"The book-cases are in. It's the best room in the house. Looks over the
river and gets most of the light. The books are as you packed them. I
haven't dared touch them. In fact, I've left that room entirely for you to
arrange."

"Well," he said, "if you've done the rest of this house as well as this
room, you'll do. It's jolly--it really is. I'm going to like this place."

"And you hated the very idea of it."

"I hated the discomfort there'd be before we settled in. But the settling
in is going to be easier than I thought. Of course we don't know yet how
the land lies. Ellen will tell us."

They were silent for a little. Then he looked at her with a puzzled, half-
humorous, half-ironical glance.

"It's a bit of a blow to you, Aunt Alice, burying yourself down here.
London was the breath of your nostrils. What did you come for? Love of
me?"

She looked steadily back at him.

"Not love exactly. Curiosity, perhaps. I want to see at first hand what
you'll do. You're the most interesting human being I've ever met, and that
isn't prejudice. Aunts do not, as a rule, find their nephews interesting.
And what have you come here for? I assure you I haven't the least idea."

The door was opened by Mrs. Clay.