And the delight that Pawson and Gadgem took in it all!—­assorting, verifying, checking off—­slapping each other’s backs in glee when some doubtful find was made certain, and growing even more excited on the days when Harry and Kate would drive or ride in from Moorlands—­almost every day of late—­tie the horse and carry-all, or both saddle-horses, to St. George’s tree-boxes, and at once buckle on their armor.

This, rendered into common prose, meant that Harry, after a prolonged consultation with Pawson and Gadgem, would shed his outer coat, the spring being now far advanced, blossoms out and the weather warm—­and that Kate would tuck her petticoats clear of her dear little feet and go pattering round, her sleeves rolled up as far as they would go, her beautiful arms bare almost to her shoulders—­her hair smothered in a brown barege veil to keep out the dust—­the most bewitching parlor-maid you or anybody else ever laid eyes on.  Then would follow such a carrying up of full baskets and carrying down of empty ones; such a spreading of carpets and rugs; such an arranging of china and glass; such a placing of andirons, fenders, shovels, tongs, and bellows; hanging of pictures, curtains, and mirrors—­old and new; moving in of sofas, chairs, and rockers; making up of beds with fluted frills on the pillows—­a silk patchwork quilt on St. George’s bed and cotton counterpanes for Jemima and Todd!

And the secrecy maintained by everybody!  Pawson might have been stone deaf and entirely blind for all the information you could twist out of him—­and a lot of people tried.  And as to Gadgem—­the dumbest oyster in Cherrystone Creek was a veritable magpie when it came to his giving the precise reason why the Temple Mansion was being restored from top to bottom and why all its old furniture, fittings, and trappings—­ (brand-new ones when they couldn’t be found in the pawn shops or elsewhere)—­were being gathered together within its four walls.  When anybody asked Kate—­and plenty of people did—­she would throw her head back and laugh so loud and so merrily and so musically, that you would have thought all the birds in Kennedy Square park were still welcoming the spring.  When you asked Harry he would smile and wink and perhaps keep on whispering to Pawson or Gadgem whose eyes were glued to a list which had its abiding place in Pawson’s top drawer.

Outside of these four conspirators—­yes, six—­for both Todd and Jemima were in it, only a very few were aware of what was really being done.  The colonel of course knew, and so did Harry’s mother—­and so did old Alec who had to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from snickering out loud at the breakfast table when he accidentally overheard what was going on—­an unpardonable offence—­(not the listening, but the laughing).  In fact everybody in the big house at Moorlands knew, for Alec spread it broadcast in the kitchen and cabins—­everybody except st. George.