world it's the suspicious folks that gets left; in the third place,' says I-and mebbe I wouldn't have said it but for bein' het up with brownin' gravy-Jephson'll tell you that I'd sooner board ninety-nine sinners that'd keep out of my kitchen than one saint that didn't.'"

"It wasn't me that got it that time," grinned Jephson.

"I won't say I wasn't a bit hasty; but I can't stand havin' even a man round when dinner's bein' dished, and I do hate to have my peace of mind disturbed premature. Mr. Alison may turn out poor pay, but I don't want to know any sooner than I have to, no more than I'd want to be told that a burgular was goin' to break into the house. Besides, I don't deny that, in spite of not doin' the things people thinks he ought to do-well, I'm sorry for the young man; and I couldn't be sorry for anything that happened to young Mr. Snowberry, for instance, that used to set up prim and proper on the veranda, gossipin' with the old maids and married women when the others was playin' tennis. I declare, there's many a time when I've seen him settin' there with that long upper lip pulled down tight and the lower one bulgin', that I've tried to think up some way of lettin' a flat-iron drop plumb on his big toe. But if I had the chance, I wouldn't do it, I know-I couldn't be that intimate with him!"

"It beats all how a woman don't like a man to be too perfect," laughed Jephson. "Seems almost as if she couldn't get along without havin' a hand in the trainin' of him. Now it's different with a man; the perfecter a woman is————"

"Mathew Jephson," cried his wife, rising with a sudden access of energy, "I don't mind settin' down to have a chat once in a while, so long as you talk sensible; but once you begin moralizin', I'd sooner get at something useful than set still and listen. Now, instead of studyin' over the difference between men and women, which you can't better, you might set a while longer by yourself and wonder if them potatoes will be dug before frost."

Alison, after a prolonged meditation by the lake, rose at last with an air of desperate resolution, pausing a moment as he turned toward the path for a final sweeping glance at the shimmering water, from the

cluster of shuttered cottages and locked boat-houses near at hand, to the dominating towers and turrets of the Mingley's, at the far end of the lake. With moody intentness he pictured the slowly changing landscape as the days grew shorter and the nights long and frosty, the green of the grass turning to a faded brown, and the trees showing gaunt and naked against gray skies, the rippling water hardening to crystal and whirling clouds of snow turning the scene into a wintry waste that would make one resigned to even the dull cheer of the baseburner in the bare living-room of The Jephson House. It was this prospect he faced when he strode along the road and found the landlord in the potato field. "Jephson," he announced abruptly, 'I'm strapped."

Jephson glanced up, plunged his fork into the ground as a prop and leaned on it as he thoughtfully surveyed the speaker, then grinned amiably. "You don't look it," he commented.

"Fact," Alison insisted; "I haven't a dollar to my name."

Jephson's mouth puckered with concern, then he chuckled. "Sounds bad," said he, "but I can go you one worse. I'm in for makin' a kitchen cupboard for the missis." Alison laughed. "So you call that worse?" he asked.

"Well, I should say so," returned Jephson fervidly, "for it's out of my line. But women, I've noticed, look on places to stow things, as they look on hats and bonnets; they've got to have 'em, and the more they get the more they want-and by Ginger! they know what to do with 'em, too, every time!-like they know the front of a new hat from the back. And the things a man jest naturally leaves layin' round where they'll be handy to find, women jam into cupboards."

'All the same," Alison argued, "you're going to be fed and made comfortable while you're making it—but that doesn't help me. I'm clean strapped, I tell you, and the governor declines to shell out. Now, what are you going to do about it?"

"I ain't goin' to do nothin', for it ain't none of my business."

"But it is. You see, I'm going to stay on here and make a break to find out if it's such a fine thing for a man to work for his bread and butter as some people say.”

Jephson's incredulous gaze travelled over the young man's athletic figure, from tennis shoes to boating hat. "Cricky!" he ejaculated.

"Yes," continued Alison, "I've got to do something, and it has just struck me you might be willing to let me work out my board. Don't you want me to dig those potatoes, for example?"

"Jeeruslem, no!" Jephson shook his head vigorously. "No, no, Mr. Alisonyou jest lay round and take things easy for awhile: time enough to lend a hand when something extra turns up, for handlin' potatoes ain't no job for the likes of you. To tell the honest truth, it'd give me the creeps to see you workin' with roots or things that don't come natural to you. If it was forkin' hay, I'd say pile in, and be thankful; but potato diggin'-no sir-ee! But if you like to lay round, as I said, when any extra job turns up that needs brains, I'll ask you to lend a hand. It's the extra jobs that knock a man out, like that there cupboard. Cricky, Tommy! what's chasin' you?"

