way down from New York," said Nickols with an adorable laugh, as he
lifted the first spoonful, dripping with cream, to his mouth. Then with
the food almost bestowed he paused and looked out beyond the garden
toward the chapel, which loomed up gray and shimmering in the silver
light.

"Great heavens!" he ejaculated, and for a long minute the spoon was
poised while his eyes fairly devoured the scene spread out before him
against the background of Paradise Ridge.

"If you don't like it we can get rid of it," I said, as I poured his
drink over the ice tinkling against the side of the glass.

"Not like it!" exclaimed Nickols, as he rose with the spoonful of
dumplings dashed back into the plate. "That is the most wonderful and
beautiful landscape effect I have ever beheld. That is just what our
garden needed. I suppose I would have seen it and put some sort of a
pavilion there, but that squat and perfect old church would have been
beyond me."

"Oh, I'm glad!" I exclaimed, as he sank back on the step beside me, took
the glass from my hand, drank deeply and this time began a determined
attack upon the plate in his hand. And then as he ate I told him all
about father and his plans for the garden and his own improvement and to
what I hoped the work was leading him. But somehow I couldn't bring
myself to describe the scene which had that night been enacted in the
garden--I couldn't. "Oh, I am so glad you are not furious and will maybe
be willing to encourage him, even if it does mean to encourage the
Methodist Church and the minister thereof. You are wonderful, Nickols,"
I finished with a squeeze of his arm that very nearly jostled the cream