"Those darn blackberries are always late," said Kate, throwing the
picture back on the bureau. "Ain't that just my luck! You
wouldn't touch the raspberries. I had to pick them every one
myself. But the minute I turn my back, you go pick a man like
that, out of the blackberry patch. I bet a cow you wore your pink
chambray, and carried grandmother's old blue bowl."

"Certainly," said Nancy Ellen, "and my pink sun-bonnet. I think
maybe the bonnet started it."

Kate sat down limply on the first chair and studied the toes of
her shoes. At last she roused and looked at Nancy Ellen, waiting
in smiling complaisance as she returned the picture to her end of
the bureau.

"Well, why don't you go ahead?" cried Kate in a thick, rasping
voice. "Empty yourself! Who is he? Where did he come from? WHY
was he IN our blackberry patch? Has he really been to see you,
and is he courting you in earnest? -- But of COURSE he is!
There's the lilac bush, the lawn-mower, the house to be painted,
and a humdinger dress. Is he a millionaire? For Heaven's sake
tell me --"

"Give me some chance! I did meet him in the blackberry patch.
He's a nephew of Henry Lang and his name is Robert Gray. He has
just finished a medical course and he came here to rest and look
at Hartley for a location, because Lang thinks it would be such a
good one. And since we met he has decided to take an office in
Hartley, and he has money to furnish it, and to buy and furnish a