“Then you’ll come?”

“Yes, and be glad to.”

“I’m so delighted to hear you say that!”

“I need the change.  I realize, at last, what a bear I’ve been these three years.  I’m tired of being a bear.  It’s half nerves, I believe—­but a fellow of my age ought not to know he has nerves.  Besides—­”

He paused, looking off through the pine grove to the gap in the hedge, through which a glimpse of the white cottage could be had.  Sally waited.  It was rarely that her elder brother became confidential, and this mood seemed more than ordinarily propitious for getting at his best thoughts.  After a little he went on, in a firm tone, speaking after a fashion which made his sister feel for him a new respect.

“I may as well tell you that in a way I think I’m rather a different fellow from the one you left last November.  I see things differently.  It’s his doing—­” He nodded toward the cottage, and Sally understood.  Also, she felt infinitely thankful to the influence which had brought about this change.  “I’ve come to see,” he went on more slowly, “what it means to have a definite purpose in life beyond merely making a living and having as much of a good time as you can manage to extract.  I want to make a man of myself—­the sort of man my Maker intended me to be.

“Ferry’s doing it—­Jarvis is doing it—­even Alec and Bob put me to shame with the manliness they’re developing.  If Maxwell Lane can’t swing into line—­”

“He can, dear—­he will.  He’s swung already, when he can talk like this.”  His sister’s hand squeezed his arm tight for a minute, in her happiness.

“It’s not going to be a matter of talk, mind you,” he said earnestly.  “Don Ferry doesn’t talk about his own life—­he lives it.  I want to do the same.  But I felt as if I’d like you to know—­that’s all.  What’s that coming up in the corner there?”

“Lilies-of-the-valley—­they’re almost ready to bud.”  And Sally let him lead the conversation away from himself to talk about the garden, understanding that the little revelation was a great one for him to make, and that it had cost him a decided effort.  But while she talked of the pruning of the roses and the prospects of the sweet peas, just sown, her heart was rejoicing over the growth in this “human garden,” as Ferry had called it, so much dearer to her.

“Alec’s to go away next winter for a course at an agricultural school,” Max announced suddenly.  “I’ve made up my mind to that.  He shows more bent than any of us toward making a science of this thing.  Odd, isn’t it?—­where you consider how set he was against even living here.  I tell you Don Ferry’s a great chap.  He’s done more for us than we can pay back.  I’d like to keep him in the family.  Janet too.  See here—­” he rose upright from having stooped over certain newly upspringing shoots, and favoured his sister with a sharp glance.  “What’s the matter with you and Don hitting it off?  That would leave Jarve to Janet, and make a mighty nice combination of us—­eh?  Judging by appearances Don wouldn’t object a bit.—­I say—­where are you going?”