it," Sylvia said. "To-morrow you must get the bed moved into the
little one, and I'll get the big room fixed up for a study. He'll be
tickled to pieces. There's beautiful furniture in the room now. I
suppose he'll think it's beautiful. It's terrible old-fashioned. I'd
rather have a nice new set of bird's-eye maple to my taste, and a
brass bedstead, but I know he'll like this better. It's solid old
mahogany."

"Yes, he'll be sure to like it," assented Henry.

After supper, although Sylvia did not relapse into her taciturn mood,
Henry went and sat by himself on the square colonial porch on the
west side of the house. He sat gazing at the sky and the broad acres
of grass-land. Presently he heard feminine voices in the house, and
knew that two of the neighbors, Mrs. Jim Jones and Mrs. Sam Elliot,
had called to see Sylvia. He resolved that he would stay where he was
until they were gone. He loved Sylvia, but women in the aggregate
disturbed and irritated him; and for him three women were sufficient
to constitute an aggregate.

Henry sat on the fine old porch with its symmetrical pillars. He had
an arm-chair which he tilted back against the house wall, and he was
exceedingly comfortable. The air was neither warm nor cold. There was
a clear red in the west and only one rose-tinged cloud the shape of a
bird's wing. He could hear the sunset calls of birds and the laughter
of children. Once a cow lowed. A moist sense of growing things, the
breath of spring, came into his nostrils. Henry realized that he was
very happy. He realized for the first time, with peaceful content,
not with joy so turbulent that it was painful and rebellious, that he
and his wife owned this grand old house and all those fair acres. He