he said before them all,
and I'll do it. Grandma in Biddeford buying church carpets, Stephen in
Portland--was ever such a chance?"

The same glowing Rose came downstairs, two steps at a time, next
morning, bade her grandmother good-by with suspicious pleasure, and sent
her grandfather away on an errand which, with attendant conversation,
would consume half the day. Then bundles after bundles and baskets after
baskets were packed into the wagon,--behind the seat, beneath the seat,
and finally under the lap-robe. She gave a dramatic flourish to the
whip, drove across the bridge, went through Pleasant River village, and
up the leafy road to the little house, stared the "To Let" sign
scornfully in the eye, alighted, and ran like a deer through the aisles
of waving corn, past the kitchen windows, to the back door.

"If he has kept the big key in the old place under the stone, where we
both used to find it, then he hasn't forgotten me--or anything," thought
Rose.

The key was there, and Rose lifted it with a sob of gratitude. It was
but five minutes' work to carry all the bundles from the wagon to the
back steps, and another five to lead old Tom across the road into the
woods and tie him to a tree quite out of the sight of any passer-by.

When, after running back, she turned the key in the lock, her heart gave
a leap almost of terror, and she started at the sound of her own
footfall. Through the open door the sunlight streamed into the dark
room. She flew to tables and chairs, and gave a rapid sweep of the hand
over their surfaces.

"He has been dusting here,--and within a few days, too," she thought
triumphantly.

The kitchen was perfection, as she always knew it would be, with one
door opening to the shaded road and the other looking on the river;
windows, too, framing the apple-orchard and the elms. She had chosen the
furniture, but how differently it looked now that it was actually in
place! The tiny shed had piles of split wood, with great boxes of
kindlings and shavings, all in readiness for the bride, who would do her
own cooking. Who but Stephen would have made the very wood ready for a
woman's home-coming; and why had he done so much in May, when they were
not to be married until August? Then the door of the bedroom was
stealthily opened, and here Rose sat down and cried for joy and shame
and hope and fear. The very flowered paper she had refused as too
expensive! How lovely it looked with the white chamber se