than here in the dark where no one saw. She answered in her full, rich voice:-- "Of course you will, if you want to bad enough." "If I want to?" repeated Newell. "Ain't I acted as if 'twas the one thing I did want?" Over and over they had dwelt upon the great purpose of his life, sometimes to touch it here and there with delicate implication, and often to sit down, by an unspoken consent, for long, serious talks. To-night Newell spoke from a reminiscent mood. There were times when, in an ingenuous egoism, he had to take down the book of his romance and read a page. But only to Dorcas. She was his one confidant; she understood.