Rufus Carder laughed leniently, and leaning forward would have patted her hand, but she drew it away with a quick motion which warned him to proceed slowly. In her eyes was an indignant light. "You can do about as you like with me, little girl," he said fondly. "If it's a dishwasher for Ma that you want, why, I'll have to get one, that's all." "I heard that you have found it very difficult to get help out here." "I always get whatever I go after," was the reply. And the guest had a fleeting consolation in the thought that she might make easier the lot of that wrinkled slave in the kitchen. "You don't know yet all I can do for you," pursued Carder, and Geraldine writhed under the self-satisfied gaze which seemed to be taking stock of her person from head to foot; "nor what I intend to do," he added. "My wife was a plain sort of woman and I've been wrapped up in business. See that little buildin' down there side o' the road? That's my office. I can see everybody who comes in or goes out of the place and can keep my hand on everything that's doin' on the farm. I've held my nose pretty close to the grindstone and I've earned the right to let up a little. I know you find things very plain here, but I'm goin' to give you leave to do it all over. I intend you shall have just what you want, little girl." Every time Rufus Carder used that expression, "little girl," a strange sensation of nausea crept again around Geraldine's heart. It was as if he actually caressed her with those big-jointed and not over-clean hands. She still remembered the pleading of his mother not to make him angry. "Your mother should be your first thought," she said. "Well, that's all right," he returned. "Of course she's gettin' along and I put water in the kitchen for her this year; but it's legitimate for young folks to begin where old folks leave off. If it wa'n't so, how would there be any improvement in the world? You and I'll make lots o' trips to town until you get this old house to lookin' just the way you want it. I'm sorry Dick Melody can't come out and see us here." Tears sprang to the girl's eyes. Tears of grief and an infinite resentment that this coarse creature could so familiarly name her father. Mrs. Carder here appeared to announce that their supper was ready, so no more was said until in the next room they found a small table set for two. "Have you eaten your supper, Mrs. Carder?" Geraldine asked of the harassed and heated little woman who was hurrying back and forth loaded with dishes. "Yes, much as I ever do," was the reply. "I get my meals on the fly." Then, meeting her son's lowering expression, she hastened to add, "I get all I want that way, you know. It's the way I like the best." "It isn't the way you must do while I'm here," responded Geraldine firmly. "You're tired out. Come and sit down with your son and let me wait on you while you rest."