"Dear Lady Of The Garden (it began whimsically):

"I am sure that no one has told you—and that no one will tell you unless I do—that the chickweed is looking exceedingly fresh and spring-like between the box-borders. Further—a patch of small white violets is to be discovered in the sunny spots beyond the sweet pea trellis. I have a bunch of them pinned on my coat at this moment, purloined by my own hand, and smelling like spring itself. The daffodils are gorgeous, and a small blue flower which gives forth a modest and unobtrusive odour all its own is to be found in clumps in several places.

"Alec tells me he has written you all about the progress of the early spring work, but you may possibly be still more interested in the human culture going on upon Strawberry Acres, in which he is bearing an important part. To-day he and Burnside, protected by blue jeans and looking highly disreputable, have been spraying the apple orchard. A disagreeable job it looks to be, from the standpoint of cleanliness, although a necessary one. But whenever I appeared, as an interested spectator on the scene, Alec was toiling away with the greatest good humour, which did not fail him when the apparatus suddenly stopped working properly, and had to be nursed and tended through at least the final third of the operation.

"I believe your brother Max is beginning to long to leave the bank and to begin his life upon the farm. In spite of his somewhat satirical comments upon the probable folly of Alec's having taken this step, I am confident he himself would like to try it. Another spring will see him burning his bridges, or I am no prophet.

"No one, Miss Sally, could be thrown, as your brothers are with such a fellow as Jarvis Burnside, without being stimulated to action. He is the most thoroughly alive recent college graduate I know of in any line of work. It's a refreshing sight to me, to see a man with all the instincts for a literary life, but handicapped by the necessity for taking care of his eyesight, throw himself with such ardour into labour which would have seemed the very last he would have been likely to care for. On my word, I don't know when I admire him most—when, in his careful dress he sits down to his books and journals in the evening, getting Alec to read aloud to him when he has reached the limit of safety for his own eyes, talking to the lad in a way to wake the boy up—as he is most certainly doing—or when I see him at such a job as he tackled to-day, putting into it the care and precision of your true scientist and experimenter with intent to get the full result of the best directed effort possible. Wherever you put him, he's a man worth knowing—and I'm glad I know him and have him for a friend."

"I like to hear one man praise another like that," commented Sally to herself, as having finished the letter, which recounted briefly what Mrs. Ferry and Janet were doing and conveyed messages from both, she turned back to re-read the whole. Then she took up Jarvis's letter, wondering if he might chance to refer to Donald Ferry in as high terms as those in which he had himself been mentioned.

Jarvis had a crisp, clear style of composition all his own. The letter was not a long one, but it brought the writer vividly before his reader:

"DEAR SALLY:

"One of the apple-wood fires you like so well is blazing on the hearth. Across the table, in the lamplight, sits Alec absorbed in a column of experiences in strawberry culture contributed by experts from all parts of the country. You may not readily believe me, but in a quite upright position on the end of the couch, where the firelight illumines the page, Max is deep in a concise and practical treatise on the same subject. Bob stands on the hearth rug, drying out, after a run home from the Ferry cottage through a brisk shower. So you have us. Is it a satisfactory picture?

"According to Alec you have been told all our plans for the season, and Ferry said to-day that he meant soon to write you precisely what is happening in your garden. If he does you will have a masterpiece of a description, for he's a writer of distinction. He's everything else that's worth while as well, by the way—the finest ever. I never liked a man so well with so good reason. Other men say the same sort of thing of him, but I fancy I am getting to know and appreciate him better then most.

"Before I forget it—Joanna wishes me to state that she has spoken for a kitchen garden which shall contain parsley, summer-savoury, lettuces, radishes, and mint. With Bob's help she has even concocted a small hot-bed in which she will begin operations at once. These subjects having been disposed of, you may forgive me for becoming slightly personal.

"Do you know that you haven't answered my last letter? I had one sheet from you in January, one in early March, and a post-card a week ago. The post-card was very attractive, but it hardly took the place of a letter. Was it intended to do so?

"But you are coming home soon, and you must expect to answer these questions for me then. I assure you there are long arrears for you to make up with us all, in one way and another. Bob is counting the days till your return. Max has reached the limit of his patience. Alec declares this thing must never happen again. Joanna—but it would be a breach of confidence to reveal Joanna's feelings. "There's na luck aboot the hoose," she is confident, with its mistress away.

"As for me—do you care to know how I feel about your coming home? But I would rather tell you that than write it. You have kept me at arm's length all winter. Won't you just bend your rigid little elbow a trifle at the joint when you shake hands with me the first of May?

"As ever I am

"Yours, JARVIS."

It remained for Max to put the crowning touch to Sally's rather complicated thoughts about going home, with the following characteristic communication:

"DEAR SISTER: This thing is played out. I want you to understand that the first of May is the first of May, and you are to get here on it, not leave there that day—nor the day after. Bachelors' Hall is well enough in its way, but not for a lifetime. You'd better be on hand mighty soon and sudden if you want to keep J.B. to yourself. J.F's running you a close second, and she's liable to pass you in sight of the wire. Take a brother's advice. I don't suppose either of them has written you a word about the other—but if they haven't that's just as bad a sign as if they'd kept you in full knowledge of the way they get on—like a basket of chips. Come home—come home!

