"Why do you not take up the idea, Mr. Lawrence?" asked his employer. "House finishing and furnishing is fast coming to be a fine art. An intelligent, harmonious beauty is demanded. We are leaving behind the complacency of mere money in our adornments, and asking for something that evinces thought and refinement. I am sure you could succeed if you once set about the work." The compliment touched Fred profoundly, roused him to a new venture. He practised his almost lost art of designing to some purpose: he wrote two or three art essays that happened to find much more favor than his abstruse philosophies. After all, he was young, and the whole world lay before him. Surely he could carve out some kind of fortune. The light of earnest endeavor shone in his eyes, the languid step quickened into one of courageous elasticity. He had dawdled away years enough: he would put a purpose into his manhood, that some distant eyes, seeing, might not relegate him entirely to the regions of contempt. "There's quite a good deal in that young Lawrence," declared Phil Maverick decisively. "I was in at Garafield's the other evening, and, I must confess, listened to a fine art lecture. All about wall-papering, too!" with a genial laugh. "What an education that fellow has! Couldn't he find any thing to do, that he must drop down upon a paper-factory? I am sure I should have made a big fight out somewhere in the great world." "'Beyond the Alps lies Italy,'" quoted Jack. "Not on the top, you observe, but perhaps in the valley. I wish you would be a little friendly with him, Maverick: you couldn't help but like him." "There is more in him than I gave him credit for. I thought at the time of his father's death I had never seen so useless a fine gentleman, with all the stamina educated out of him. I had half a mind to turn him over to Aunt Jean and Miss Lothrop." Darcy laughed absently, and Maverick saw that his mind had wandered elsewhere. How odd that these two should be friends! Maverick could not discern the fine bond uniting them. CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER came on apace. The Cooking Club took a vacation, or rather turned into a gardening club, and studied the sensible part of botany and floriculture. People began to look at the waste land lying about, with envious eyes. Here and there some one started a garden, or indulged in a flock of chickens. The Webbers traded their snug cottage for a place on the outskirts of the town, with two acres of ground, which they improved rapidly. Men who had sold farms, and spent the money in vain business speculations, looked back regretfully, and in some instances hired where they had been proprietors. There was no money to be realized in farming, but if one could even make a living! No one was making money but those lucky fellows at Hope Mills. Of course that was a bubble, and would burst presently; but doubtless it was good while it lasted.