ds. He has built him a little hut there and makes his
furniture out of the trees."

Lydia's passing curiosity had faded. "Not quite twenty, even--only
ninety-two francs," she at last answered her mother's question. "You
never saw anything like the bargains there in summertime. Well, I should
think your carpenter man _was_ crazy." She glanced down with
satisfaction at the hang of her skirt.

"Oh, not dangerous," her mother reassured her; "just socialistic, I
suppose, and all that sort of thing."

"Well, who's crazier than a socialist?" cried her father genially. He
added, "Where are you going, Daughter?"

Lydia stopped in the doorway, with a look of apology for her lack of
interest in their talk. "I thought I'd just slip into the hall and see
if there's anything new there. There's so much I want to see--all at
once."

Her fond impatience brought her parents forward with a start of
pleasure, and the tour of inspection began. She led them from one room
to another, swooping with swallow-like motions upon them for sudden
caresses, dazzling them with her changing grace. She liked it
all--all--she told them, a thousand times better than she remembered.
She liked the new arrangement of the butler's pantry; she loved the
library for being all done over new; she adored the hall for being left
exactly the way it was. The dining-room was the best of all, she
declared, with so much that was familiar and so much that was new. "Only
no sideboard," she commented. "Have they gone out of fashion while I was
away?"

Mrs. Emery, whose delight at Lydia's approval had been mounting with
every breath, looked vexed. "I knew you'd notice that!" she said. "We
tried so hard to get the new one put in before you got back, but Mr.
Rankin won't deliver a thing till it's just so!"

"Rankin!" cried Lydia, stopping so short in one of her headlong rushes
across the room that she gave the impression of having encountered an
invisible obstacle, "Who's that?"

"Oh, that's the crazy cabinet-maker we were talking about. The one
who--"

"Why, I've met a Mr. Rankin," said Lydia, with more emphasis than the
statement seemed to warrant.

"It's a common enough name," said her mother, struck oddly by her
accent.

"But here, in Endbury. Only it can't be the same person. He wasn't
queer; he was awfully nice. I met him once when a crowd of us were out
skating that last Christmas I was home from school; the time when you
and Father were in Washington an