But he insisted, thrusting it under her.  “You’ve come along just in time, I wanted a woman to test it—­men are no judges of chairs.  There’s a vacuum behind the small of your back, isn’t there?  Augusta will have to put a cushion in it.”

“Did you make it for Mrs. Maturin?  She will be Pleased!” exclaimed Janet, as she sat down.  “I don’t think it’s uncomfortable.”

“I copied it from an old one in the Boston Art Museum.  Augusta saw it there, and said she wouldn’t be happy until she had one like it.  But don’t tell her.”

“Not for anything!” Janet got to her feet again.  “I really must be going.”

“Going where?”

“I told Mrs. Maturin I’d read that new book to her.  I couldn’t go yesterday—­I didn’t want to go,” she added, fearing he might think his work had kept her.

“Well, I’ll walk over with you.  She asked me to make a little design for a fountain, you know, and I’ll have to get some measurements.”

As they emerged from the shop and climbed the slope Janet tried to fight off the sadness that began to invade her.  Soon she would have to be leaving all this!  Her glance lingered wistfully on the old farmhouse with its great centre chimney from which the smoke was curling, with its diamond-paned casements Insall had put into the tiny frames.

“What queer windows!” she said.  “But they seem to go with the house, beautifully.”

“You think so?” His tone surprised her; it had a touch more of earnestness than she had ever before detected.  “They belong to that type of house the old settlers brought the leaded glass with them.  Some people think they’re cold, but I’ve arranged to make them fairly tight.  You see, I’ve tried to restore it as it must have been when it was built.”

“And these?” she asked, pointing to the millstones of different diameters that made the steps leading down to the garden.

“Oh, that’s an old custom, but they are nice,” he agreed.  “I’ll just put this precious manuscript inside and get my foot rule,” he added, opening the door, and she stood awaiting him on the threshold, confronted by the steep little staircase that disappeared into the wall half way up.  At her left was the room where he worked, and which once had been the farmhouse kitchen.  She took a few steps into it, and while he was searching in the table drawer she halted before the great chimney over which, against the panel, an old bell-mouthed musket hung.  Insall came over beside her.

“Those were trees!” he said.  “That panel’s over four feet across, I measured it once.  I dare say the pine it was cut from grew right where we are standing, before the land was cleared to build the house.”

“But the gun?” she questioned.  “You didn’t have it the night we came to supper.”

“No, I ran across it at a sale in Boston.  The old settler must have owned one like that.  I like to think of him, away off here in the wilderness in those early days.”