"Faith, so they be. An' there's a fire out of some wood the cottage woman sent, an' the steak'll broil while the taties roast, like the whisk of a squirrel in the tree." So "Waterloo" became another of good Cleena's "love names." For it's ever the tone and not the words that makes a sweet sound in one's ears, and the woman's heart thrilled, and her weary shoulders lifted because of the love which sang through Amy's innocent jest. CHAPTER X. HOME-MAKING. For one whole week the artist and his wife remained at the Clove. During that time "Spite House" had undergone the most thorough cleaning and overhauling of its existence. The walls had been scraped of the ancient and discolored whitewash that covered them, and a fresh coat of sweet-smelling lime applied. "It's like a new-mown field, I think," said Amy, on the day that this whitewashing had taken place, to Fayette who was artisan in chief--always under Cleena's orders. "An' I must be the daisy that grows in it," he returned, catching a glimpse of his lime-splashed face in the tiny pocket mirror he always carried. "A whole bunch of daisies, indeed. But isn't it jolly? I never did so much hard work in my life; my hands are all blistered and sore, my feet ache--whew! And I never, never was so happy." Fayette paused midway to the shed, which he had repaired with bits of boards, begged or offered in various sources. The whitewash brush over his shoulder dripped a milky fluid upon his bared head, and occasionally a drop trickled as far as the corner of his capacious mouth. But he minded nothing so trivial as this, and he stared at Amy in the same wonderment with which he had regarded her from the beginning of their acquaintance. She also paused and returned his gaze with an amused scrutiny. "Fayette, that stare of yours is getting chronic. I wish you'd give it up. Everything I do or say seems to astonish you. What's the matter with me? Am I not like other girls? You must know many down at the mill." "No, you ain't." "How different? I'd really like to know." "Ain't seen you cry once,--or not more 'n once," he corrected truthfully. "An' you left all them things up there, an' the trees, an' the posies, an' everything like that way." For one moment Amy's breast heaved and her voice choked. Then she jerked her head in a fashion she had when she wished to throw aside unpleasant things and replied:-- "What would be the use of crying? If it would bring them all back, I'd cry a bath-tub full. But it won't. Thinking about it only makes it worse. _It had to be_, and in some ways I'm thankful it did. It was all unreal and dreamlike up there. I knew nothing about the sorrows and hardships in the real world. But how I am talking! I wonder, do you understand at all what I have said?"