Harding walked with everybody, and was happy as a lark.  He threw stones at a telegraph pole, and was in ecstasy when a lucky shot shivered one of the glass insulators.

“How was that for a shot, mother?” he shouted, as the glass came flying down.  “Hav’n’t hit one of those since I was fourteen years old.  Say, I wish I was fourteen years old now, barefooted, and sitting on the bank of that creek catching shiners.”

“I wouldn’t throw any more stones, Robert,” Mrs. Harding said, laying her hand on his arm and looking up to his happy face.  “The last time you threw stones you were lame for a week, and I had to rub you with arnica.”

“But think of the fun I had,” he said, and then he went back and told Marshall and Chilvers some yarn which must have been very amusing from the way they laughed.

I had been praising the beauties of the country around Woodmere, and asked Mrs. Harding how she liked the club house, and if she were enjoying her summer there.

“I would enjoy it much better,” she said, “if I did not know that I should be home.”

“I presume you feel that you are neglecting your social duties,” I ventured.

“Social fiddlesticks,” she laughed.  “I should be home canning tomatoes and putting up fruit.  We won’t have a thing in the house fit to eat all next winter.”

“But the servants,” I began.  “The servants——­”

“If you knew as much about housekeeping as you do about golf,” she said, “you would know that servants do not know how to preserve fruit.  Last year I put up more than two hundred cans, and unless I can drag Mr. Harding away from here, it will be too late for everything except pears and quinces, and he does not care much for either.”

Think of the wife of a multi-millionaire standing over a hot kitchen fire and preserving tomatoes, cherries, grapes, jams, jells, and all that kind of thing!  I did not exactly know how to sympathise with her.

“It is nice down here,” she said, after a pause, “but there’s nothing to do.”

“The drives are splendid,” I said, “and I’m sure you would become interested in golf or tennis if you took them up.”

“I mean that there’s no work to do,” she said.  “I nearly had a row with my husband before he would let me darn his socks.  He does not know it, but I keep the maid out of our rooms so that I can do the work myself.  It’s awful to sit around all day with nothing to do but read and do fancy work.  I hate fancy work.  If you have any socks which need darning, Mr. Smith, I wish you would let me have them.”

We both laughed, but she was in earnest and made me promise I would turn over to her any socks which show signs of wear.  I shall keep them as a memento.

That is the kind of a woman I should like for a mother-in-law.

And the more I see of Mr. Harding the better I like him.  But I must record the many things which happened that afternoon and evening at Bishop’s.