are having perfect
duck fits," he shouted. "He's as mad as a wet hen."

But Mrs. Folsom leaned back, taking fresh breaths of air. "This is a
green country," she announced, "and you have a little brown brook that
winds, and great trees like cathedrals. Do you think that with all this
around me I shall be staying to the _salon_ remarking continuously upon
the Jar of Everythings?"

Both men laughed and the architect kissed her hand.

When the car swept around the white shell drive and halted by the lower
terrace, Folsom, with a whoop like a boy, sprang out; he ran joyfully
forward, for there stood the old couple whose faces, to his home-coming
sense, seemed like those of parents. Mr. Pawket trembled slightly; he
stood high-collared and coattailed, upon the glittering steps. Mrs.
Pawket, in black silk, clove to his arm. The twins, in the heated
wretchedness of Sunday clothes, stepped forward, and in the interests of
sentiment stuck forth two wads of tightly bound pink roses. The Rural,
blushing in a costume of very bright blue, wearing elbow mitts, and
carrying a pink feather fan, introduced a sweet-smelling young man as
"my intended."

Among the small groups of peering and excited neighbors was Mr. Fripp,
the junction agent.

"Seems there's a good deal of excitement in the air. We 'ain't all been
out like this sence the mad dog was shot down to Galloway's." When this
gentleman was presented to Mrs. Folsom he drew himself up, looked at her
suspiciously, and said, "Pleased to meet you." He cast the eye of a
worldling over her quiet traveling costume and retired to nudge the
Rural and remark: "Well, I see the furniture money 'ain't been spent on
_her_ back."

The lady of the vanilla looked about her with pure happiness. She met
all introductions radiantly, sniffing rapturously at the twins' roses,
lifting first one, then the other stodgy bunch.

"But you are all so kind!" The clear voice rippling with novelty and
excitement gave a sense of thrill to the occasion. The mistress of the
vanilla held Mrs. Pawket's perspiring hand.

"To know this lady--like the mother of Weeliam--and Mr. Pawket, my first
American of the famous farmer trrribes!"

The stranger's insecurity of English had its immediate triumph. The
countryside had expected that she would chatter Italian like a predatory
organ-grinder, but around this picturesque _naivete_ they clustered as
they would around a lost child. Jessica Folsom met the architect's