Edwin Green listened, enchanted at Molly’s description of her childhood and the beloved play-house. He half shut his eyes and tried to picture her as a little girl in a blue sun-bonnet—of course she must have had a blue bonnet—climbing nimbly up the old apple tree, entering as eagerly into the game of Swiss Family Robinson as she was now playing the game of life, even letting her best little slippers be gummed over to play the game true. He had a feeling of almost bitter regret that he hadn’t known Molly as a little girl. “She must have been such a bully little girl,” thought that highly educated teacher of English. “Miss Molly, do you think that this would be the best place to build my bungalow? Place it right here where your castle stood? Maybe I could catch some of the breezes that you used to enjoy; and perhaps some of the happiness that you found here was spilled over and I might pick it up. It could not be so beautiful as your tree castle, but it is my ‘Castle in the Air.’ If I put it here I should not have to sacrifice any of the other trees; there is room enough where your old friend stood for my modest wants. Would it hurt your feelings to have me build a little house where your childish mansion stood?” “Why, Professor Green, the idea of such a thing! It would give me the greatest happiness to have your bungalow right on this site. I would not be a dog in the manger about it, anyhow. Are you really and truly going to build?” “I hope to. Of course, I shall have to ask your mother if she would mind having such a close neighbor.” “Well, I hardly think mother would expect to sell a lot and then not let the purchaser build. She may have to sell some more of the place. I wish it could be that old stony strip over by Aunt Clay’s. You know our home, Chatsworth, is a Brown inheritance, and the Carmichael place adjoining belonged to mother’s people. They call it the Clay place now, but until grandfather died it was known as the Carmichael place. Aunt Clay married and lived there and somehow got hold of grandfather and made him appoint her administratrix and executrix to his estate. She managed things so well for herself that she got the house with everything in it and the improved, cleared land, giving mother acres and acres of poor land where even blackberries don’t flourish and the cows won’t graze. The sheep won’t drink the water, but they do condescend to keep down the weeds. I really believe that Aunt Clay is the only person in the world that I can’t like even a little bit. I fancy it is because she has been so mean to mother. I believe I could get over her being cross and critical with me, but somehow I can’t forgive the way she has always treated mother.” “I found her a very trying companion at your sister’s wedding, and she looks as though she had brains, too. But how anyone with sense could be anything but kind to your mother I cannot see.”