“Well,” he said, rising, “it’s quite a walk back to the trolley.  Perhaps I’d better be going.”

Lydia rose with alacrity.  “I’m—­I’m glad you like the mahogany,” she said awkwardly.

“Er—­yes.  So am I,” returned Willis, making for the door as Amos groaned again.  “Good night, Miss Dudley.”

“Good night,” said Lydia, and closing the door with a gasp of relief she dashed for the dining-room.

“Just when I’m trying to be refined and lady-like!” she wailed.  Then she stopped.

“Lydia,” roared Amos, “if you ever touch my chair again!  Look at my shirt and pants!”

Lydia looked and from these to the chair, denuded of the two coats of varnish.  “But you knew it wasn’t dry,” she protested.

“How could I remember?” cried Amos.  “I just sat down a minute to put on my slippers you’d hid.”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t have been quiet about it,” Lydia half sobbed.  “We were having such a nice time and all of a sudden it sounded like an Irish wake out here.  It embarrassed Professor Willis so he went right home and I know he’ll never come back.”

“I should hope he wouldn’t,” retorted Amos.  “Of course, what a college professor thinks is more important than my comfort.  Why, that varnish went through my shirt to my skin.  Liz, what are you laughing at?”

Lizzie had suppressed her laughter till she was weak.  “At you, Amos!  Till my dying day, I’ll never forget how you looked prancing round the room with that chair glued to your back!”

“Oh, Daddy!  It must have been funny!” cried Lydia, beginning to giggle.

Amos looked uncertainly at his two women folk, and then his lips twisted and he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

“Lydia!  Lydia!” he cried, “don’t try to be elegant with any more of your callers!  It’s too hard on your poor old father!”

“I won’t,” replied Lydia.  “He likes the mahogany, anyway.  But he’ll never come again,” she added, with sudden gloom.  “Not that I care, stiff old Harvard thing,” and she patted Adam and went soberly to bed.

But Professor Willis did come again.  Not so frequently, of course, as to compromise his dignity.  An instructor who called on freshman girls was always laughed at.  But several times during the winter and spring he appeared at the cottage, and talked with Lydia earnestly and intellectually.  Nor did he always confine his calls to the evening.

One Sunday afternoon in March Amos was in town with John Levine, who was on one of his hurried visits home, when Billy Norton came over to the cottage.

Lydia, who was poring over “The Ring and the Book,” saw at once that something was wrong.

“What’s worrying you, Billy?” she asked.