"Your affec. brother,

"MAX."



CHAPTER XIX

ROUND THE CORNER

Joanna Marshfield, left alone in charge of the house at Strawberry Acres, on the evening of the twenty-ninth of April, stood in the front doorway, looking out into the rain. The air was mild but like a wet sponge in the feel of it against her cheek.

"I hope to goodness 'twill clear off before the folks come," said she to herself. "Here's Mrs. Burnside coming out most a month sooner than she wanted to and Miss Sally looking forward to seeing things well under way in that old garden she sets such store by. If May Day would just be nice and sunshiny for 'em all 'twould please me. Well, now—who can that be?"

A figure was approaching on the drive-way, carrying an umbrella and a tag, and walking rapidly. As it neared Joanna could see, in the light thrown out from the hallway and the front windows, that the figure wore skirts of dark blue. The next instant the umbrella was tilted back at a reckless angle, and a voice called guardedly out of the mist:

"O Joanna—is that you? Hush—don't answer out loud!"

"Miss Sally!" Joanna, amazed, crossed the porch to meet her young mistress. "Who'd ever have thought of seeing you to-night? Why—we wasn't expecting you till day after to-morrow. And where's Mr. Rudd?"

"Joanna dear!—don't speak so loud. I want to surprise them," came back the laughing whisper, and the next minute Sally's bag and umbrella were on the porch, and she was wringing both her housekeeper's plump hands in her own. "How do you do, Joanna! I'm so glad to see you again. Uncle Timothy stopped off for a week in Washington, and I couldn't wait, so came on alone. Is everybody well?"

"They're well enough, Miss Sally, but—you'll be pretty disappointed. You see they wasn't expecting you, so—"

"Oh, are they away? They can't be all away! Where are they?"

"Well, you see they was getting sort of restless, waiting for the first of May, and Mr. Max took them into town to some show. It's too bad. They'd rather have seen you than any show, I reckon."

"But they'll be back to-night?"

"I expect they will—near eleven."

"Oh, well—I can wait." Sally drew a long breath. "I've waited months—I can stand it a few hours longer."

"It's a shame." Joanna picked up the bag and umbrella and led the way into the hall. "The Burnsides are coming the day after to-morrow." She pointed toward the open door into the west wing, the hall light shining in a short distance among the shadows and showing a room in order. "It's awful too bad they didn't get here to-day."

"Never mind—it's a great deal just to be at home again. How pleasant it all looks—and how fresh!"

Joanna led on into the long living-room where a light fire blazed on the hearth. "It's as fresh as I could make it," she admitted, "but there's some ways it can be made fresher that you'll see right away. Them red pillows—"

Evidently the pillows had been on Joanna's mind ever since she had been put in charge of them upon Sally's departure. Sally gave them one glance and burst into appreciative laughter.

"Pillow-fights, Joanna—and being sat on around the fire, and used for acrobatic performances—yes, I see. I'll re-cover them right away. I'd do it to-night while I wait if I had the stuff—if I could sit still long enough. I want to go all over the house—and if it wasn't raining I'd go out in the garden and through the pine grove and over into the orchard. Oh, here's a new picture of Alec, on the chimney-piece—why didn't he send it to me?"

"I could go over and let the Ferry people know you're here," suggested Joanna, watching Sally eye the small snap-shot likeness hungrily, so that it seemed a matter of charity to present some human creature to her gaze.

"No, no, thank you—I'd rather see my own family first. I can wait. I'll go up and get off these travelling things and unpack my bag—that will take up a little time," and Sally prepared to put her suggestion into action.

"Just let me go up first, Miss Sally," urged Joanna. "Not expecting you so soon the room's no linen in it—it won't look like home to you. I won't be ten minutes. It's too bad—Miss Josephine was going to have the house all trimmed up with flowers for you."

Seeing that to refuse to allow this would disappoint Joanna, Sally submitted and went out to the open front door again, to stand looking off into the wet night where a row of distant lights glimmering vaguely through the mist outlined the course of the trolley connecting Wybury with the city.

"Anyhow, I'm at home," she consoled herself. "I might be content with that, for an hour or two, but it does seem as if I could never wait. If I could only see my garden—"

She went to the end of the porch and tried to make out some sign that would indicate its presence, but the mist was too thick. Yet the light from the living-room windows shone directly down that way. "I believe if I were out there I could see something," she reflected. "I'm going to change my clothes—I might as well soak them a little more." She ran back into the hall, caught up her blue coat, and pulling it on flew out again and plunged off the porch into the darkness, the April rain, more mist than drops, falling on her fair curls. The grass was long and wet, but she cared for nothing now, and dashed on till she came to the first box-border, lying distinct in one of the shafts of light from the windows.

