To have him get out of the seat and leave her free of the touch of his garments was a blessing, and she rose to follow mechanically. The eternal hope that dies so hard in the human breast was suggesting that his mother might be not impossible; and at any rate a farm was wide. She would never be imprisoned in a car seat with him again. "There now, my lady," he said triumphantly when they were on the platform. "I suppose you thought you were comin' to Rubeville. That don't look so hay-seedy? Eh?" He pointed to a dusty automobile whose driver, a boy of eighteen or twenty, with a torn hat, eyed her with dull curiosity. "I suppose you expected a one-hoss shay. No, indeedy. You've come to all the comforts of home, little girl." His airy geniality of tone changed. "What you starin' at, you coot? Come along here, Pete." The boy moved the car toward the spot where they waited with their bags. Rufus put these in at the front and himself entered the tonneau with his guest. His conversation as they sped along the country road consisted mainly of pointing out to her the cottages or fields owned by himself. The information fell on deaf ears. The roughness of her host's tone to the boy added one more item against him and lessened her hope that the woman responsible for his existence could be a better specimen. "I'm free," thought Geraldine over and over. "I don't need to stay here." Of course the proprietary implication in every word the man said arose simply from the conceit of a boor. She would be patient and self-controlled. It might be possible still that she should find this a haven where she could live her own life in her leisure hours, few though they might be. It was with a weary curiosity that she viewed the weather-beaten house toward which they finally advanced. In front of it stood an elm-tree whose lower branches swept the roof of the porch. "That's got to come down, that tree," said Rufus meditatively. His companion turned on him. "You would cut down that splendid tree?" He regarded her suddenly vital expression admiringly. "Why not, little one?" he asked. "It's makin' the house damp and injurin' property. Property, you understand. Property. If I'd indulged in sentiment do you s'pose I'd be owner of all the land I've been showin' you?" He smiled, the semi-toothless smile, and met her horrified upturned eyes with an affectionate gaze. "However, what you say goes, little girl. You look as if you were goin' to recite--'Woodman, spare that tree.' Consider the tree spared for the present." The automobile drew up at the house and in high good-humor the master jumped out and removed Geraldine's bag to the steps of the narrow piazza. A woman's face could be seen appearing and disappearing at the window, and Pete, the driver, looked with furtive curiosity at the guest as she stepped to the porch without touching the host's outstretched hand.