ty noises which exploded occasionally in bursts of
bitter laughter.

It was too early to dress for another hour but already the dress lay
ready on the bed. Desire had chosen it with care. She had no
wedding-dress. Bridal white would have seemed--well, dangerously near
the humorous. She would have feared that half-smile with which Spence
was wont to appreciate life's pleasantries. But the gown upon the bed
was the last word in smartness and charm. In color it was like pale
sunlight through green water. It was both cool and bright. Against it,
her warm, white skin glowed warmer and whiter; her leaf-brown hair
showed more softly brown. Its skirt was daintily short and beneath it
would show green stockings that shimmered, and slippers that were
vanity.

Desire sat in the window seat and allowed herself to be quite happy.
"If I could just sit here forever," she mused. "If someone could
enchant me, just as I am, with the sun warm on the tips of my toes and
this little wind, so full of flowers, cool upon my face. If I need
never again hear anything save the drone of sleepy bees, the chirping
of fat robins and the hum of a lawn-mower--"

She sat up suddenly. Who could be mowing the west lawn in the heat of
the day? Desire, forgetting about the enchantment, leaned out to see.
Surely it couldn't be? And yet it certainly was. The lawn-mower man
displayed the heated countenance of the bridegroom him-self.

"What is he thinking of?" groaned Desire. "He will make himself a
rag--a perfect rag. I wonder Aunt Caroline allows it."

But Aunt Caroline was presumably occupied elsewhere. No one came to
prevent the ragmaking of the professor, and Desire, after watching for
a moment, raised her finger and gave the little searching call which
had been their way of finding each other in the woods at Friendly Bay.

The professor stopped instantly, leaving the lawn-mower exactly where
it was, in the middle of a swath. With an answering wave he crossed to
the west room window and, with an ease which surprised his audience,
drew his long slimness up the pillar of the porch and clambered over
the railing into the small balcony.

"I can't come in by the front door," he explained, "on account of my
boots. And I can't come in by the back door on account of Extra Help. I
intended getting in eventually by the cellarway, but, if you want me,
that would take too long. Besides, I wanted to show you how neatly I
can shin up a post."

He smiled at he