"I've been too busy with the garden and my barn work, and I ain't felt so lively as common," apologized Matt, "but I'm goin' to turn over a new leaf and start right in improvin' this place. We've got money in the bank and plenty of timber big enough to sell, with a lot o' young growth comin' on besides, and there ain't any reason why we shouldn't put on a little mite o' style. I'd like some fresh paint inside and out, new-fashioned wall-paper, and water brought into the kitchen from the well--that much for a start, and more as I get goin' and can see how I can improve." "I think that's a good plan, Matthew," said his mother, who was knitting quietly in her rocker. "And while the house is all upside down and workmen in it, why couldn't I go and make Lorenzo and Lulu a little visit in Vermont? Could you spare me all right?" "Sure I could! Maria Snow would come in and clear me up once a week and cook me a batch of victuals, and I could go to Mrs. Wilkins's and get a meal now and then; she's taking transients. I've got Bill Benson comin' Monday to help with milkin' and hayin', you know, but he can board himself. I'll sleep in the shed-chamber while you're gone, so the workmen can have a free hand. Jiminy, mother, we'll give a jamboree after harvestin'! I declare I'm all het up over the idea of our improvements." "Well, I only hope they'll turn out to be improvements," his mother answered serenely. "Anyhow you're a young man and likely to live in the house the rest of your life. You'd ought to have it to suit you, Matthew, and make it nice for a wife and children in comin' years." Matthew blushed to the roots of his hair, and as he took his candle and started for the back stairs, he turned and said, like a shy schoolboy: "I was kind o' thinkin' o' them myself, mother, that's the truth. Though," he added with a laugh, "I don't know exactly who they be, nor what they'll look like." Mrs. Milliken locked the shed door, turned out the lamp, then lighted her own candle preparatory to going to her little bedroom opening out of the kitchen. "I guess the man that wrote, 'They also serve who only stand and wait,' knew something about mothers!" she said to herself. Matthew, young, strong, big-hearted, simple-minded, was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. His waking hours were filled with certain confusions and perplexities, but these vanished in sleep, and his dreams were rose-colored, for he was utterly in love, and with an angel. Tommy Mixter, aged twelve, at this moment the life and soul of a clump of small boys on the loafers' bench at the Riverboro end of the bridge, knew Undine Berry better than Matthew Milliken did, but Tommy was too young to be smitten by feminine beauty, and he was a keen judge of character. His ears had been snapped by Miss Berry's thumb and finger more than once, and he particularly disliked the way her lips were set when she called him up to ferrule him in the face of the whole school.