e
indifference to this usually all-important question, together with her
insistent plea to remain in Kentucky all summer, might have aroused the
old lady's suspicion had she not long ago decided that the explanation of
all Eleanor's motives was perversity.

Every morning Eleanor and Mrs. Ranny went out to the farm, and worked
with enthusiasm. Each piece of furniture that was taken out of the crate
was hailed with delight and dragged from one place to another to try its
effect. The hanging of curtains was suspended while they rushed out to
see the newly arrived rabbits with their meek eyes and tremulous pink
mouths, or dashed out to the poultry-yard to have another look at the
downy little fluffs of yellow that were pretending to be chickens.

But the real excitement of the day was when the workmen had departed, and
Mr. Ranny came out with his machine laden with priceless treasures from
the ten-cent store, or later when Quin Graham dashed up the lane with
anything from a garden-spade to a bird-house in his hands, and with an
enthusiasm and energy in his soul that communicated themselves to all
concerned. Then everybody would talk at once, and everybody insist upon
showing everybody else what had been done since morning, and there was
more hanging of pictures and changing of furniture, and so much chatter
and laughter that it was a wonder anything was accomplished.

Mr. and Mrs. Ranny had agreed that they would make Valley Mead livable at
the least possible expense, looking forward to a future day to make the
improvements that would require much outlay of money. The pride and
satisfaction they took in their petty economies were such as only the
inexperienced wealthy can feel.

As for Quin, he moved through the enchanted days, blind, deaf, and dumb
to everything but Eleanor. She was the dazzling sun in whose effulgent
rays the rest of humanity floated like midges. So wholly blinded was he
by her radiant presence that he did not realize the darkness into which
he was about to be plunged until her departure was imminent.

The evening before she left found them perched upon the orchard stile, in
that stage of intimacy that permitted him to sit at her feet and toy
pensively with the tassel on her girdle while his eyes said the
unutterable things that his lips were forbidden to utter.

The sky was flooded with luminous color, neither blue nor pink, but
something deliciously between, and down below them fields of wheat
rip