Hunting expectantly about she explored the whole garden, laughing softly to herself at the absurdity of the performance, for she was growing wetter every minute. She felt of the ground where she could not see it, exulting in the discovery of ranks of tulips, where she had planted their bulbs last fall, just breaking into bud.

"You dear things," she said, under her breath, "how enchanting of you to be out to welcome me home, when you had never met me before!—Over there's the sweet pea trellis—I wonder if Bob put the seeds in as I wrote him? Can I tell by the feel of the ground? Oh, the light falls there—I can see."

She was so absorbed in this entertaining exploration that she did not hear the distant closing of a door beyond the pine grove, nor the footsteps which presently came that way and paused, just beyond the orchard. Neither did she guess at the quiet approach of a tall figure through the mist, until it stood upon the edge of the garden. The first she knew of its presence was the sound of a familiar voice, speaking quietly so that it might not startle her, yet with a note of joy plainly perceptible through its control.

"Can I believe my eyes—or am I dreaming that I see you, Sally Lane?"

"Oh, Jarvis!" The cry was a startled one, in spite of his precaution. Then the blue figure flew toward the gray one in the shadow, both hands out, as Sally forgot everything except that here at last was one who seemed to belong to her own household.

"My dear girl! When did you come? Have we missed getting a message?" Jarvis, meeting her more than half way, held the small hands tight, stooping to try to see into her face.

"No, no—I didn't send any—I wanted to surprise you all. Uncle Tim decided to stop off in Washington for a week, and I couldn't bear to wait. He is perfectly well now, and said I might come on. So I came. I never dreamed that every one would be away."

"It's a confounded mischance," his lips said heartily, but his thoughts added—"for everybody but me." He went on quickly, "You mustn't stay out here. How long have you been out?" He touched her hair. "Why, it's soaking wet. Come in, child."

He kept firm hold of one hand and drew her with him in a rapid progress to the porch. The moment the light fell on her face he was expectantly studying it, and when he had her in the hall under the stronger rays he stood still and looked at her as if he wanted to make up for months of deprivation. She turned a rosy red under his scrutiny, her cheeks looking like moist but vivid flowers, drops of rain sparkling in her hair and clinging even to her lashes.

"Come in by the fire and dry your hair," he commanded.

She shook her head and drew away her hand. "No, I'll run up and dry everything at once."

"You won't be all the evening about it?" he questioned, with suspicion, for her attitude suggested flight.

"How can I tell?" The old mischief looked out of her eyes.

He took a step toward her. "Come and get the first wet off by the fire," he urged.

But, laughing, she fled up the stairs.

"I didn't know he was such a distinguished-looking person," she was owning to herself as she ran along the upper hall. "Why, he's grown so much heavier and handsomer I'm actually afraid of him—it doesn't seem like the same Jarvis Burnside I've known so long. He's—he's—what Dorothy Chase would call stunning! I never supposed that farming would have that effect on anybody."

Then she rushed into her own room to find it in spotless order, with evidences of Joanna's recent presence in a brisk little fire burning in the small bedroom fireplace, the freshest of appointments everywhere, and a trimly bright lamp upon the old cherry dressing-table which had come from New Hampshire among Uncle Timothy's furniture.

"My trunk isn't here—what in the world shall I put on?" was her first anxiety. She opened the door of her closet, to find all her last summer's frocks newly "done up" and hanging there in inviting daintiness. She caught at the lilac muslin, now faded by many washings into a mere tint, but looking so like home and good times that it seemed the fitting thing to don, in the absence of her heavier dresses, even upon an April night.

A half-hour later, her hair crisply dried by the fire and curling blithely from its recent bath, herself sweet with the soap-and-water and clean-clothes freshness which is the only fragrance worth cultivating, Sally stole on tiptoe to the top of the stairs and peeped down. She beheld Jarvis pacing up and down the hall, and as she looked saw him take his watch out and scan its face as if he had an appointment to keep. She stood still, her pulses beating rather quickly. This was not exactly the sort of home-coming she had planned, this reception by one person. But it was nearly ten o'clock already, she had managed to consume so much time upstairs. Also, upon Joanna's return to her room to inquire if there were anything else she wanted, the young mistress of the house had imperatively commanded the presence in the living-room of the middle-aged housekeeper until such time as Max and the boys should arrive. Joanna, with her neat black dress and smooth hair, was certainly fitted in appearance for the duties of duenna, and Sally had felt no hesitation whatever in requiring her to assume that role.

So Joanna now waited in the living-room—rather reluctantly, it must be admitted, for it seemed to her that this was carrying chaperonage unnecessarily far. But Jarvis was in the hall, and the door had been closed between. Sally did not realize this latter fact until she had almost reached the bottom of the stairs, where Jarvis, the moment that he had caught sight of her, had advanced to meet her. She looked at the door with a startled expression. It was ordinarily kept open, except in very cold weather.

