oin' to have a little meat."

"Can't stay."

"It's stormin' putty hard."

"_I_ don't care!" He moved toward the door.

Uncle William took down an oil-skin coat from its peg. "You better put
this on if ye can't stay. No use in gettin' wet through."

Andy put it on and buttoned it up in fierce silence.

Uncle William watched him benignly. "If 't was so 's 't you could stay,
we could play another after dinner--play the rubber. You beat _me_ last
time, you know." He took off the stove-lid and peered in.

Andy's eye had relaxed a little under its gloom. "When you goin' to have
dinner?" he asked.

"I was thinkin' of havin' it putty soon. I can have it right off if
you'll stay--must be 'most time." He pulled a great watch from its fob
pocket and looked at it with absent eye. His gaze deepened. He looked
up slowly. Then he smiled--a cheerful smile that took in Andy, the board
with its scattered checkers, Juno on the lounge, and the whole red room.

"Well, what time is it?" said Andy.

"It's five minutes to three, Andy. Guess you'd better stay," said Uncle
William.

VIII

Uncle William carried the letter up the zigzag rocks in his big fingers.
A touch of spring was in the air, but the _Andrew Halloran_ rocked alone
at the foot of the cliff. Uncle William turned back once to look at her.
Then he pursued his way up the rocky cliff. He had not heard from the
artist for over a month. He glanced down curiously at the letter in
his hand, once or twice, as he climbed the cliff. It was a woman's
handwriting.

He sat down by the table, tearing open the envelope with cautious
fingers. A strip of bluish paper fluttered from it and fell to the
floor. Uncle William bent over and picked it up. He looked at it a
little bashfully and laid it on the table. He spread the letter before
him, resting his elbows on the table and bending above it laboriously.
As he read, an anxious line came between his eyes. "Now, that's too
bad--sick in bed--I want to know--Well, well! Pshaw, you needn't 'a'
done that! Of course I'll go." He picked up the bluish slip and looked
at it. He pushed the spectacles back on his head and sat surveying the
red room. He shook his head slowly. "He must be putty sick to feel like
that," he said.

He took up the letter again, spelling it out slowly.

"MY DEAR MR. BENSLOW: You have not forgotten Alan Woodworth, the artist
who was in Arichat last summer? I am writing to tell you that he is very
ill. He