A small boy, panting and agitated, was running toward them. "Dad's kicked!" he shrieked "the gray mare done it fetched him on the leg. He's swearin' to beat the band!" he added breathlessly. "Then it ain't broke?" "No, it ain't; but he had to stand on t'other one to lam the gray mare-says you got to get someone to drive the stage."

"There I knowed it!" complained Jephson; "them careless fellows like Jerry Wedge is bound to make trouble for other people. Now, who in thunder can I get to drive the afternoon stage, with the mailbag due at Longbury for the 5.30 train?"

Through Alison's brain flashed a vision of his father, the opulent leather merchant, learning that his son had become a country stage-driver in the effort to earn an honest livelihood. "Hitch up, and I'll do it,” he volunteered.

Jephson stared, then laughed. "Guess you don't want to drive through Longbury in them duds?" he said.

"They're all I've got," returned Alison; "and if I don't mind, other people needn't worry."

Thus it happened that the Quinn's Landing stage, a rather dilapidated vehicle, drawn by a team of horses that had jogged

their daily course over the same route until life became void of hope or fear, jiggeted noisily down the business street of Longbury in charge of a young man who would have attracted less attention on the boxseat of a coach. But Alison sat on the driver's perch with an air of jaunty unconcern, like the skipper of a trim yacht who unexpectedly finds himself steering an unwieldy barge, apparently oblivious to the curious glances that followed his progress. October was rather late for tennis flannels and straw hats, he admitted, and a warm suit would not be out of place in such cool weather; but what did mere outward apparel matter to a man deserted by his friends and driven to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow? People might stare if they chose: potato-digging was out of his line, but stage-driving wasn't.

As he drew up at the shop where his two women passengers wanted to get off, a small crowd gathered and looked on with amused interest as he helped them to alight, an animated buzz of comment following when he lifted his hat and climbed to the seat once more. In spite of his resolution, Alison's equanimity was ruffled; he drove to the station in a hostile frame of mind, mentally anathematizing the people who stared at him. "Confounded idiots!" he ejaculated, as he flung the mail-bag on the platform and jumped after it. He came down with a resounding thump, conscious before he raised his eyes that someone half screened behind a pile of trunks suddenly stood up with a startled exclamation.

"I beg your-" he began, then stared in mute bewilderment; for the face was Kitty Burger's, and in her wondering eyes he read a look of frank pleasure that made the blood rush to his face.

"Miss-Burger," he stammered, with a lump in his throat: not until that moment had he quite realized his loneliness.

Kitty laughed, a happy, half-hysterical laugh. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" she cried. "It seems like a month since this morning, for I've been here alone for hours."

"Why, I thought you were going on the morning train?"

"I meant to," she replied, with a smile, "but Wedge had to stop twice to tie up the harness, and when we got to Longbury Aunt Emily was in a panic about missing

the train; then, just as those old horses were making up time on Main Street, my hat blew off and was crushed under a passing wagon. Well, I couldn't go hatless, and Aunt Emily was fussing so, that I made them drive on to the station while I went to a milliner's on the chance of getting through in time; and of course I was too late. But how-where did you drop from?" She looked around in puzzled inquiry.

Alison's joy turned to embarrassment. It was one thing to drive a stage among strangers whose opinion you ignored; it was another to be discovered in a menial Occupation by Kitty Burger.

"The fact is," he began, averting his eyes, "I—I came in that thing!" He made a gesture of repulsion toward the dilapidated vehicle and blinking horses.

"Then you're going on this train, too?" she asked cheerfully.

Alison straightened himself; the flush of mortification was in his face, but he looked at her squarely. "No," he returned, "I'm driving the stage. Wedge got kicked by the gray, so I'm taking his place."

'Why, Mr. Alison, how good of you!" her eyes sparkled with interest and approval.

Alison hesitated. "You don't understand," he explained. "I'm not doing it for Wedge, but for myself: a dollar and a half a day, and incidentals. But I never dreamed of meeting anyone who-who would care what I did."

"Oh, Mr. Alison, do you really mean you've begun to work for your living?"

There was an incredulous note in her tone that cut Alison to the quick. "There's no use denying it," he admitted desperately. "The governor has gone back on me -offered me a beggarly five dollars a week. I'm clean strapped, so I jumped at the first thing that turned up, after declining his offer. Besides, I thought if he heard that I

"I'm so glad!" she interrupted, with a long breath of satisfaction.

"You're glad!" echoed Alison-"glad that I'm strapped-that I've come down to stage-driving to earn my bread and butter?" A dubious look clouded her face. "I couldn't regret anything that-that spurred you to work," she said earnestly. "Isn't even stage-driving better than idleness?"

Alison stood gazing at her in stupefied amazement.

