Now Mr. Dugald was lounging against one of the rotting timbers of the house-that-had-been and sketching Miss Letty on the pad which he always carried in the pocket of his old coat. _He_ thought Miss Letty most interesting, too. He spent considerable time at her house and often took long walks with her. While Sidney watched, Miss Letty sat down stiffly by Mr. Dugald's side and looked with interest at the sketch. "That's about the thousandth one you've made, isn't it? And you can't seem to get any of them bad enough." "I can't get into it what I want," Dugald Allan laughed, tearing off the sheet and crumpling it in his hand. "You see I feel something about you that I haven't been able yet to put on canvas. But I will some day. Then I'll know I have gotten somewhere." Miss Letty considered his words as though they were of some one quite apart from herself. "I suppose it's my soul you're hoping to catch. Well, I never did wear it on my sleeve," and she laughed, a great laugh like a man's. "No, you do not. That's true. But it's my job to get at people's souls, wherever they wear 'em, and paint them in." "Well, hunt, then. Souls are queer things," opined Miss Letty, carefully drawing off her old gloves and smoothing them out with her long, bony fingers. "I sometimes think the Lord gets the souls mixed up and puts them in the wrong bodies. Maybe that's wicked but if 'tis I think lots wickeder things." "Maybe He knows more about it than we think He does--" said Dugald so softly that Sidney, frankly eavesdropping, had hard work to catch the words. They were so interesting, these two, that she was glad she had not let them know she was in Top Notch; she hoped they would talk a long time about souls and such things. But without warning Miss Letty changed the subject. "Did you ever know such a smart piece as that girl of Achsy Green's?" "Sidney?" And Mr. Dugald chuckled. "She's sure one rare kid. I don't know when I've enjoyed anything as much as having her around. And do you know the youngster's rarely gifted--she has a colorful imagination and a perception of verities that may take her further than her father. She is fighting destiny just now, but it will get her; if she isn't a poet she'll be a creator of something equally fine." "I'm too old to live to know--but you will," answered Miss Letty, quite calmly. "And maybe we're both wrong. Maybe her finest work will be to raise a family. And I don't know, when all's said and done, but that's as good a job as your daubs or my music or a book of verse. You've got something then that can love you back."