"Yes, I know it's shut," said the young man at the foot of the stairs, with a smile. "Awful situation, isn't it? But you can escape back up the stairs—if you are quick. I warn you that you'll have to be very quick!"

"Will you give me sixty seconds' start?"

"Not I. You've had five months' start—that's enough. Now you are back—how well you are looking!"

She stood still, two steps above him. Even so, she had not much the advantage of him in height.

"So are you," she retorted. "But we don't need to stay out here to tell each other that. Let's—"

"Are you so eager to see Joanna again? She's looking very well also—for Joanna—but she can wait a minute or two to hear it."

"Joanna has been so good—she's cleaned the whole house for me. She—"

"I know. She's a treasure—but I haven't time to think about her now. All I can think of is that—I'm looking at you again! I told you in my last letter that I wanted to tell you how I felt about your coming home. Do you care to know?"

"Are you really glad?" Sally tried to ask it as she would have done a year ago, in the old friendly time when it was a matter of course that she and Jarvis should be glad to see each other.

"Am I? What do you think?"

"I should be very disappointed if you were not, of course. I want everybody to welcome me home—I've missed it so."

"But you still don't want the welcoming done—'two and two'? Sally, it's a long lane that has no turning. Am I never to come to one?"

"I'm not a very 'long Lane,'" expostulated the girl, laughter on her lips but her eyes shy.

"That may be. But though you have so many turnings it seems to me as if I had been kept a good while on the straight stretch. What if you should let me see just a little way round the corner? You know what I want to find there! You know how dearly I—love you!"

There was a moment's silence.

"Will you be contented to see a very little way?"

"I can't promise to be contented, but I'll agree to be patient, if I can get even a glimpse of where my lane may lead in the end."

Sally tried to look frankly at him, in the old way. It proved less easy than she would have supposed. His whole personality seemed to have grown so dominant, so compelling. She put out one hand. He grasped it eagerly, and would have drawn her down to where he stood, but she prevented this with a warning gesture.

"No, no—" she said quickly—"it's only round the corner you're to look! That only means—I'm willing to be very good friends—better than we have been, perhaps. I don't want to be—tied—by any promises. I want to be a girl yet—only not—perhaps—quite so little a girl as before. Meanwhile—you're not tied, either."

A short laugh interrupted her. "There's nothing on earth I should like so much!"

"There's such a lovely girl next door—I've heard—"

"What have you heard?"

Sally did not seem to be willing to tell.

"It makes no difference what you've heard. Ask her herself what we've talked of most. But, Sally—how long before I may see round another corner?"

She hesitated. "I don't know. Not—this year, please."

"Not this year! Well—I certainly shall have to cultivate patience. But I will—if I must. When—?"

Her lips twitched a little. It was the girl he had known a long time who answered: "When the first strawberries go to market—from Strawberry Acres!"

"Shades of Job! A year from this June? And till then I must walk on neutral ground?"

It was harder to resist him—harder to put him off—than she had thought it would be. But she had made up her mind—and when Sally Lane did that she could not be easily swayed from her purpose.

"You've seen around the corner," she murmured. "You promised to be content with that."

"Not content—patient—if I can. I will be. Thank you for that much."

He reluctantly let her draw away her hand, and she came down the two steps, passed him, and led the way toward the living-room door. With her hand on the knob he stopped her.

"Sally—"

"Yes—"

"I can't help liking the look of the lane—beyond the corner!"

Laughing and blushing more brilliantly than before—which was rather superfluous—Sally threw open the door, regardless of the fact that Joanna, who possessed a pair of very good eyes, was awaiting her in the room beyond. But there is such a thing as dazzling people's eyesight so that they cannot judge perfectly of what they see, and this effect Joanna's mistress immediately proceeded to produce. For the following hour, between raptures over being at home, tales of her Southern experiences—told so vividly that her listeners seemed to see them for themselves—eager questionings of the home stayers, there was small chance for anybody to put a finger upon exactly what Miss Sally Lane's inmost thoughts might be.

Then, quite unexpectedly, a quarter hour earlier than it had been supposed possible, the tramp of feet was heard upon the porch. Sally flew toward the hall—then flew back again, leaving the door closed, and standing still and breathless upon the hearth-rug, in the full light of the fire. Voices were heard in the hall, and the rattle of umbrellas in the rack.

"Plaguey poor play," Max was complaining. "Rather stay by the fire any night than poke to town to bore myself like that. I don't think—"

He flung open the door. Behind him Alec's voice was saying: "I'm as wet as a rat. You fellows had the big umbrella. The little one isn't big enough to—"

"Well, I'll be—" Max's exclamation cut his brother short. He stood still, staring. There was a flutter of lilac skirts, a low cry of joy, and Jarvis was looking on enviously at an illustration of the privileges that exist for brothers, who—stupid fellows—do not half appreciate them. A moment later Alec and Bob had come in for their share of sisterly greeting, and the three were standing round the returned traveller in a highly satisfied semi-circle, putting questions, making comments, and generally behaving as they might have been counted on to do.

