Mrs. Harris often sat with her work in the shade of the house, on pleasant afternoons, looking at this peaceful scene, and her heart was full of gladness and content.

The summer passed pleasantly for George Shaw and his cheery old housekeeper.  Not a word did they hear from “Bert’s” folks.

“I would like to see Maud,” Mrs. Harris said one night to Shaw as she sat knitting a sock for him beside their cheerful fireside.  He was reading.

“What is Maud like?” he asked.

“Maud favors my side of the house,” she answered.  “She’s a pretty good-looking girl, very much the hi’th and complexion I used to be when I was her age.  You’d like Maud fine if you saw her, George.”

“I don’t want to see her,” Shaw replied, “for I am afraid that the coming of Maud might mean the departure of Grandma, and that would be a bad day for me.”

“I ain’t goin’ to leave you, George, and I believe Maud would be reasonable if she did come!  She’d see how happy we are!”

It was in the early autumn that Maud came.  The grain had all been cut and stacked, and was waiting for the thresher to come on its rounds.  Shaw was ploughing in the field in front of his house when Maud came walking briskly up the road just as her grandmother had done four months before!  The trees in the poplar grove beside the road were turning red and yellow with autumn, and Maud, in her red-brown suit and hat, looked as if she belonged to the picture.

Some such thought as this struggled in Shaw’s brain and shone in his eyes as he waited for her at the headland.

He raised his hat as she drew near.  Maud went right into the subject.

“Have you my grandmother?” she asked.

Shaw hesitated—­the dreaded moment had come.  Visions of former housekeepers—­dirty dishes, unmade bed, dust, flies, mice—­rose before him and tempted him to say “no,” but something stronger and better, perhaps it was the “clean hide” prompting the clean heart, spoke up in him.

“I have your grandmother,” he said slowly, “and she is very well and happy.”

“Will you give her up?” was Maud’s next question.

“Never!” he answered stoutly; “and she won’t give me up, either.  Your grandmother and I are very fond of each other, I would like you to know—­but come in and see her.”

That night after supper, which proved to be a very merry meal in spite of the shadow which had fallen across the little home, Mrs. Harris said almost tearfully:  “I can’t leave this pore lamb, Maud—­there’s no knowin’ what will happen to him.”

“I will go straight back to the blanket and dog soup,” Shaw declared with cheerful conviction.  “You can’t imagine the state things were in when your grandmother came—­bed not made since Christmas, horsenails for buttons, comb and brush lost but not missed, wash basin rusty!  Your grandmother, of course, has been severe with me—­she makes me go to bed before sundown.  Yet I refuse to part with her.  Who takes your grandmother takes me; and now, Miss Maud, it is your move!”