"Well," said Abner slowly, "I don't know but that I might find it
interesting." This, Giles understood, was his rustic manner of accepting.




IX

Abner spent Christmas at the Giles farm, as Stephen had understood him to
promise; and Medora, as her brother had engaged, "went along" too, and
"ran the whole thing" from start to finish. Abner, with a secret interest
compounded half of attraction, half of repulsion, promised himself a
careful study of this "new type"--a type so bizarre, so artificial, and
in all probability so thoroughly reprehensible.

Medora made up the rest of the party to suit herself. She had heard of
Adrian Bond's struggles toward the indigenous, the simplified, and she
was willing enough to give him a chance to see the cows in their winter
quarters. Clytie Summers had begged very prettily for her glimpse too of
the country at this time of year. "It's rather soon, I know, for that
spring barn-yard; but I should so enjoy the ennui of some village Main
Street in the early winter."

"Come along, then," said Medora. "We'll do part of our Christmas shopping
there."

Giles accepted these two new recruits gladly. "Good thing for both of
them," he declared to Joyce. "They'll make more progress on our farm in a
week than they could in six months of studio teas."