"There is something different about that blessed old man to-day," said Amy to Hallam, riding with him beside the carryall. "Well, I suppose it makes him feel badly to know we are not going back to Fairacres. He always does feel other people's troubles more than his own." "What was in your letter, Hal?" "Humph! It couldn't be called a letter. From anybody else I would have thought it insulting." "Not from him, dear. He couldn't insult anybody. He'd not have the heart to do it. Do you mind telling?" "Not a bit. I dare say you could take example by it too. For it was a sort of sermon in few words,--'The perfection of a man is the stature of his soul.' That's all." "I don't see yet just what it means, but I think it is that you shouldn't mind being lame. That you should let your soul grow so big you would forget your poor legs, and other folks would forget them too." Nothing more was said, and even Amy felt that they had had enough of "sermons" for one day, and it was a relief to the thoughtfulness upon them all to reach Bareacre, and to see Cleena, with Fayette beside her, waiting to welcome them. "Hal, isn't it odd? The poorer we are the more folks we have. Fayette means to live there with us, and so, it seems, do all the little Joneses. My! Who is that?" "A scarecrow, I should think. Nobody I ever saw before." Seated upon a rocking-chair which she had herself brought out from the house was a young girl of about Amy's age, though from her dress and manner she might have been at least several years older. Amy caught a vision of something very gay and brilliant, rivalling the forests upon the hillsides in variety of tint, but never in their harmony. "Whew! Whoever she is she makes my eyes ache; and what a picture for father to see, the first at his new threshold!" Yet apparently without noticing anything unpleasing, Mr. Kaye assisted his wife from the carryall and walked with her to where the stranger still sat and rocked. She did not rise at their approach, and returned the courteous greeting of the master and mistress of the house with the barest of nods. "How do? I come to pay a call." But not upon them. For the first time in their lives the artist and his lovely wife were relegated by this self-possessed young person to the land of "old folks," in whom she felt no interest. With a twinkle in his eye that met an answering one in hers, the gentleman handed Mrs. Kaye on toward the eager Cleena, and turned to his children:-- "My dears, a visitor for you, I think." So Amy and Hallam rode up and dismounted, while the former went forward slowly, smiling a welcome, yet feeling oddly disconcerted before this unknown girl. "I'm Gwendolyn Jones. Ma said it wasn't no more 'n friendly to come an' call. I don't have no time 'cept Sunday an' Saturday-half. Then I generally go to Wallburg to do my shopping. It's such a trouble, shopping is, ain't it?"