"Had I loved Uncle a great deal more--it isn't wrong for me to say that now, Kenny?" "It would be wrong, dear, if you made pretense of something you couldn't feel." "I--I meant that even then I could have mourned him better with my heart than this--this dreadful dress. It would carry gloom wherever I went. And that would be selfish." He blessed her shy intelligence and kissed her again. Then the carriage stopped at the farmhouse door and Kenny hurried up to his room to find clothes less formal and depressing. Afterward he went ahead to the cabin and built a fire. The crackle of the wood was lively to his ears and cheerful. The room grew, warm and homelike. When Joan came a little later, he was whistling softly and making tea. He liked her dress. It was dark and soft. He liked the lace fichu at her throat. And he liked the huge old-fashioned cameo that fastened it. "Hughie is hunting the key to the table-drawer," she said. "I told him about the cabin. It doesn't matter now. Poor Uncle!" She blinked and wiped her eyes. "He didn't mean to be cruel, Kenny. It was the brandy and the pain. If Hughie finds the key, he wondered if you'd go over Uncle's papers to-night. The will is there." "The will!" said Kenny. He put wood on the fire in some excitement. A miser's will! Joan's eyes were tender. "Kenny, how good you've been!" "Nonsense!" he said brusquely. "Hughie said so, too. And Hannah and Hetty. Someone had to think and plan and you did it all so well. And, Kenny, I told Hannah, that I'm going to marry you and she cried and kissed me and--and poured a wash-bowl full of tea for Hughie to wash his hands in!" "The heart of her!" said Kenny. "Come, girleen. The tea's ready. I want to see you pour it." He watched with his heart in his eyes while she poured his tea. There was a sense of home in the cabin here and the crackle of the fire was the music of comfort. Kenny drank a little of his tea and roved off to the window to light a cigarette. Beyond the November monotone of trees blazed the red of a sunset. A winter sunset! The fall was over. "Joan!" he called softly. "Come, jewel machree, the Gray Man is stealing through the pines." She came at once and slipped into the circle of his arm. Kenny held her tight and found his courage. He was restless, it seemed, and after months of irresponsibility, the thought of work was bothering him badly. Kenny must leave the farm. He must go soon; in a week. And his wife must go with him. Joan's breathless amazement made him laugh. "But, Kenny, I--I can't!" she said. "And I," said Kenny stubbornly, "can't and won't go away and leave you here. The thought of winter and the hills and that barn of a house when the wind is blowing would haunt me. No, no, girleen!" Joan looked up and smiled and her soft eyes were wistful. "Kenny, I must study for another year!" "Another year!" said Kenny blankly. "Colleen, you've the wisdom of the ages in your head right now."