"Isn't it a privilege to earn one's living, instead of something to be ashamed of?" she demanded, with heightened color, and something like scorn flashing in her eyes.

Still Alison gazed in dumb admiration; then he drew a long breath, passed one hand across his eyes as if dazzled, and sat down beside her.

"I never thought of such a thing," he said helplessly, after a pause. "Youyou think so?" he asked.

"Oh, I know it!" she cried. "That's why I couldn't bear to see you frittering away your life, when you might be doing something to justify your existence. I didn't mean to tell you"-her voice became a little tremulous-"but there-I have!"

Alison's heart leaped with the unconscious wistfulness in her glowing eyes; his face lit up with the reverent exaltation of the neophyte to whom hidden mysteries are revealed; at that instant he realized that somewhere beyond lay a higher plane that he must reach.

"I understand!" he exclaimed. "Why it's-it's like a revelation-the dignity of labor and all that sort of thing. I never knew the meaning of it before, but now— why, it's as clear as day!" And he looked with such fervid adoration into the eyes that had taught him to see, that Kitty became suddenly intent upon tracing a random pattern on the platform with her parasol. "I've been a dolt!" he ejaculated," but now I feel as if I could move a mountain in a wheelbarrow, just for the pure joy of doing it."

Kitty broke into a happy, light-hearted laugh. "Don't you think you'd better begin with something more practical?" she asked, with a glance at his light apparel. "The weather is beginning to get chilly,” she added, drawing her cape closer with a little shiver.

Alison smiled ruefully. "I've been holding off with the expectation that the governor would come to terms, and it wasn't till this morning I accepted the fact that I would have to wear these duds until I earn some money. But when I made up my mind I would go to work and dig ditches or break stones, I suddenly realized that even these humble occupations must be

permanently filled by elderly persons with grizzled chins, clay pipes, and one or more green patches about the eyes."

"But you'll find something!" insisted Kitty. "I know you will. And you must take the first thing you can find, instead of waiting for something better-that's the way to get on!"

"I'll do anything!" asserted Alison, inspired with ardent confidence, his eyes kindling with enthusiasm. "Tell me," he burst forth impetuously, "was it because I was that-that other sort of creature you wouldn't-give me any hope?"

Kitty's cheeks burned crimson, her eyes sought the distant horizon down miles of straight track. "I hope I don't seem the sort of girl who could care-much-for an idler," she said softly.

"But now," he urged, his face radiant with hope,-"now that I'm changed, and all that's in the past don't you think couldn't you- ""

Kitty raised her clear eyes to his, eyes that shone with earnestness yet quivered with laughter. "I think," she said, "that next summer would be a better time to to think of such things. Don't you see that it's only a few minutes since you began to change?"

"It seems like years," cried Alison, crestfallen. Then hope returned: "I'll wait," he went on buoyantly, "till your faith is justified."

The distant rumble of the train crossing a bridge reached them. Kitty remained silent, a soft ebb and flow of color in her cheeks.

Alison sighed. "This morning," he said, "I felt like a desert islander, until I saw the flutter of your handkerchief."

"I couldn't help it," she said; "you looked so forlorn." The train thundered nearer. She gave him her hand. "Till next summer," she said, her eyes shining, "good-by."

into a chair and clasped her hands in ecstasy.

"Certainly I do, Mrs. Wedge; and he put it together jest in no time, you may say." The speaker visibly swelled with pride as she noted her neighbor's admiring survey.

"Well, I wouldn't never have thought he could make as much as a pig trough, supposin' he tried. Of course, he drove the stage for a few days; but there ain't no real work about that. How ever did you get him at it?"

"Now to tell the honest truth, Mrs. Wedge, I didn't!" Mrs. Jephson drew a chair close to her visitor, and beamed in pleased anticipation of the effect of her disclosure. "The fact is," she went on, "he got at it himself, and he was that keen for the job that he made me think of a thrashin'-mill ingine with a full head of steam. It was the day after the gray mare kicked Jerry, that he walks down to breakfast when we was settin' at the table at seven o'clock, instead of comin' down at ten or eleven as usual. For the land's sake, Mr. Alison,' says I, 'are you sick?' 'No, Mrs. Jephson,' he says, 'I ain't. In fact, I'm feelin' particlerly well,' says he. And really, Mrs. Wedge, he was that full of sperrits I begun to think there was something wrong; but after breakfast it wasn't five minutes till Jephson come in from the woodshed slappin' his leg and laughin'. 'Maria,' says he, 'I ain't goin' to make your cupboard. Don't look so fierce,' he says, 'for it's took off my hands. Mr. Alison 'll bust if I don't let him do it.' Well, I was that took aback I didn't make no objection, and I knew he couldn't be a poorer hand than Jephson, who'd be more likely to bust doin' a job than not doin' it. So presently along comes Mr. Alison, and first thing he asks me, jokin' like, if I know there's two sides of a cupboard in that there corner. 'Where?' says I. 'Well,' he says, 'if you say the word, I'll put three-sided shelves in there from the floor to the ceilin', and then all that's to be done is to put doors on the front, and you have a corner cupboard. The fact is,' says he, 'it don't take much lumber, and there's none too much on hand, and I know jest how to do it, for I made a locker in the Mingley's boat-house like that.'"