"I hope you don't expect us to believe those piteous tales about your losing flesh and colour with homesickness," declared Max, his hand on his sister's shoulder, as he turned her full toward the firelight. "Jove, I never saw you look more like one of those pink peonies you think so much of, in your garden."

"I didn't write piteous tales!" His sister involuntarily accentuated the likeness he had suggested by growing pinker than before.

"It was Uncle Tim, then. He got worried about you, and wrote me so. He must have been off his base. You never looked healthier. But, see here, miss—you don't do this thing again—understand? We'll never keep house here another winter without you!"

* * * * *

Sally had come home on Saturday night. On Sunday morning the rain had ceased, and the sun was shining brilliantly. Before breakfast she was out in the garden. Spying her there as he looked out of his window, Max hastened his dressing and went out to join her.

"Looks fairly well in order, eh?" he questioned.

Sally remembered certain information sent her in one of Janet's letters. "Indeed it does. And you made it so. That pleases me more than I can tell you, Max."

"How do you know I did?"

"Guessed it from your expression—and a hint I had had. Didn't you rather enjoy doing it?"

"Much more than I should have expected," he was forced to admit under the scrutiny of her eyes.

"How I wish you could leave the bank and join the boys in the work out here. Don't you almost wish so yourself?" she demanded, thrusting her hand through his arm, as he paced along, his hands in his pockets. The old garden paths were quite wide enough for two, when they walked close together.

Max looked down at her. "To tell the truth, I'm beginning to wish so too."

This, from Max, was a great admission. Sally's eyes sparkled with pleasure. "Oh, can't you?" she cried.

"I don't see how I can, this year. To be sure, Jarve's paying all the expenses and taking all the responsibility these first two years, according to agreement, but I can't lie down on him. Of course it's all outgo and no income until we get the strawberries to bearing next year. Meanwhile the family has to be supported, and what timber we've thought best to sell won't do that, if all of us stop work. It's all right for Al and Bob to spend this season on the farm, for Jarve would have to hire somebody anyway, but it's different with me, and my salary is more than they could earn, both together, at their old jobs. No—I must grind away another year. But then—"

"Then you'll come?"

"Yes, and be glad to."

"I'm so delighted to hear you say that!"

"I need the change. I realize, at last, what a bear I've been these three years. I'm tired of being a bear. It's half nerves, I believe—but a fellow of my age ought not to know he has nerves. Besides—"

He paused, looking off through the pine grove to the gap in the hedge, through which a glimpse of the white cottage could be had. Sally waited. It was rarely that her elder brother became confidential, and this mood seemed more than ordinarily propitious for getting at his best thoughts. After a little he went on, in a firm tone, speaking after a fashion which made his sister feel for him a new respect.

"I may as well tell you that in a way I think I'm rather a different fellow from the one you left last November. I see things differently. It's his doing—" He nodded toward the cottage, and Sally understood. Also, she felt infinitely thankful to the influence which had brought about this change. "I've come to see," he went on more slowly, "what it means to have a definite purpose in life beyond merely making a living and having as much of a good time as you can manage to extract. I want to make a man of myself—the sort of man my Maker intended me to be.

"Ferry's doing it—Jarvis is doing it—even Alec and Bob put me to shame with the manliness they're developing. If Maxwell Lane can't swing into line—"

"He can, dear—he will. He's swung already, when he can talk like this." His sister's hand squeezed his arm tight for a minute, in her happiness.

"It's not going to be a matter of talk, mind you," he said earnestly. "Don Ferry doesn't talk about his own life—he lives it. I want to do the same. But I felt as if I'd like you to know—that's all. What's that coming up in the corner there?"

"Lilies-of-the-valley—they're almost ready to bud." And Sally let him lead the conversation away from himself to talk about the garden, understanding that the little revelation was a great one for him to make, and that it had cost him a decided effort. But while she talked of the pruning of the roses and the prospects of the sweet peas, just sown, her heart was rejoicing over the growth in this "human garden," as Ferry had called it, so much dearer to her.

"Alec's to go away next winter for a course at an agricultural school," Max announced suddenly. "I've made up my mind to that. He shows more bent than any of us toward making a science of this thing. Odd, isn't it?—where you consider how set he was against even living here. I tell you Don Ferry's a great chap. He's done more for us than we can pay back. I'd like to keep him in the family. Janet too. See here—" he rose upright from having stooped over certain newly upspringing shoots, and favoured his sister with a sharp glance. "What's the matter with you and Don hitting it off? That would leave Jarve to Janet, and make a mighty nice combination of us—eh? Judging by appearances Don wouldn't object a bit.—I say—where are you going?"

"Didn't you hear the breakfast-bell?" Sally was walking away from him toward the house.

"No, I didn't. Neither did you."

