Jane moved on until she found a practicable stone in a suitable angle. "About here, I think," she said, tapping the stone with her toe. "Do you want me to pry it out?" "If you can. There's a sort of sharp stick over on that sand-pile." Bingham removed the stone, and imbedded the horseshoe among the sharp-edged fragments which had been worked into the course beneath. "I want it to stay, too," declared Jane, as her eye roamed towards the half-dried mortar-bed just beyond the foundation trench. "Wait a second." She skipped across the small chasm which intervened between the foundation-wall and solid ground. She scooped up some water from a hallow puddle with a battered tin can, and began the formation of an oozy little pocket in the middle of the mortar-bed. "Now if I only had a shingle," she said, after she had reduced the mortar to the consistency of slime. "No shingle would hold that," said Bingham, jumping across after her. "Here, give me that can." He poured a quart or two of mortar on top of the horseshoe and reset the stone "There!" said Jane, bringing her whole weight upon it. "Good-luck to this house and household!" said Bingham. He raised his hat; she could not tell whether he were in jest or in earnest. "It needs all the luck it can have," said Jane. "It may be a nice house, but it will never be home." "Oh yes, it will," said Bingham, soothingly. "Oh no, it won't," returned Jane, permitting herself the luxury of a little woe. "Even if we _do_ have wreaths of flowers in all the washbowls, and transoms that you can open and shut without getting on to chairs, and a what-you-may-call-it to regulate the furnace heat without going down cellar--all the same, it won't be our dear old home." "No; a better one." "Well," said Jane, resignedly. She lifted her eyes and pointed her finger aloft. "I suppose I shall be up there, somewhere." "Oh, not yet," replied Bingham, bringing his eyes back from the clouds. "You look very well fitted for your present sphere." "I didn't mean all the way up," said Jane, smilingly dismal. "I only meant the next floor--yet awhile." "That's better. Don't be an angel just yet; you're too useful here." "If not ornamental." "Too ornamental, too." "I never claimed to be that," observed Jane, dropping her eyes. "Do you think I'm--improving?" Jane stood there on the foundations, clad in the ample and voluminous fashion of the day and topped off with a distinctly stylish hat. She had had a long regimen of fencing and dumbbells, and her self-imposed superintendence of the new house had led to many hours spent in the open air. Her hair was blowing airily about her face, and on her cheek there was a slight flush--produced, perhaps, by her own question. "Decidedly," replied Bingham, promptly. "Thanks. There's always room for improvement. It's the biggest room in the world, somebody says."