u in it. Then I put myself in, too."

When he spoke like this, simply and even with a gay indifference, she
wondered whether the world was a pageant to him, which it cost him no
pains to relinquish, and whether, too, though he had great kindliness
and understanding, deep emotions were forbidden him. At least, since he
was impersonal and remote, she could ask him anything.

"What is your world? Is it like this?"

"It isn't my world. It's yours and mine. We go about in it, having a
bully time, and nobody looks at us or asks us questions."

"Don't they see us?"

"Oh, yes, I dare say. Only they don't stare after us and say, 'Why do
they do thus and so?' They don't even speak of your beautiful hair. I
talk about that myself, all the time, and you like to have me. But we
should both think it mighty queer if anybody else did."

"Do we speak to the other people?"

"Sometimes. If we want to. If you see a diamond or a sapphire, or I see
a new patent weeder, then we say, 'We want to buy that.' But we don't
have much time for other folks. We travel a lot. You tell me about
pictures and Alps and thrones and principalities, because I don't know
much except about grafting trees and sowing seed at the best time. But
always we come home here to the plantation because I find that's where I
feel most at peace. And you are at peace here, too. I am delighted when
I find that out."

"Be delighted now, then. I am at peace here, more than anywhere else."

"And when we are here, we live in our house. At first, I built a large
one up there on the hill, and I had you bring over pictures for it from
abroad, and I planted trees, and it was very grand. But I wasn't
contented there, and you weren't, because of it. You saw at once that my
shell had got to fit me, and the plain house did. So I kicked over the
big house, and we lived in the old one."

"With grannie?"

"Yes, only I didn't think very much about her. She was always there, I
suppose, like the sun through the windows, very kind and warm, and glad
we were contented; but it was our house. That's what makes the charm of
everything--that it's yours and mine. I couldn't sleep in the house
though. It had to be outdoors."

"Did I have my hammock swung in the upper veranda?"

He laughed out delightedly.

"How did you know? Yes, I slept down here or under the fir by the house,
but you were afraid of caterpillars and you had to be up there."

"I'm not afraid of anything else," she ex