r agreed obstinately, "but other days, all
the days. I can't give up the most beautiful thing there is, and you're
that. You're simply the most beautiful there is."

"There's grannie coming out on the veranda." Then she added bitterly, "I
wonder if she will think I am the most beautiful thing there is!"

XXI

MacLeod was not used to being summoned, except by high officials, and
then if the meeting would not advantage his cause, he was likely to take
a journey in another direction. But when Osmond's man invited him to go
down to the shack that morning, he had agreed with a ready emphasis, and
now walked along, smiling over the general kindliness of things. The
change of air after his sea voyage was doing him good, and he had been
able to command anew the sense of physical prosperity which had once
been his habitual possession. That forbade him morbid premonitions and
withdrawals relative to the bodily life. It hardly seemed possible, this
robust guardian declared, that anything should happen to him, save after
a very long period, when inevitable decay would set in. But in a
harmonious mood and prospect retreated so far that it might almost as
well not threaten at all. He had no doubt that when change fell upon the
aged, it was as beneficent in its approach as the oncoming of sleep. But
of these things he need not think, except as they might be brought to
his mind by the disasters of other people. Acquiesce in the course of
nature, said his philosophy, and refuse to anticipate trouble as
trouble. It could always be curbed or stamped out when it came. That
abounding certainty was a part of his power.

He found his way without difficulty. The neat rows of growing things led
him in from the road, and directing his steps toward the shack, where he
had understood Osmond lived, he saw a figure advancing to meet him, a
man in a blue blouse, like a workman, beating his hands together as he
came, to dust the soil from them. When they were at a convenient
interval, the man looked at MacLeod with a measuring gaze, and MacLeod
returned the challenge with what was, perhaps, too frank encouragement.
He put out his hand, but Osmond shook his head. He opened his two palms,
displaying them.

"I didn't expect you for a few minutes yet," he said, "or I should have
washed. I'm just out of the dirt. Come on down to the house. We won't go
in. There are some seats outside."

MacLeod knew at once, through the keen sense that served