alk it over between yourselves," said Linda. "I am going up
here to have a private conversation with the spring. I want it to tell
me confidentially exactly the course it would enjoy running so that when
your house is finished and I come to lay out your grounds I will know
exactly how it feels about making a change."

"Fine!" said Peter. "Take your time and become extremely confidential,
because the more I look at the location and the more I hear the gay
chuckling song that that water sings, the more I am in love with your
plan to run it across the lawn and bring it around the boulder."

"It would be a downright sin not to have that water in a convenient
place for your children to play in, Peter," said Linda.

"Then that's all settled," said Peter. "Now, Whiting, come this way and
we'll see whether I can suggest anything that will help you with your
problem."

"Whistle when you are ready, Donald," called Linda as she turned away.

Peter Morrison glanced after her a second, and then he led Donald
Whiting to a nail keg in the garage and impaled that youngster on
the mental point of a mental pin and studied him as carefully as any
scientist ever studied a rare specimen. When finally he let him go, his
mental comment was: "He's a mighty fine kid. Linda is perfectly safe
with him."

CHAPTER XV. Linda's Hearthstone

Early the following week Linda came from school one evening to find a
load of sand and a heap of curiously marked stones beside the back door.

"Can it possibly be, Katy," she asked, "that those men are planning to
begin work on my room so soon? I am scared out of almost seven of my
five senses. I had no idea they would be ready to begin work until after
I had my settlement with Eileen or was paid for the books."

"Don't ye be worried," said Katy. "There's more in me stocking than me
leg, and you're as welcome to it as the desert is welcome to rain, an'
nadin' it 'most as bad."

"Anyway," said Linda, "it will surely take them long enough so that I
can pay by the time they finish."

But Linda was not figuring that back of the projected improvements
stood two men, each of whom had an extremely personal reason for greatly
desiring to please her. Peter Morrison had secured a slab of sandstone.
He had located a marble cutter to whom he meant to carry it, and was
spending much thought that he might have been using on an article in
trying to hit upon exactly the right line or phrase to build in above
Lin