"Oh!" said I, a light dawning on my masculine stupidity, "I begin to realize the paradoxes of propriety. And now I see at last why I shouldn't have asked you to pick the paint for the dining-room--when I did." Her eyes narrowed, and she looked into my face with sudden gravity. "I wonder if you do understand?" she answered. Slowly a half-wistful smile crept into the corners of her mouth, and she shook her head. "No, you don't; you don't at all." Then her old laugh came bubbling up. "I suspect Mrs. Pillig is more of an authority on pies than propriety," she said in a cautious voice, "and, besides, I'm going away to-morrow, and, besides, I don't care anyway. Lead on." We went up the uncarpeted front stairs, into the square upper hall which was lighted by an east window over the front door. I showed her first the spare room on the northeast corner, which connected with the bath, and then the second front chamber opposite, which was not yet furnished even with a bed. Then we entered my chamber, where the western sun was streaming in. She stood in the door a second, looking about, and then advanced and surveyed the bed. "The bedclothes aren't tucked in right," she said. "I know it," I answered sadly. "I have to fix them myself every night. Mrs. Pillig is better on pies." The girl leaned over and remade my monastic white cot, giving the pillow a final pat to smooth it. Then she inspected the shingles and old photographs on the walls, turning from an undergraduate picture of me, in a group, to scan my face, and shaking her head. "What's the matter?" I asked. "Don't tell me I'm getting bald." "No, not bald," she answered, "but your eyes don't see visions as they did then." I looked at her, startled a little. "What makes you say that?" I asked. "Forgive me," she replied quickly. "I meant nothing." "You meant what you said," I answered, moving close to her, "and it is true. It is true of all men, and all women, in a way--of all save the chosen few who are the poets and seers. 'Shades of the prison house begin to close'--you know that shadow, too, I guess. I have no picture of you when you were younger. No--you are still the poet; you see aqueducts of roses. So you think I'm prosy now!" "I didn't say that," she answered, very low. "One vision I've seen," I went on, "one vision, lately. It was--it was----" I broke abruptly off, remembering suddenly my resolve. "Come," said I, "and I'll show you Mrs. Pillig's quarters." She followed in silence, and peeped with me into the chambers in the ell, smiling a little as she saw Peter's clothes scattered on the floor and bed. Then, still in silence, and with the golden light of afternoon streaming across the slopes of my farm, we entered the pines by the woodshed, and followed the new path along by the potato field and the pasture wall, pausing here and there to gather the first wild rose buds, and turning down through the cloister at the south.