I aren't set in our ways, and are glad enough to
be let off duty for a week. The hut is yours just as long as you will
stay; do just what you like with it. Though we're pretty good housekeepers
too, considering; don't you think so?"

"Do you believe he meant it?" asked Clover, confidentially afterward of
Mrs. Hope. "Do you think they really wouldn't mind being tidied up a
little? I should so like to give that room a good dusting, if it wouldn't
vex them."

"My dear, they will probably never know the difference except by a vague
sense of improved comfort. Men are dreadfully untidy, as a general thing,
when left to themselves; but they like very well to have other people make
things neat."

"Mr. Templestowe told Phil that they go off early in the morning and don't
come back till breakfast at half-past seven; so if I wake early enough I
shall try to do a little setting to rights before they come in."

"And I'll come and help if I don't over-sleep," declared Mrs. Hope; "but
this air makes me feel dreadfully as if I should."

"I sha'n't call you," said Clover; "but it will be nice to have you, if
you come."

She stood at her window after Mrs. Hope had gone, for a last look at the
peak which glittered sharply in the light of the moon. The air was like
scented wine. She drew a long breath.

"How lovely it is!" she said to herself, and kissed her hand to the
mountain. "Good-night, you beautiful thing."

She woke with the first beam of yellow sun, after eight hours of dreamless
sleep, with a keen sense of renovation and refreshment. A great splashing
was going on in the opposite wing, and manly voices hushed to suppressed
tones were audible. Then came a sound of boots on the porch; and peeping
from behind her curtain, she saw Clarence and his friend striding across
the grass in the direction of the stock-huts. She glanced at her watch. It
was a quarter past five.

"Now is my chance," she thought; and dressing rapidly, she put on a little
cambric jacket, knotted her hair up, tied a handkerchief over it, and
hurried into the sitting-room. Her first act was to throw open all the
windows to let out the smell of stale tobacco, her next to hunt for a
broom. She found one at last, hanging on the door of a sort of
store-closet, and moving the furniture as noiselessly as she could, she
gave the room a rapid but effectual sweeping.

While the dust settled, she stole out to a place on the hillside where the
night before she ha