might be agreeable and
also more light, and if there could be a small fireplace built in front
of the chimney where it goes up from the library fireplace, it certainly
would be a comfort, and it would add something to the room that nothing
else could.

"No workroom really has a soul if you can't smell smoke and see red when
you go to it at night."

"You little outdoor heathen," laughed Peter Morrison. "One would think
you were an Indian."

"I am a fairly good Indian," said Linda. "I have been scouting around
with my father a good many years. How about it, Peter? Does the road go
crooked?"

"Yes," said Peter, "the road goes crooked."

"Does the bed of the spring curve and sweep across the lawn and drop off
to the original stream below the tree-tobacco clump there?"

"If you say so, it does," said Peter.

"Including the bridge?" inquired Linda.

"Including the bridge," said Peter. "I'll have to burn some midnight
oil, but I can visualize the bridge."

"And is this house where you 'set up your rest,' as you so beautifully
said the other night at dinner, going to lay its corner stone and grow
to its roof a selfish house, or is it going to be generous enough for a
gracious lady and a flight of little footsteps?"

Peter Morrison took off his hat. He turned his face toward the length of
Lilac Valley and stood, very tall and straight, looking far away before
him. Presently he looked down at Linda.

"Even so," he said softly. "My shoulders are broad enough; I have a
brain; and I am not afraid to work. If my heart is not quite big enough
yet, I see very clearly how it can be made to expand."

"I have been told," said Linda in a low voice, "that Mary Louise Whiting
is a perfect darling."

Peter looked at her from the top of her black head to the tips of her
brown shoes. He could have counted the freckles bridging her nose. The
sunburn on her cheeks was very visible; there was something arresting in
the depth of her eyes, the curve of her lips, the lithe slenderness of
her young body; she gave the effect of something smoldering inside that
would leap at a breath.

"I was not thinking of Miss Whiting," he said soberly.

Henry Anderson was watching. Now he turned his back and commenced
talking about plans, but in his heart he said: "So that's the lay of the
land. You've got to hustle yourself, Henry, or you won't have the ghost
of a show."

Later, when they motored down the valley and stopped at the Strong
resi