But Sally continued to walk, regardless of the fact that both Alec and Bob had appeared round the corner of the house, coming toward her, hands in the pockets of their Sunday trousers, feet treading gingerly over the damp grass in their freshly-polished best shoes. On whatever part of Strawberry Acres Sally should be descried to-day, it might be safely prophesied that there her family would be likely to foregather.



CHAPTER XX

GREEN LEAVES

"So the great day has come at last! My word, but you've had the courage of your convictions! What a stretch of 'em!"

"Of convictions? Well, they're certainly embodied in those seven acres, whether there are any strawberries there or not. Don't you want to get over the fence and stroll up one of the rows? You may find a specimen or two of fruit worth setting your teeth into."

Neil Chase, correctly clad in light flannels, eyed the fence critically before he clambered over it. "I can be trusted to tear myself if there's a twopenny splinter anywhere," said he. "Must admit it looks rather worth while over here, though. Hello—Dorothy's over already. Who's that assisting her? The Reverend Donald—in blue overalls! It's lucky Old Dutch can't see him now! I say, you've got a lot of pickers. Are they all members of the firm?"

Jarvis laughed as he followed Chase's glance up the rows. "You've struck us on our first day," he admitted. "We agreed to make it a special celebration among ourselves, since only a small part of the berries are ripe."

"The pink sun-bonnet covers an acquaintance, then," inferred Neil, watching it approach from a distance. "Hello—it's Sally!" and he pulled off his hat to wave it in response to a salutation from the pink sun-bonnet, whose removal had disclosed a fair head whose locks the June sunshine was turning into gold. "I suppose the blue one conceals Jo Burnside, the white one Miss Ferry, and so forth. I always said you people were no farmers—to dress for the part like stage strawberry-pickers," he added, as Sally came within hearing.

"Why not? Could any stage be set to equal this one?" inquired Sally Lane. "No, no—you can't shake hands with me—" She held up ten carmine-tipped fingers. "What could be more appropriate for picking strawberries than a pink gingham?"

"It's mighty becoming, anyhow," Neil offered tribute. "Jove, Sally, but farming certainly does agree with you. Talk of roses—Dorothy!" he called, "come here and look at these cheeks! Full in the sunlight, too. I'll wager yours couldn't stand such a test."

Sally promptly put on her sun-bonnet. "A strawberry patch is no place for flattery, Mr. Neil Chase," said she. "Come with me, Dorothy. I'll show you the biggest berry you ever saw in your life—and you may eat it, too."

Mrs. Chase gathered her white skirts about her, planted her white-shod feet recklessly in the wake of Sally's, and arrived in due time at the point where Sally had been picking. From nearby rows Josephine Burnside, Janet Ferry, and Constance Carew lifted heads to greet her.

"How awfully busy you all are!" cried Dorothy, consuming a fat berry with which Sally presented her. "Too busy to greet your friends!"

"This isn't a reception, it's a working affair," Janet replied gayly. "Guests may help themselves to refreshments, but mustn't expect the hostesses to stop picking."

"You have no trouble about getting the men at your entertainments, Sally," observed Dorothy, scanning the field. "They're all here, I see—even Max. Has he left the bank?"

"Yes, the first of May. This is our third season, you know—but the first one of bearing. Max is as enthusiastic as anybody, now. When you see him nearer you'll discover a great change in him. No more banks for him, if we can make anything like a success with the strawberries."

"How do you know that you will? You're such amateurs at it."

"We're not, if study of the subject amounts to anything," Sally asserted, with a little air of pride. "Between books and experiment stations, and Alec's course at an agricultural school last winter, and Jarvis's visits to practical strawberry-growers, it would be strange if our methods went all astray. But they're not going astray. Look at these berries you're eating!"

Down the rows Jarvis was pursuing much the same line of argument with Neil Chase. "It's not in reason, you know," the visitor objected, critically selecting choice specimens of fruit along the rows and eating them with evident relish, "it's not in reason for a lot of fellows like you, fresh from books and banks, to jump into this sort of thing and make it go without a hitch."

"Well, you have the evidence of your eyes before you," Jarvis returned with great good humour, from his knees among the vines where he was now picking busily again. "To be sure it hasn't gone without a hitch. Last season we had a long spring drought to fight—and fought it, too, with irrigation. This spring the shot-hole fungus attacked us, but we overcame it with spraying. Of course next year a killing frost may come along and finish the crop for the year—we can't fight that. Such a frost is to be reckoned with on an average of about once in five years. But on the other years we expect to make up. Don't you think we can get our prices for such berries as these? And will you tell me why brains, even amateur ones, can't solve such problems as we have to face? You lawyers tackle hard cases and win them, even while you're green—if you possess certain qualities to begin with. We may be conceited, but we have an idea we possess the qualities necessary to successful strawberry culture. As a game, it's certainly a mighty interesting one."

"The average farmer," Neil argued, "isn't a rich experimenter like you. He can't afford to put good gold into fertilizers and irrigating pumps. I should think these fellows all around you would hate you for having the advantage of them."

