week and had walked up to this piazza every pleasant day, and she'd like to live here."

"Did she really say it as plain as that?"

"Well—I don't suppose those were her exact words, but she made me understand that she was willin' to come right in for better or for worse just so's she could have a room up there in front where the dawn—yes, she said something about the dawn, I forget whether it was purple or rosy—"

"Mottled, perhaps," suggested Philip.

"Well, anyway, I told her the dawn came awful early in the day this part o' the year,[Pg 13] and that probably she'd be better satisfied in one o' the back rooms; but she was firm on the dawn, so she's got it. But I draw the line at her gettin' midnight shower-baths, and that's what she will get if that wretch of a Matt Blake don't get here before the next storm and put on the shingles."

[Pg 13]

"And I have to tell the plumber that you have to 'haul water' too. Is that it? The well is some little distance. Rather hard on the statue, wasn't it, to do the hauling? She'll wish she'd stayed in the gallery. I'll bring in a lot before I go."

"Don't go, Philip," begged Miss Priscilla. "Supposin' you don't go, not till you can leave me whole-footed. The men'll come sooner and work better if they know there's a man here. Your grandma won't care if her visit's interrupted for a little while. I'll feed you with your own mackerel and you can bet I know how to cook 'em."

"Do you think Matt Blake realizes that I'm a man?" The teeth Philip showed in his smile were an asset for a singer. "He helped teach me to walk, you know."

"Well, now, you teach him" retorted Miss Priscilla. "Show him how to walk in this direction. I don't want to make a fizzle of[Pg 14] this thing. I found there wa'n't anybody goin' to run the place this summer, so I thought it might be a good job for me. I never took a thought that it was goin' to be so hard to get help. They tell me there ain't any servants any more; and there are enough folks writin' for rooms to fill me up entirely. I can do the cookin' myself—"

[Pg 14]

"Now, Miss Burridge, you aren't leading up to asking me to put on an apron and wait on table, are you? You must remember I'm recuperating also from a too vaulting ambition."

"Recuperatin', 

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