ight. Water overlay lawns and paths, so the house stood in a wide,
shallow lake whose ripples lapped around the white cement steps and the
pillars of the porte-cochere. Phillida's Pekin ducks floated and fed on
this new waterway as contentedly as upon their accustomed pastures.
Small objects sailed on the flood here and there; Bagheera's milk-pan
from the rear veranda bobbed amidst a fleet of apples shaken down in the
orchard, while some wooden garden tools nudged a silk canoe-cushion.

In contrast to all this aquatic prospect, where the real lake had been
there now lay some acres of ugly, oozing marsh; its expanse dotted with
the bodies of dead water-creatures and such of Vere's young trout as had
not been swept away by the outpouring flood. The dam was a mere pile of
debris through which trickled a stream bearing no resemblance to the
sparkling waterfall of yesterday. Already the sun's rays were drawing a
rank, unwholesome vapor from the long-submerged surface.

We contemplated the ruin for a while, without words.

"Poor Drawls!" Phillida sighed at length. "All your work just rubbed
out!"

"Never mind, Vere," I exclaimed impulsively. "We will put it all back in
the same shape as it was."

But even as I spoke, I felt an odd shock of uneasiness and recoil from
my own proposition. I did not want the lake to be there again; or to
hear the unaccountable sounds to which it gave birth and the varying
fall of the cataract over the dam. Did the others share my repugnance? I
seemed to divine that they did. Even the impetuous Phil did not break
out in welcome of my offer. Desire, who had smoothed her sober gray
dress in some feminine fashion and stood like Marguerite or Melisande
with a great braid over either shoulder, moved as if to speak, then
changed her intention. A faint distress troubled her expression.

As usual, Vere himself quietly lifted us out of unrest.

"I'm not sure that couldn't be bettered, Mr. Locke," he demurred. "That
is if you liked, of course! That marsh could be cleaned up and drained
into pretty rich land, I guess. And down there beyond the barn, on the
other side where the creek naturally widens out into a kind of basin, I
should think might be the spot for a smaller, cleaner lake."

"Doesn't it seem to you, Ethan," I said, "that we have progressed rather
past the _Mr. Locke_ stage?"

A little later, when Desire and I were alone on the porch, we walked to
the end nearest the vanished lake. Or ra