"On the contrary, as a matter of fact all but one or two are our very good friends, and much interested in our schemes. They've given us a lot of valuable advice—not on strawberry culture, because that's not in their line, but in other ways. They enjoy our mistakes hugely—that's only human—but they don't do it in an ill-natured way. Last spring when we sowed clover-seed for millet and didn't recognize it till the crop appeared, it was worth it to see them laugh at the joke, particularly as we didn't mind laughing with them. But I can tell you where we're scoring the biggest success after all, and the one that would pay if half our crops turned out failures. You haven't been out here for a year, at least. Take a look at Max, Alec, and Bob, when you get close to them, and tell me if they look like the same chaps you used to know in town."

"You don't, yourself," admitted Chase, somewhat grudgingly. He, himself, was decidedly slender of limb much to his regret. Also, in spite of incessant motoring, his face was not that of unexceptionable health. "You look as rugged as a rock. Never thought you were cut out for an athlete, either, when you were in college."

"I rather think that siege with my eyes was the best thing that ever happened to me—though it didn't seem much like it at the time. Look at that berry." He held out a fine specimen. "That goes in Class A—specials, all right."

"How many classes do you have?" Neil inquired, making way with the specimen from Class A in one huge mouthful, and finding it so juicy he was forced to make prompt use of his handkerchief.

"Two, but we're going to draw a strict line. The big ones are to be big to the bottom of the basket—and no false bottoms. A reputation is what we're after—then the prices will take care of themselves."

Neil strolled down the row. He had information enough. He wanted to inspect the strawberry-pickers, one at a time. It was not every day that one could meet distinguished young clergymen, accomplished pianists, and singers of unusual promise, between rows of strawberry vines.

The Chases had not been invited to be present at this special celebration of the first day of the strawberry picking, but they unhesitatingly accepted the invitation to stay to luncheon offered them as the hour for that meal drew near. When the party left the field for the house it was discovered that Joanna, assisted by Mrs. Burnside and Mrs. Ferry, had moved the luncheon-table from the dining-room to the big porch.

"Well, of all the romantic, impractical farmers!" ejaculated Neil Chase, as he beheld this arrangement at close range, the table set with old blue-and-white china, a great bowl of Sally's old-fashioned pink roses in the centre. "Don't you know that fried salt-pork and potatoes, in the kitchen, in your shirt-sleeves, is your only consistent meal, in the work season?"

"If you will insist on our living up to your notion of the real thing, we can set a special table for you in the kitchen. I've no doubt we can borrow some pork somewhere. You can take off your coat and eat your noon meal there, if you like, sustained by your sense of what is fitting," offered Alec. "As for me, I'm going in to wash up, put on my coat, and eat about twelve square inches of the strawberry-shortcake Joanna's building for this table. There won't be any of that served in the kitchen, I warn you, Mr. Chase."

"Thank you, I'm not pointing out my course of action, but criticizing yours," retorted Neil, surveying with favour a vine-wreathed platter of broiled chicken, and eyeing hungrily a large salad-bowl filled with a compound which he knew by experience to be one of Joanna's choicest. "I say, to be consistent—"

But he found himself delivering his views to Mrs. Burnside alone, for the rest had trooped in to make themselves presentable.

"You people certainly do manage to get a lot of fun out of your farming," observed Dorothy Chase, as she watched Sally splashing her round arms in a vain effort to remove the tan. "We live just as far out from town as you do, but nothing could be more different than our way of living from yours."

"Well, if we depended on tennis, golf, and bridge for our fun we'd be just like you. As we like hayfields, strawberry-patches, and pine groves better—with tobogganing in winter—we continue to be different."

"I should say golf and tennis were just as healthy exercise as haying and picking strawberries."

"No doubt they are—but the company isn't so select," declared Sally audaciously, towelling her wet face so briskly that it emerged looking more than ever like the roses to which Neil had that morning compared it.

"You impertinent girl! What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that Tom Westlake isn't to be spoken of in the same breath with Donald Ferry. Billy North is an idiot compared with Jarvis Burnside. There aren't two girls among all your society friends who can equal Janet and Constance, and—"

"And Sally Lane, as a hostess, is infinitely superior to Dorothy Chase!"

"Don't put words into my mouth." Sally came close and laid a warm pink palm on either of Dorothy's cheeks. "Sally Lane is such a bad hostess she says insulting things to her guests. Don't mind her. She's so excited and happy to-day over her strawberry acres she's not responsible for what she says. Come, let's hurry down."

"You people look more like a set of golfers at a summer hotel than you do like farmers," began Neil Chase, still harping on the theme which seemed to cause him so much unrest, as the party sat down.

Max opened his mouth for a retort. But, with one look at Donald Ferry, who sat across the table, he closed it again. He met an amused glance of comprehension. Then Ferry also opened his lips to speak. But before the words found breath Mr. Timothy Rudd rose to the occasion.

