With the aspect of a November day Mr. Atwood got out the great farm-wagon and jogged down to the landing on the Hudson, which was so distant as to insure his absence for several hours. It was a busy day for Mrs. Atwood and Susan. Fresh bread and cake were to be baked, and the rooms "tidied up" once more. A pitcher that had lost its handle was filled with old-fashioned roses that persisted in blooming in a grass-choked flower-bed. This was placed in the room designed for Mrs. Jocelyn and the children, while the one flower vase, left unbroken from the days of Roger's boyish carelessness, adorned the smaller apartment that Mildred and Belle were to occupy, and this was about the only element of elegance or beauty that Susan was able to impart part to the bare little room. Even to the country girl, to whom the term "decorative art" was but a vague phrase, the place seemed meagre and hard in its outlines, and she instinctively felt that it would appear far more so to its occupants. "But it's the best we can afford," she sighed; "and at the prices they'll pay us they shouldn't complain." Still the day was full of pleasurable excitement and anticipation to the young girl. She was aware that her mother's tasks and her own would be greatly increased, but on the other hand the monotony of the farm-house life would be broken, and in the more distant future she saw a vista of new gowns, a jaunty winter hat with a feather, and other like conditions of unalloyed happiness. Susan had dwelt thus far in one of life's secluded valleys, and if she lost much because her horizon was narrow she was shielded from far more. Her fresh, full face had a certain pleasant, wholesome aspect, like the fields about her home in June, as she bustled about, preparing for the "city folks" whom her father so dreaded. Roger's buggy was not yet paid for. It was the one great extravagance that Mr. Atwood had permitted for many a year. As usual, his wife had led him into it, he growling and protesting, but unable to resist her peculiar persistency. Roger was approaching man's estate, and something must be done to signalize so momentous an event. A light buggy was the goal of ambition to the young men in the vicinity, and Roger felt that he could never be a man without one. He also recognized it as the best means of securing a wife to his mind, for courting on a moonlit, shadowy road was far more satisfactory than in the bosom of the young woman's family. Not that he was bent on matrimony, but rather on several years of agreeable preparation for it, proposing to make tentative acquaintances, both numerous and miscellaneous.