One day, the middle of last week, the temperature dropped suddenly, and we fled from camp to the house for twenty-four hours, lighted the logs in the hall, and actually settled down to a serious game of whist in the evening, Maria Maxwell, The Man, Bart, and I. Yes, I know how you detest the game, but I—­though I am not exactly amused by it—­rather like it, for it gives occupation at once for the hands and thoughts and a cover for studying the faces and moods of friends without the reproach of staring.

By the way, The Man has hired half the house from Amos Opie—­it was divided several years ago—­and established helter-skelter bachelor quarters at Opal Farm.  Bart has told him, over and over again, how welcome he is to stay here, under any and all conditions, while he works in the vicinity, but he says that he needs a lot of room for his traps, muddy boots, etc., while Opie, a curious Jack-at-all-trades, gives him his breakfast.  I’m wondering if The Man felt that he was intruding upon Maria by staying here, or if she has any Mrs. Grundy ideas and was humpy to him, or even suggested that he would better move up the road.  She is quite capable of it!

However, he seems glad enough to drop in to dinner of an evening now, and the two are so delightfully cordial and unembarrassed in their talk, neither yielding a jot to the other, in the resolute spinster and bachelor fashion, that I must conclude that his going was probably a natural happening.

This evening, while Maria and I were waiting together for the men to finish toying with their coffee cups and match-boxes and emerge refreshed from the delightful indolence of the after-dinner smoke, the odour of the flowers—­intensified both by dampness and the woodsmoke—­was very manifest.

“How do you like your employment?” asked Maria.

“I like the decorative and inventive part of it,” I said, thinking into the fire, “but I believe”—­and here I hesitated as a chain of peculiar green flame curled about the log and held my attention.  “That it is quite as possible to overdo the house decoration with flowers as it is to spoil a nice bit of lawn with too many fantastic flower beds!” Bart broke in quite unexpectedly, coming behind me and raising my face, one hand beneath my chin.  “Isn’t that what you were thinking, my Lady Lazy?”

“Truly it was, only I never meant to let it pop out so suddenly and rudely,” I was forced to confess.  “In one way it would seem impossible to have too many flowers about, and yet in another it is unnatural, for are not nature’s unconscious effects made by using colour as a central point, a focus that draws the eye from a more sombre and soothing setting?”

“How could we enjoy a sunset that held the whole circle of the horizon at once?” chimed in The Man, suddenly, as if reading my thoughts.  “Or twelve moons?” added Bart, laughing.