“Little woman,” said he, “I love ye.  I never knowed what love was afore, an’ if this is the kind o’ thing they have in heaven, I want to go there when you do.  Speak a good word for me when ye git a chance.”

Jim walked on air all the way back to his lodgings—­walked by his lodgings—­stood still, and looked up at the stars—­went out to the waterfall, and watched the writhing, tumbling, roaring river—­wrapped in transcendent happiness.  Transformed and transfused by love, the world around him seemed quite divine.  He had stumbled upon the secret of his existence.  He had found the supreme charm of life.  He felt that a new principle had sprung to action within him, which had in it the power to work miracles of transformation.  He could never be in the future exactly what he had been in the past.  He had taken a step forward and upward—­a step irretraceable.

Jim had never prayed, but there was something about this experience that lifted his heart upward.  He looked up to the stars, and said to himself:  “He’s somewhere up thar, I s’pose.  I can’t seen ‘im, an’ I must look purty small to Him if He can seen me; but I hope He knows as I’m obleeged to ’im, more nor I can tell ’im.  When He made a good woman, He did the biggest thing out, an’ when He started a man to lovin’ on her, He set up the best business that was ever did.  I hope He likes the ‘rangement, and won’t put nothin’ in the way on’t.  Amen!  I’m goin’ to bed.”

Jim put his last determination into immediate execution.  He found Mr. Benedict in his first nap, from which he felt obliged to rouse him, with the information that it was “all right,” and that the quicker the house was finished the better it would be for all concerned.

The next morning, Turk having been substituted for the child in the foreground of the front elevation of the hotel, the two men went up to Miss Butterworth’s, and exhibited and talked over the plans.  They received many valuable hints from the prospective mistress of the prospective mansion.  The stoop was to be made broader for the accommodation of visitors; more room for wardrobes was suggested, with little conveniences for housekeeping, which complicated the plans not a little.  Mr. Benedict carefully noted them all, to be wrought out at his leisure.

Jim’s love had wrought a miracle in the night.  He had said nothing about it to his architect, but it had lifted him above the bare utilities of a house, so that he could see the use of beauty.  “Thar’s one thing,” said he, “as thar hain’t none on us thought on; but it come to me last night.  There’s a place where the two ruffs come together that wants somethin’, an’ it seems to me it’s a cupalo—­somethin’ to stan’ up over the whole thing, and say to them as comes, ‘Hallelujer!’ We’ve done a good deal for house-keepin’, now let’s do somethin’ for glory.  It’s jest like a ribbon on a bonnet, or a blow on a potato-vine.  It sets it off, an’ makes a kind o’ Fourth o’ July for it.  What do ye say, little woman?”