place?"

"Well, he asks different rents from different people," she answered slowly, her features showing grim amusement, "and no one has ever managed to strike a bargain with him yet. Last spring a man came along from the city thinking as the place was standing idle anyway he ought to be able to rent it cheap for the summer, so he hunted Peter up to show him round. He was one of them big blustering sort of men that acts as if country people wasn't no better than door mats, but Peter followed him about as meek as Moses, carrying his overcoat and umbrella for him. They come in here about train time, then the man pulls out a dime and says, 'Here, my man,' says he, 'is something for your trouble. It's a ramshackle old house and ain't worth two hundred a year, but I'll give you fifty for six months.' Peter was looking at the dime in a puzzled sort of way, then he smiled a curious sort of smile and bit the edge before he put it in his pocket. 'You're most too kind, sir,' he says, 'for it has been a great entertainment to me to show you about, and I don't often have the company of a real gentleman. I'm sorry the place is beyond your means, but the fact is that I couldn't afford to let you have it less than two hundred a month. I'm sorry,' says he, 'that you had so much trouble for nothing, but I'll just slip this half-dollar into your pocket and you'll have it to spend when you get back to the city.' With that he lays down the overcoat and umbrella and walks out. And for all the fine clothes and jewelry of that man, he used such profane language that I had to ask him to stop or else step outside. That's just like old Peter—he's so touchy there's no getting on with him, though he can be as sweet as pie if he happens to take a fancy to a person. There was once a man——"

At this point Marion adroitly interposed with another question, and in two minutes we were on the road to Waydean. Paul and I straggled along behind, scarcely able to keep up with Marion's eager pace, as she breathlessly commented upon the delights of living in such a house as the postmistress had described. I became so enthusiastic, in sympathy with her, that by the time we caught a glimpse of the chimneys through a belt of trees I was almost persuaded that open fireplaces and diamond panes were the only essentials of an ideal house. We had been directed to look for the owner at the diminutive cottage he lived in a half mile farther along the road, but with a common impulse we turned in at once to the inviting roadway that led up to the old homestead. On our right a mossy board fence enclosed an old orchard, the gnarled and rugged trunks of the trees set in a carpet of newly sprouted grass, the shadows of the still leafless branches outlined on the knolls and hollows just, as Paul expressed it, like a real colored picture out of a real picture-book.

We hurried along the driveway canopied by the spreading branches of the pines that grew on each side, and rounding a curve we came within sight of a rambling frame house set on a knoll with a neatly terraced lawn sloping toward us.

From the moment Paul darted forward with a shout of delight and seated himself on the steps of a diminutive colonial porch we felt the joy of possession. We stood off and surveyed the roof. The shingles were delicately tinted in moss-green and a few bricks were missing from the upper courses of the chimneys, but the glass in the windows was unbroken and the house looked exceedingly habitable and home-like.

The front door was locked, so we peered in at the lower windows and then went round to the rear, finding the kitchen door wide open. Marion entered first and I saw her run across the room and drop on her knees in front of a cavernous brick fireplace with a little cry of delight. By the time I reached her she was emerging from its sooty recesses with a smudged but radiant countenance, smiling exultantly as she swung a rusty iron hook outward.

"What's that thing?" I asked.

"That thing!" she echoed, in pitying incredulity. "Do you mean to say, Henry, that you don't know a crane when you see one?"

Before I could plead ignorance she discovered that the ceiling was timbered, the walls wainscoted, and that a settle stood in the dim corner near the fireplace. "It isn't worth while looking at the rest of the house," she said, sitting down on the settle with a smile of perfect content; "you may go and find that old man. Whatever happens, we're going to rent this place, but don't tell him so—bring him to me. In the meantime, remember he's got to take a fancy to you, so be just as charming as you know how to be. Oh, you needn't laugh! I know charming doesn't seem the right word to apply to a man, but that's what you are when you do your best. You can be more agreeable than any man I ever knew, and you can be more—but there, do go, go—you'd stand around all day if you thought I'd go on talking about you."

There were several points connected with her remarks that I would have liked to have more fully explained, but she was so insistent that I prepared to go, and it was not my fault that I didn't start, for we suddenly became aware that Paul was missing. In frantic haste we searched the premises and at last found him sitting on a low mound of freshly turned-up sandy soil at the back of the barn, a batch of sand-cakes neatly laid out on a board beside him. Now Paul had never before sat on the ground, he had never learned how to make any kind of mud-pies, as far as we knew he had never heard of the art, yet some subtle instinct had drawn him to the only spot within reach where there was a heap of suitable soil. The sight was appalling, for it seemed as if our brief forgetfulness must result in his having an attack of pneumonia or some other dreadful ailment. Not a word did we say before Paul, of course, for we are careful not to alarm the dear boy, both for his sake and our own, but we conversed by expressive glances as we walked back toward the house, assuring each other that we must hope for the best and be prepared for the worst, and that by some miracle he might escape.

We had stopped to look down the entrance to a large underground root-house, the door of which was open, when from the inside came a succession of feeble groans. There was a heap of bags in the doorway, and in an instant I realized what had happened: that some man had been overcome by the poisonous gases that gather in pits where vegetables are stored.

I am not one who rashly plunges into danger without weighing the consequences, so I didn't bravely lose my life by rushing into the pit in the vain attempt to carry another man out, for I saw there were several good reasons against such a course. First, I knew that I couldn't carry a man anywhere even under the most favorable conditions; second, I couldn't bear to think of the shock to Marion if she should become a widow; third, it was perfectly clear to me that if I remained in the root-house Marion would attempt to save me, then Paul would remain outside and become an orphan, a howling orphan. Further, I was not justified in risking an undoubtedly valuable life for one that was probably of no account.

A long pole with a hook on the end would have been useful, or a piece of rope, but neither was to be found, and the groans of the man in the root-house were becoming still more alarming, so, noticing the heavy chain which held the well-bucket, I hurriedly tried to detach it, but to my despair I found it was securely spiked to the well-sweep. It was then that Marion made one of the most brilliant suggestions that I have known her to make: that by swinging the sweep to one side the