ing a book on
Colonial houses--he's taken the whole thing in hand so cleverly; but you
must come and see his sketch for the stage we're going to put up in the
Town Hall."

One of the first results of the Old Home Week agitation had, in fact,
been the reappearance of Lucius Harney in the village street. He had
been vaguely spoken of as being not far off, but for some weeks past no
one had seen him at North Dormer, and there was a recent report of his
having left Creston River, where he was said to have been staying, and
gone away from the neighbourhood for good. Soon after Miss Hatchard's
return, however, he came back to his old quarters in her house, and
began to take a leading part in the planning of the festivities. He
threw himself into the idea with extraordinary good-humour, and was so
prodigal of sketches, and so inexhaustible in devices, that he gave an
immediate impetus to the rather languid movement, and infected the whole
village with his enthusiasm.

"Lucius has such a feeling for the past that he has roused us all to a
sense of our privileges," Miss Hatchard would say, lingering on the last
word, which was a favourite one. And before leading her visitor back
to the drawing-room she would repeat, for the hundredth time, that she
supposed he thought it very bold of little North Dormer to start up and
have a Home Week of its own, when so many bigger places hadn't thought
of it yet; but that, after all, Associations counted more than the size
of the population, didn't they? And of course North Dormer was so full
of Associations... historic, literary (here a filial sigh for Honorius)
and ecclesiastical... he knew about the old pewter communion service
imported from England in 1769, she supposed? And it was so important, in
a wealthy materialistic age, to set the example of reverting to the old
ideals, the family and the homestead, and so on. This peroration usually
carried her half-way back across the hall, leaving the girls to return
to their interrupted activities.

The day on which Charity Royall was weaving hemlock garlands for the
procession was the last before the celebration. When Miss Hatchard
called upon the North Dormer maidenhood to collaborate in the festal
preparations Charity had at first held aloof; but it had been made
clear to her that her non-appearance might excite conjecture, and,
reluctantly, she had joined the other workers. The girls, at first shy
and embarrassed, and puzzled as to the e