"That was real cute of him now," put

"Of course," Mrs. Jephson went on, restraining the too obvious exultation that crept into her tone, "of course it was a corner cupboard I wanted all the time, but I knew Jephson never could put together anything but a plain square one, and them Longbury carpenters charge ten prices for doin' things the way you don't want 'em done. Look inside, Mrs. Wedge."

"I declare to goodness"-Mrs. Wedge's voice came forth in muffled tones from the inner recesses "if you ain't got things stowed jest as if they was cut to fit!" "Certainly," the possessor assented, breathing hard in the effort to appear perfectly calm; "but it was the shelves that was made to fit the things that goes on them, though I wouldn't have thought of such a thing if it hadn't been for Mr. Alison. 'Mrs. Jephson,' says he to me, 'what's the biggest article you want to keep in this cupboard?' 'Well,' says I, 'the biggest is that there firkin of sugar. For the life of me,' I says, 'I can't keep Jephson from settin' on it to take off his boots.' 'Then,' says he, chucklin', 'I'll put it on the bottom and fix the lowest shelf so's nothin' taller than a potato bug can set on it. Now,' says he, 'let me see the next biggest thing.' 'Well,' I says, 'if that there big brass preservin' kettle could be got in, it'd be a mighty comfort to have it away from the flies.' 'Jest so,' says he; 'then I'll set this next shelf up to clear it, and the others to suit what you want to keep on 'em; for waste room,' says he, 'is worse than no room.""

"I've got to have one!" cried Mrs. Wedge, in an excited tremulous falsetto, "I'll have one in my kitchen, if it takes all my butterand-egg money from now till Christmas. Why, it don't take no room, you may say, and look what you got in it! I declare if this kitchen don't look bigger than it did before!"

"Of course it does-as Mr. Alison says to me, Mrs. Jephson,' says he, 'you've a wonderful head for arrangin' things. A man wouldn't never have thought of puttin' all them other pots inside the brass kettle, or made them jelly moulds look so tasty on the top. As for me, I begin to feel,' says he, jokin' like, 'that I'm about as useful as the man who plants a tree, or the one that makes two blades of grass grow where one

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Any booby can plant a tree,' says I; 'and as for the two blades of grass, I never seen that trick done; but it ain't a circumstance, I'm sure,' I says, 'to makin' one corner cupboard grow where there wasn't none before. There's only one thing, to my mind, to beat that,' says I, lookin' mighty knowin'. 'What is it?' says he. 'Two of 'em,' says I."

Mrs. Wedge gasped. "You're never goin' to have two," she cried, her eyes dilating. "Maria Jephson, you ain't!"

"I am," nodded Mrs. Jephson, in shrill triumph. "I'm goin' to have another with glass in the doors, in the dinin'-room, for the blue-and-white tea-set."

Mrs. Wedge flopped back in her chair and eyed her neighbor's beaming countenance searchingly, her voice dropping to a pitch of solemn adjuration. "Well then,” she said, decisively, "you're goin' to get him to make one for me."

Mrs. Jephson's frank complacence changed to a neutral smile. "Oh, I don't know as Mr. Alison would care to work for anyone else," she replied guardedly.

"Maria Jephson"-Mrs. Wedge's tone became a trifle strident-"you're goin' to get him to do mine. Of course, I know it ain't the same as if he was a common carpenter; but you can get him to do it, I know you can," she insinuated pleadingly.

"I'm willin' to ask him about it, of course," relented Mrs. Jephson, "but you know how it is, Mrs. Wedge-he's a gentleman, is Mr. Alison, and I'm jest expectin' that some of these days a letter will come from his pa with a thousand dollars in it; then off he'll go."

"Then you'll hurry him up. Tell him I'm your particler friend, and that I may die sudden, and—oh, my, but that's a nice wash-basin stand you got over there!"

"That's something I made myself," said Mrs. Jephson proudly; "and it's like them can-openers that's also a glass-cutter and a putty knife, for it ain't only a basin-stand. Lift up the valance, Mrs. Wedge."

"Sakes alive-his boots!"

"Yes, them's his Sunday ones and carpet slippers in the top part; his long boots goes below. You see it's jest two soap boxes nailed together, the lowest one on end and the other sideways."