Miss Burridge seized the young fellow's arm and dragged him into the kitchen, where in one corner reposed the new stove in its shining newness, its parts piled ignominiously lop-sided. Talking all the time, its owner pulled open one door after another, as Philip disengaged them, and at last she laid hands on the missing treasure. "Now I'll give you as good a dinner as ever comes off this stove if you'll go and get those men and bring 'em up here," she said. "Don't leave me till I'm whole-footed, Phil." "Want feet as well as legs, do you?" he chuckled. "All right. See you later if I can get Blake and Buell. If I can't, I suppose I'd better drown myself." "No, no, don't do that, Phil. _You're_ better than nothing, yourself." CHAPTER II VERONICA For the next few days the right moment for Philip to desert Miss Burridge never seemed to arrive, and by that time the new establishment had come to be in very good running order, which was fortunate, as the expected boarders' dates were drawing near. Diana approached Philip one morning with a pleased countenance. He was encouraging the hopeful little sweet peas that stood in a green row below the porch. She came and sat on the rail above and watched him. "Miss Burridge is going to allow me to name our domicile," she announced. "Brave woman!" said Philip, coaxing the brown earth up against the line of green with his trowel. "Which of us is brave?" asked Diana, smiling,--"Miss Priscilla or myself?" "What are you going to call it? Olympus?" "Why should I?" Diana gave a soft, gurgling laugh. "I thought perhaps it might bring happy memories and prove a palliation of nostalgia." "I always have a feeling that you are amusing yourself with me, Mr. Barrison." "Have you any objection to my seeing that you are a goddess? What have you done with Apollo, by the way? Couldn't you persuade him to leave the gallery?" "To what gallery do you refer? I do not particularly care for handsome men," was Miss Wilbur's thoughtful response. "I'm sorry I'm so beautiful, then," said Philip, extending his little earth barricade. Diana looked down from her balcony on his tumbling blond hair. "You have a very good presence for your purpose," she said. "What is my purpose?" "The concert stage, is it not? Perhaps even opera, later?" "Yes, divine huntress, if I ever succeed in making it." "You will make it unless you are unpardonably dilatory and neglectful. Every time you utter a musical tone it sends a vibration coursing through my nerves with a pleasant thrill." Philip looked up at the speaker with his sea-blue, curious gaze, which she received serenely. "Bully for you, Miss Wilbur. That's all I can say. Bully for you." "I am glad if that encourages you," she said kindly. "It is quite outside my own volition." "Then I don't need to thank you, eh?" "Oh, not in the least." Philip laughed and stooped again to his job.