“With pleasure.  The Kelceys are my next-door neighbours on the left.  Mrs. Kelcey is pure gold—­in the rough.  Her husband is not quite her equal, but he knows it and strives to be worthy of her.  The Murdisons, on the other side, are—­Scotch granite—­splendid building material.  Old Mr. Benson, the watchmaker, is—­well, he’s full-jewelled.  The others I perhaps can’t characterize quite so easily, but among them I find several uncut gems of the semi-precious varieties.  Of course there’s considerable commonplace material—­if you can ever call the stuff of which human beings are made commonplace, which I doubt.  There’s more or less copper and brass, with a good bit of clay—­as there is in all of us.  And a deal of a more spiritual element which can’t be measured or described, but which makes them all worth knowing.”

He had spoken in a thoughtful tone, as if he took Mrs. Brainard’s question seriously and meant to answer it in the same way.  A moment’s silence followed.  Then Doctor Brainard said slowly: 

“I suppose you don’t find those priceless elements among the people of your abandoned parish.  Down there we’re all copper and clay, eh?”

“If you had been clay I might have done more with you,” was the quick retort.

“And you can do things with these people, can you?  Dig out the rough gold, polish the uncut diamonds, build temples of the granite—­and perhaps mold even the clay into works of art?”

The answer to the ironic question was grave enough, and it came with a quietness which spoke more eloquently than fervid tones would have done of the feeling behind it.

“No, Doctor, I can’t hope to do those things.  I’m not wise enough.  But the things these people are going to do to me, if I’ll let them, are worth coming for.”

“They’ve done some of them already,” murmured Mrs. Brainard.  But nobody heard her except Sue Breckenridge, who cried out: 

“And you’re not a bit homesick, Don, while you’re living like this?”

“If you people won’t come up here very often and make me remember what being with you is like, I shall get on pretty well,” said Brown’s voice from the shadow.

“Then we’ll come as often as we can,” cried Sue triumphantly.

“No, you won’t—­not if you want to help me.  My reputation as an indigent bachelor out of a job won’t stand many onslaughts of company dressed as you are.  If you want to come to see me you must come disguised.  I’m afraid I’m under suspicion already.”

“Explain to them that we’re the clay, they the uncut diamonds.  That will let you out,” advised Doctor Brainard grimly.

“Ah, but you don’t look the part,” said Brown, laughing.  “You look like what you are, a big jewel of a fellow, as my friend Mrs. Kelcey would say.  To tell the truth, you all seem like jewels to me to-night—­and such polished ones you dazzle my eyes.  Hugh, I’d forgotten what a well-cut coat looked like.  I remember now.”