," he said.

"It's a beautiful place, Mr. Greatorex," said Alice.

And she did actually think it was beautiful with its stone floor, its
white-washed walls, its black oak dresser and chest and settle;
not because of these things but because it was on the border of her
Paradise. Rowcliffe had sent her there. Jim Greatorex had glamour
for her, less on his own account than as a man in whom Rowcliffe was
interested.

"You'd think it a bit loansoom, wouldn' yo', ef yo' staayed in it
yeear in and yeear out?"

"I don't know," said Alice doubtfully. "Perhaps--a little," she
ventured, encouraged by Greatorex's indulgent smile.

"An' loansoom it is," said Greatorex dismally.

Alice explored, penetrating into the interior.

"Oh--but aren't you glad you've got such a lovely fireplace?"

"I doan' knaw as I've thought mooch about it. We get used to our own."

"What are those hooks for in the chimney?"

"They? They're fer 'angin' the haams on--to smoak 'em."

"I see."

She would have sat there on the oak settle but that Greatorex was
holding open the door of an inner room.

"Yo'd better coom into t' parlor, Miss Cartaret. It'll be more
coomfortable for you."

She rose and followed him. She had been long enough in Garth to know
that if you are asked to go into the parlor you must go. Otherwise you
risk offending the kind gods of the hearth and threshold.

The parlor was a long low room that continued the line of the house
to its southern end. One wide mullioned window looked east over the
marsh, the other south to the hillside across a little orchard of
dwarfed and twisted trees.

To Alice they were the trees of her Paradise and the hillside was its
boundary.

Greatorex drew close to the hearth the horsehair and mahogany armchair
with the white antimacassar.

"Sit yo' down and I'll putt a light to the fire."

"Not for me," she protested.

But Greatorex was on his knees before her, lighting the fire.

"You'll 'ave wet feet coomin' over t' moor. Cauld, too, yo'll be."

She sat and watched him. He was deft with his great hands, like a
woman, over his fire-lighting.

"There--she's burning fine." He rose, turning triumphantly on his
hearth as the flame leaped in the grate.

"Yo'll let me mak' yo' a coop of tae, Miss Cartaret."

There was an interrogative lilt at the end of all his sentences, even
when, as now, he was making statements that admitted of no denial. But
his guest missed the incontrovertible and