“Jed,” she said, “what do you suppose I came here for this morning?”

Jed’s reply was surprisingly prompt.

“To show your new rig-out, of course,” he said. “’Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’  There, now I can take up a collection, can’t I?”

His visitor pouted.  “If you do I shan’t put anything in the box,” she declared.  “The idea of thinking that I came here just to show off my new things.  I’ve a good mind not to invite you at all now.”

She doubtless expected apologies and questions as to what invitation was meant.  They might have been forthcoming had not the windmill maker been engaged just at that moment in gazing abstractedly at the door of the little stove which heated, or was intended to heat, the workshop.  He did not appear to have heard her remark, so the young lady repeated it.  Still he paid no attention.  Miss Maud, having inherited a goodly share of the Hunniwell disposition, demanded an explanation.

“What in the world is the matter with you?” she asked.  “Why are you staring at that stove?”

Jed started and came to life.  “Eh?” he exclaimed.  “Oh, I was thinkin’ what an everlastin’ nuisance ’twas—­the stove, I mean.  It needs more wood about every five minutes in the day, seems to—­ needs it now, that’s what made me think of it.  I was just wonderin’ if ’twouldn’t be a good notion to set it up out in the yard.”

“Out in the yard?  Put the stove out in the yard?  For goodness’ sake, what for?”

Jed clasped his knee in his hand and swung his foot back and forth.

“Oh” he drawled, “if ’twas out in the yard I shouldn’t know whether it needed wood or not, so ‘twouldn’t be all the time botherin’ me.”

However, he rose and replenished the stove.  Miss Hunniwell laughed.  Then she said:  “Jed, you don’t deserve it, because you didn’t hear me when I first dropped the hint, but I came here with an invitation for you.  Pa and I expect you to eat your Thanksgiving dinner with us.”

If she had asked him to eat it in jail Jed could not have been more disturbed.

“Now—­now, Maud,” he stammered, “I—­I’m ever so much obliged to you, but I—­I don’t see how—­”

“Nonsense!  I see how perfectly well.  You always act just this way whenever I invite you to anything.  You’re not afraid of Pa or me, are you?”

“W-e-e-ll, well, I ain’t afraid of your Pa ’s I know of, but of course, when such a fascinatin’ young woman as you comes along, all rigged up to kill, why, it’s natural that an old single relic like me should get kind of nervous.”

Maud clasped her hands.  “Oh,” she cried, “there’s another compliment!  You have changed, Jed.  I’m going to ask Father what it means.”

This time Jed was really alarmed.  “Now, now, now,” he protested, “don’t go tell your Pa yarns about me.  He’ll come in here and pester me to death.  You know what a tease he is when he gets started.  Don’t, Maud, don’t.”