in which she seemed quite as much interested as Harold
himself. When the roof was raised, and the floor laid, and the
frame-work of the bay-window up, she went nearly every day to the
cottage to watch the progress of the work, and to keep Harold's one
hired man up to the mark, if he showed the least sign of lagging.

'She is wus than a slave-driver,' the man said to Harold one day. 'Why,
if ever I stop to take a chair, or rest my bones a bit, she's after me
in a jiffy, and asks if I don't think I can get so much done in an hour
if I work as tight as I can clip it. I was never so druv in my life.'

And yet both the man and Harold liked to see the little lady there,
walking through the shavings, and holding high her dainty skirts as she
clambered over piles of boards and shingles, or perching herself on the
work bench, superintended them both, and twice by her intervention saved
a door from swinging the wrong way, and from being a little askew.

Mrs. Tracy was greatly opposed to Maude's going so often to the cottage,
wondering what pleasure she could find in seeing an old house repaired,
and predicting that she would make herself sick. But Maude was
headstrong and would have her way, especially as her father did not
object, but himself took her frequently to the cottage. Frank was almost
as much interested in the work as she was, and once offered his
services, as did Dick St. Claire and Billy Peterkin.

'That's splendid. We'll have a bee, and get a lot done,' Maude said; and
she pressed into the _bee_ her father and Dick, and Billy, and Fred
Raymond, and Tom, the latter of whom did nothing but find fault, saying
that the ceiling ought to have been of different woods, the floor
inlaid, and the tops of the windows cathedral glass.

'And I suppose you will find the money for all that elegance,' Maude
said, as she held one end of a board for Harold to nail. 'We are cutting
our garment according to the cloth, and if you don't like it you'd
better go away. We do not want any drones in the hive, do we, Hally?'

'She had taken to address him thus familiarly since they had commenced
their carpenter work together, and Harold smiled brightly upon her as
upon a child, as she stood on tip-toe at his side.

Tom went away, but he soon came back again; for there was for him a
peculiar fascination about this room for Jerrie, and sitting down upon a
saw-horse, he looked on, and whittled, and smoked, while Dick blistered
his hands, an