was
the hired man and tacked down carpets for you. Now I'm the guest of
the family, if you please, and you're the cook."

"You can have two cupfuls of water to wash your hands and one for your
face. You'll find the barrel and basin upon the back porch. And don't
throw the water away! I'll save it for you to use the next time you
come."

"Thank you. But I washed over at Garton's. He lets me have two cupfuls
for my face. And now I'm going to help you. What can I do?"

"Nothing. If you wanted to work, why did you wait until the last
minute? Unless you know how to set a table?"

"I can set anything from an eight-day clock to a hen," he assured her,
gravely. "Where's Mr. Crawford? Has he come yet?"

"No. I expect him any minute. But we won't wait for him. It's against
the law in the Crawford home to wait meals for anybody."

Under her direction he found the dishes in a cupboard built into the
walls, knives, forks, spoons, and napkins in drawers below, and
journeying many times from kitchen to dining-room, stopping after each
trip to stand and watch his hostess in her preparations for dinner, he
at length had the table set. And then he insisted upon helping play
waiter with her until she informed him that he was positively
retarding matters. Whereupon he made a cigarette and sat upon the
kitchen table and merely watched.

For many days Conniston had longed to see Mr. Crawford, to talk with
him concerning the big work. Now, as he and Argyl sat down together,
his one wish was that Mr. Crawford be delayed indefinitely. As he
looked across the table, with its white cloth, its few cheap dishes,
its simple fare, he was conscious of a deep content. He helped Argyl
to the _piece de resistance_--it consisted of dried beef, potatoes,
onions, and carrots all stewed together; she passed to him the
biscuits which she had just made; they drank each other's health and
success to the Great Work in light, cooled claret made doubly
refreshing with a dash of lemon; and they dined ten times as merrily
as they would have dined at Sherry's.

He told her of Tommy Garton, and suddenly surprised in her a phase of
nature which he had never seen before. Her eyes filled with a quick,
soft sympathy, a sympathy almost motherly.

"Poor little Tommy," she said, gently. "He laughs at himself and calls
himself 'half a man,' while he's greater than any two men he comes in
contact with once in a year. I call Tommy my cathedral--which sounds
foolish,