of paper in his hand. "Eleven hundred weight of number two," he read;
"at six pounds, and a load of charcoal. Jonas Hupp charged with three
pairs of woollen stockings, and shoes for Minnie, four shillings more."

Howat mechanically entered the enumerated items, his distaste for such a
petty occupation mounting until it resembled a concrete power forcing
him outside into the mellow end of the day. A figure darkened the
doorway; it was Caroline. "I hardly saw him," she declared hotly.
"Myrtle hung like a sickly flower in his buttonhole." Her hoops
flattened as she made her way through the narrow entrance. "There's one
thing about Myrtle," she continued, "she's frightfully proper in her
narrow little ideas. Myrtle's a prude. And I promise you I won't be if I
get a chance at David." She stood with vivid, parted lips, bright eyes;
almost, Howat thought, charming. Such a spirit in Caroline amazed him;
he hadn't conceived of its presence. He recognized a phase of his own
contempt for customary paths, accepted limitations and proprieties.
"Remember David's Quaker training," he told her in his habitual air of
jest. "David's been to London," she replied. "I saw him pinch the
Appletofft girl at the farm."

Again in his room, he changed into more formal clothes than on the
evening previous; he did this without a definite, conscious purpose; it
was as if his attitude of mind required a greater suavity of exterior.
He wore a London waistcoat, a gift from his mother, of magenta worked
with black petals and black stone buttons; his breeches were without a
wrinkle, and the tails of his coat, even if they were not wired like
those David was said to have brought from England, had a not
unsatisfactory swing.

At supper Mrs. Winscombe sat at his left, Caroline and Myrtle had taken