"Why don't you, then?" she rejoined, but with- out any ring of glad acquiescence in her tone. He fancied that her face lengthened a little, and he instantly ascribed it to recollections of the way in which the roses had been bullied out of her own headgear.

"You are quite sure, now, pet," he made haste to change the subject, "that the hired girl can wait just as well as not until fall?"

"Oh, my, yes!" Alice replied, putting the hat on his head, and smoothing back his hair behind his ears. "She'd only be in the way now. You see, with hot weather coming on, there won't be much cooking. We'll take all our meals out here, and that saves so much work that really what remains is hardly more than taking care of a bird-cage. And, besides, not having her will almost half pay for the piano."

"But when cold weather comes, you're sure you'll consent?" he urged.

"Like a shot!" she assured him, and, after a happy little caress, he started out again on his momentous mission.

"Thurston's" was a place concerning which opinions differed in Octavius. That it typified progress, and helped more than any other feature of the village to bring it up to date, no one indeed disputed. One might move about a great deal, in truth, and hear no other view expressed. But then again one might stumble into conversation with one

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