with the store."

Carol smiled, and Kennicott was pleased that she had come to her senses.
"As Whit says, after all the first thing is to have the inside of a
house right, and darn the people on the outside looking in!"

It seemed settled that the house was to be a sound example of the Sam
Clark school.

Kennicott made much of erecting it entirely for her and the baby. He
spoke of closets for her frocks, and "a comfy sewing-room." But when
he drew on a leaf from an old account-book (he was a paper-saver and a
string-picker) the plans for the garage, he gave much more attention
to a cement floor and a work-bench and a gasoline-tank than he had to
sewing-rooms.

She sat back and was afraid.

In the present rookery there were odd things--a step up from the hall
to the dining-room, a picturesqueness in the shed and bedraggled lilac
bush. But the new place would be smooth, standardized, fixed. It was
probable, now that Kennicott was past forty, and settled, that this
would be the last venture he would ever make in building. So long as she
stayed in this ark, she would always have a possibility of change, but
once she was in the new house, there she would sit for all the rest of
her life--there she would die. Desperately she wanted to put it off,
against the chance of miracles. While Kennicott was chattering about a
patent swing-door for the garage she saw the swing-doors of a prison.

She never voluntarily returned to the project. Aggrieved, Kennicott