"Big parties? They're welcome to all
the fun they can get out en them, Bill. How'd you and I look slidin' and
stumblin' around over that floor of glass, anyhow? No siree! Give me
that neat little porch you've got, with Lucy's vine a-growin' 'round it.
It'll beat this all hollow!"

"Oh well, that ain't bad, to be sure," allowed Hapgood with some
reluctance.

"Bad! I should say not."

"Well, I'll own up, Nate, it is an improvement, and Lucy is as chipper
over it as can be. To have a settin'-room, too, besides the kitchen,
tickles her most to death. But what gets me is the 'lectric lights and
no extry charge."

Hapgood's face, which always reddened easily, was now a dazzling hue. He
went on excitedly,

"You jest turn 'em on, so--and there you are, light as day and no
charges--same old rent and lights flung in!"

"And heatin' too, Bill. You'll sense the meaning o' that more, next
winter. Think of nateral gas for us fellows, and cute little stoves and
grates; where you can jest turn it on and off with a thumbscrew. No wood
splittin' and sawin', no luggin' baskets of coal, no dust, no smoke, no
charges. My! Bill, it's 'most too good to b'lieve."

"Look out we don't crow too soon, Nate. It's less'n a month sense we've
had it that way, and you don't know; they may tuck it onto us----"

"Dalton says not."

"Perhaps he don't know. Did you ask him?"

"Yes, and he said the new boss was a--a philandroper, or something. He
seemed kind of tickled over it, too, as if he thought it was a kind of
tomfoolery, or joke, that mightn't last."

"If it's a freak, no more it will."

"Oh well, we'll get the good of it while it does. You can't live any
more'n a day to a time, so what's the use worryin'? Summer's here, and
the place is gettin' purtier every day, and it just does a feller's
heart good to watch them youngsters racin' and shoutin' in that old
flat-iron--'member how we felt it never could be a park, and for us? But
you see 'tis, and a special place for the young'uns, too. That ought to
clinch the thing, I'm sure!"

So they wondered, questioned, and commented, but never thought of
connecting these sunny marvels with the handsome girl, who was
occasionally seen strolling about, either with the older woman, who had
been ticketed as her old-maid aunt, or with Mr. Dalton, supposed by all
to be some distant relative. Joyce had been very careful to act through
agents, and though the workmen sometimes thought she showed a "he