"Aren't touchy about her, are you? Great Scott, boy, you haven't had time! Now, if it had been me, a day's enough. Fire and tow. Fire and tow. You'd supply the tow all right, old cotton-top, but I'll be hanged if I can see where she'd provide the spark. Don't you touch that bag, Barrison," for Philip had caught up his guest's suitcase. "Like a condemned fool, I put the scores in it instead of in the box. There must be some horse here that wouldn't take it quite so much to heart as I do." "All right," said Philip. "It can come up with your trunk. Here, Matt,"--for the too-popular carpenter was expressman as well,--"this is my friend Mr. Kelly. He aids and abets me when I shriek at the public and he's loaded up his bag with music. Bring it along with his trunk, will you? Here's the check. Mr. Blake, Barney." The newcomer shook hands with the long-legged, long-armed thin man in his shirtsleeves, and Matt Blake appraised the stranger out of his blue, grave, shrewd island eyes. "Just crazy about this place already, Mr. Blake, just crazy about it," the newcomer assured him, and Matt Blake nodded his old straw hat and listed the volatile Barney as "another nut." It was about a week afterward that opportunity found Mrs. Lowell and Nicholas Gayne together one evening in the living-room of the Inn. It was cool and a wood fire blazed on the hearth, but the night was still inviting and had lured the others to put on wraps and stay out of doors. When Mrs. Lowell came in, Gayne was in a wicker rocker before the fire, his legs stretched out, and, as the lady entered, he drew them in and rose. "You are choosing the better part, too, are you?" he said, not doubting that his presence was proving as much of an attraction as the fire. Two other men had arrived, teachers from a boys' school, Evans and Pratt by name, and it was probable that Miss Emerson was figuratively sitting at the feet of one of them and asking questions about the stars. At all events, she was out of doors. Nicholas Gayne had looked up apprehensively at Mrs. Lowell's entrance, fearing the worst; and his relief caused him to be quite effusive in his welcome of the lady and the manner in which he brought forward a chair for her. "Have you had a good day?" she asked as she seated herself and he fell back into his rocker. "It has been a nice day, yes." "I meant as to your work." "My work?" "Yes, your sketching." "Oh. Oh, yes, of course. Fine. Very clear. Very good views." "I suppose you elaborate these in your studio in town." "What? Oh, well--it isn't much of a studio at that. It is more or less on the side--my art work. I--I make no pretensions. Everybody's got to have a fad to be truly happy, haven't they? I like to scrawl and daub a little." "You are modest. I've been expecting you would show us some of these views. This place is surely one to tempt the artist. Doubtless you have seen some of Frederic Waugh's canvases done from the sketches he made here."