centre of the town, where Jack saw vaguely the outlines of a rambling
bungalow, more spacious if no more pretentious than its neighbors in its
architecture. At a cement bridge over the ditch, leading to a broad
veranda under the soft illumination of a big, wrought-iron lantern, Mary
drew rein.

"This is home," she said; "and--and thank you!"

He could not see her face, which was in the shadow turned toward him, as
he looked into the light of the lantern from the other side of her pony.

"And--thank you!"

It was as if she had been on the point of saying something else and
could not get the form of any sentence except these two words. Was there
anything further to say except "Thank you"? Anything but to repeat
"Thank you"?

There he stood, this stranger so correctly introduced by the Eternal
Painter, with his burden, waiting instructions in this moment of awkward
diffidence. He looked at her and at the porch and at his bundle of mail
in a quizzical appeal. Then she realized that, in a peculiar lapse of
abstraction, she had forgotten about his encumberment.

Before she could speak there was a sonorous hail from the house; a hail
in keeping with the generous bulk of its owner, who had come through the
door. He was well past middle-age, with a thatch of gray hair half
covering his high forehead. In one hand he held the book that he had been
reading, and in the other a pair of big tortoise-shell glasses.