“I hope you will not consider me uncompanionable or set in my ways,” remarked Alice.  “We are working, you know, and not playing,” she continued with a sweet smile.  “I have no doubt you are worthy of both my esteem and love, but I have known you less than a day and such things come slowly with me.  Let me call you Miss Very, because you are that to me now.  When the time comes, as I feel it will, to call you Rosa, it shall come from a full heart.  When I call you Rosa, it will be because I love you, and, after that, nothing will ever change my feelings towards you.”

“I understand you,” replied Rosa.  “I will work and wait.”

Quincy arrived at about the same time of day that he did when he came with Rosa.  Miss Very had gone to her room, so that he saw Alice alone.  He told her that his aunt was greatly pleased at her acceptance and would be ready to receive her at any time that it was convenient for her to come.  He proffered his services to aid her in getting ready for the journey, but she told him that with Miss Very’s help she would need no other assistance.

“I have another matter of business to speak about,” continued she, “and if you will kindly attend to that, when you go to Montrose, it will oblige me very much.  You are always doing something to make me your debtor,” she added with a smile.

“I would do more if you would allow me,” replied Quincy.

“The fact is,” said Alice, “’Zekiel does not wish to borrow any money, nor would he accept the gift of the Putnam homestead unless he, in turn, deeded this house and farm to me.  He is going to run this farm and pay me what he gets from the sale of products.  If you will have Squire Rundlett draw up both deeds and the agreement, the whole matter can be fixed before I go away.”

Quincy promised to give his attention to the matter that afternoon.  He drove up to his boarding house and hitched his horse at the front door.  Mrs. Hawkins saw him enter and take his seat at the dinner table.  “There’s that Mr. Sawyer; he’s slept in this house just one night and eaten just one meal up to this noon for nigh on a week.  Them city folks must have Injun rubber stummicks and cast iron backs or they couldn’t eat in so many different places and sleep in so many different beds.  Why, if I go away and stay over night, when I git home I’m allus sicker’n a horse and tired enough to drop.”

Quincy went to Montrose that afternoon and saw Squire Rundlett.  The latter promised to make the papers out the next day, and said he would bring them over for signing the following morning.  Quincy drove down to Deacon Mason’s and told ’Zekiel when to be on hand, and after leaving the team in the Pettengill barn, saw Alice and informed her of the Squire’s proposed visit.  He told her that he would come down that morning to act as a witness, if his services were required.

He spent the next day at the grocery store, going over the stock with Strout and Abbott Smith, and had a list made of articles that they thought it would be advisable to carry in the future.  He told Strout that he would visit some wholesale grocery houses in Boston and have samples sent down.