Behind the door was a gray felt hat.  I took it down and looked at the size.  It was within a quarter of my own.

“Look here,” I suggested, holding out a five-dollar bill, “I want a Wishing Cap.  Let me take this, will you?”

“The house is yours!” she laughed.

Over on the candy counter was a tray of corncob pipes.  I helped myself to one, to a package of tobacco and a box of matches.  I hung my derby on the vacant peg behind the door.  Then I turned to my hostess.

“You’re a good girl,” I said.  “Good luck to you.”

For a moment something softer came into her eyes.

“And good luck to you, sir!” she replied.  As I passed down the steps she threw after me:  “I hope you’ll find—­what you’re looking for!”

* * * * *

In my old felt hat and smoking my corncob I trudged along the road in the mellow sunlight, almost happy.  By and by I reached the trolley line; and for five cents, in company with a heterogeneous lot of country folks, Italian laborers and others, was transported an absurdly long distance across the state of New York to a wayside station.

There I sat on a truck on the platform and chatted with a husky, broad-shouldered youth, who said he was the “baggage smasher,” until finally a little smoky train appeared and bore me southward.  It was the best holiday I had had in years—­and I was sorry when we pulled into Pleasantdale and I took to my legs again.

In the fading afternoon light it indeed seemed a pleasant, restful place.  Comfortable cottages, each in its own yard, stood in neighborly rows along the shaded street.  Small boys were playing football in a field adjoining a schoolhouse.

Presently the buildings became more scattered and I found myself following a real country road, though still less than half a mile from the station.  Ahead it divided and in the resulting triangle, behind a well-clipped hedge, stood a pretty cottage with a red roof—­Hastings’, I was sure.

I tossed away my pipe and opened the gate.  A rather pretty woman of about thirty-five was reading in a red hammock; there were half a dozen straw easy chairs and near by a teatable, with the kettle steaming.  Mrs. Hastings looked up at my step on the gravel path and smiled a welcome.

“Jim has been playing golf over at the club—­he didn’t expect you until five,” she said, coming to meet me.

“I don’t care whether he comes or not,” I returned gallantly.  “I want to see you.  Besides, I’m as hungry as a bear.”  She raised her eyebrows.  “I had only an egg or so and a glass of milk for luncheon, and I have walked—­miles!”

“Oh!” she exclaimed.  I could see she had had quite a different idea of her erstwhile employer; but my statement seemed to put us on a more friendly footing from the start.

“I love walking too,” she hastened to say.  “Isn’t it wonderful to-day?  We get weeks of such weather as this every autumn.”  She busied herself over the teacups and then, stepping inside the door for a moment, returned with a plate piled high with buttered toast, and another with sandwiches of grape jelly.