“I rather expect to be able to manage it,” responded Doctor Churchill, laughing.  “How long have you been home, Lanse—­two hours?  Just promised to let me know when you came.”

“I started, but you were whizzing up the street in the runabout,” protested Just, picking up the debris of the unpacking and carrying it away.  “There was a trail of steam behind you sixteen feet long.  I think you were running beyond lawful speed.”

“Here’s your latest acquisition.”  Jeff pointed it out, picking up the copper slab and holding it at the stretch of his arms for inspection.  Doctor Churchill turned and regarded it with interest.  Then his bright glance shifted to Charlotte, and he smiled at her.

“That’s great, isn’t it?” he said, and she nodded, smiling.

Just, returning, shouted.  “Trust ’em both to get round anything that may turn up!  ‘That’s great!’ is certainly safe and non-committal of a four-foot motto that’s of no earthly use.”

“Well, but I like it,” Doctor Churchill asserted, and came over to Charlotte’s side, where he examined the copper slab with attention.  “Don’t you believe that will pretty nearly fit the depression in the fireplace just above the shelf?”

Her interested look responded to his.  “Why, I believe it will!” she answered.

“Who sent it?”

“We can’t find out.”

“No card?  That’s odd.  But there may be something about it to show.  It looks to me as if it had been made for that place.  If it proves to fit, we can narrow the mystery down to the few people who have seen the new fireplace.  Let’s go over and try, shall we?  Come on—­everybody!”

Accordingly, the whole company streamed out across the lawn—­Charlotte and Doctor Churchill, Celia, her pretty blond head shining in the October sunlight, Lanse and Jeff and Just, three stalwart fellows, ranging in ages from twenty-six to sixteen, Mr. and Mrs. Birch, the happy possessors of this happy clan.

They hurried up the two steps of the small front porch, into the brick house, and stampeded into the front room.  They stopped opposite the fireplace, where Doctor Churchill was already triumphantly inserting the copper panel—­for that is what it instantly became—­in the long, horizontal depression in the fireplace.

“It fits to a hair!” he exclaimed, and a general murmur of approbation arose.  Now that the odd gift was where it so clearly belonged, its peculiar beauty became evident even to the skeptical Jeff and Just.

The new fireplace was the heart of the little old house.  Moreover, so cunningly had it been designed and built that it seemed to have been in its place from the beginning.

Doctor Churchill and Charlotte had made a certain distant field the object of many walks and drives, and had personally selected the “hardheads” of which the fireplace was constructed.  A small bedroom, opening off the square little parlour, had had its partition removed, and in this alcove-like end of the room the fireplace had been built.