“You go for this one, Jones,” he had said. “Go for the pick of the bunch. You’re a d—d good worker ... work like a horse ... but I daresay you’ll want it, all the same. I’ve left you a bit in my will ... left all the Joneses, in fact; but it isn’t much. Can’t leave you a fortune ... others ... got to be just. But you’re to have the house if you want it, remember that. I can trust you not to ask for it till you feel it’s your due.” Then suddenly he had swung round and looked at her, and again the smile came into his eyes. “All the same, I shouldn’t wonder if you don’t!” he had finished grimly. “It’s folks like you I build my houses for, and it’s folks like you that never get ’em! You’re the workers of the world ... the fighters ... the never-enders. You can’t stop working because you don’t know how. I sometimes think you’re not allowed to know how.” He swung back again as suddenly as he had swung forward, and took another look at the gracious view. Then he had put up his hand and pulled down the blind. “Save the curtains!” he had remarked wisely, but with a still greater wisdom in the symbolical action than he knew. Within a month news came from his Lancashire home that he, too, had passed where he could compare these earthly efforts of his with those other houses not made with hands.... CHAPTER IV The first excitement of recognition and discovery being now over, she was able to turn her mind to plans for the future. She had paid her debt to the dead in those few moments of re-vision, those thankful tears, that short sadness of regret. She was glad that she had remembered to pay it, and at the right time. She had not just hurried in and seized upon her rights, forgetting in her excitement to whose kindness she happened to owe them. She had spared the time to look back and see what it was that had made the worth of the old man’s gift. Now she was free to take it and make it her own, because she had paused to join hands with the grim philanthropist of the past. From the child, delightedly fingering and yet scarcely daring to touch, and the dreamer, going back in mind to look for those who had passed “beyond,” she became the practical housewife, busy with great affairs. She began to think about the furniture that would be coming up from the cottage, and stood, finger on lip, deciding where it should go. Also she arranged with herself when the great cleaning should begin, what room she should start in, and how long it would take. All these momentous decisions took her continually upstairs, and always, just as she got to the top, some fresh puzzle would snatch her down again. Easy as old Mr. T. had made the stairs, they still were stairs, and though she paid no attention to what her legs were saying about them just then, she was to hear them only too urgently later on.