"Mr. Chase," said he, "since a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, let me suggest that you call us strawberry gardeners. Not that we object in the least to being called farmers, for we consider the title one of honour. But I am confident that you will then be able to reconcile our having luncheon on the front porch, our coming to the table with our coats and collars on, and our having strawberries to eat in spite of the fact that we raise them ourselves, with the indisputable truth that we make—or are attempting to make—our living off the soil. We profoundly respect the desire of a member of the legal profession for exactness, not only in the use of terms, but in the conformity of facts to those terms. I trust, however, that the compromise I suggest—"

But he got no further. A burst of appreciative laughter, in which Chase himself was forced to join, bore witness to the effectiveness with which the cynical critic had been politely answered. However it might be on after occasions, for to-day Chase became content to enjoy his broiled chicken and strawberry-shortcake without further comment on the inconsistency of their appearance upon the table at Strawberry Acres.

* * * * *

It was late in the afternoon. The Chases had reluctantly taken their departure, bearing with them gifts of strawberries and roses. In the strawberry-patch sunshine and silence reigned undisturbed, except by the light June breeze which rustled the leaves enough to show beneath them the fruit which by day-after-to-morrow would be ripe enough to pick. The first picking had been a small one, and had gone wholly to neighbours and friends and to consumption upon the home table. In two days more the gathering of the harvest would begin in earnest. It may not have been strictly business-like, this opening of the season by feasting and bestowal, but it had pleased the "Lady of the Garden" so to elect, and there had been no dissenting voice—not even that of her brother Max.

Everybody else, it may be presumed, had retired to rest and dress for the evening, which was always spent, when the weather was fair, upon the porch, when Sally, alone, slipped quietly out of the door at the back of the hall and betook herself over the grass, through the garden, to the path which led up the slope to the woods. The path wound past the orchard, past the strawberry field, and by the side of the pasture where Cowslip and Whiteface were already turning their faces toward the bars. Its appearance was an example of the fashion in which utility and sentiment were likely to find themselves mixed upon the farm called Strawberry Acres.

Along its borders ran a riot of vines, wild bushes, even of weeds, only such of the latter having been cut as were pests of the sort which scatter their seeds to the winds. Trim and workmanlike as was the clearing up of the ground just beyond the lane, on either side the lane itself was very nearly in a state of nature. It was, therefore, a picturesque roadway enough, and Sally walking along it bareheaded, clad still in the pink gingham of the morning, found it so to an unusual degree. Yet it must be admitted that it would have been an object ugly indeed which would have seemed devoid of all beauty to Sally Lane, on this, the sixteenth of June.

She kept on, straight up the winding lane, to the border of the woods. When she had reached the first trees, a fine group of oak and chestnut, lifting stately limbs, long uncut, far into the summer air, she turned and paused to look back. From this point she could see far, and the whole of her family's possessions lay before her, outspread in all the beauty of June at its bonniest. Impulsively she stretched out her arms.

"Sally Lane," she said softly to herself, with her eyes scanning it all, "if there's a happier girl than you in the world to-day, she must be entirely out of her senses with joy."

After a little she sat down, her back against a tree-trunk, her face toward the distant view.... Presently a big green oak leaf fluttered down past her eyes, and fell into her lap. "That's odd," she thought, and looked up. Nothing could be seen but the great limbs, rugged with years, of the oak beneath which she sat. She looked off again at the view. Another leaf came swirling down past her, lighting on the ground. "It's probably a squirrel," she explained to herself, concerning this phenomenon of falling leaves in June, and tried again to descry its source, without success. When, however, a shower of the green missiles came down together, she got to her feet, and walked around the tree.

"They had to come, thick as leaves in Vallombrosa," remarked a familiar voice from far above her, "before you would pay attention. I fired for at least ten minutes before you would so much as look up. Will you come up, or shall I come down?"

"I'd like to come up," Sally replied, smiling up into Jarvis's brown face, as she espied him, sitting astride a limb well up in the branching foliage. "But I don't think it's practical."

"Why be practical? Nobody is practical on Strawberry Acres, according to a certain brilliant but skeptical attorney from town. Your greatest aim has been to remain a girl as long as possible. Girls climb trees. Ergo—"

He began to descend. "Wait!" cried Sally, as he set foot on the lowest limb, a matter of ten feet above her head, and paused to look down at her. "Stay there, please—Do you really want me to come up?"

"Very much. It's entirely possible. Set your foot on that knob, reach up your arm, I'll let myself down far enough to get hold of your hand, and the next thing you know you'll be sitting beside me here."

"Then what will happen?"

"Then—we'll have a little talk I've been waiting for all day. I began to think I couldn't get it till evening fell, when the garden might help me out."

"I think the garden is a very nice place for conversation." Sally put both hands behind her back, looking up at him.

"Better than the limb of an oak tree? I admit it—for some sorts of conversation. Up here I should be forced to hold on with one arm. But there would be compensation in that, for with the other arm I should be forced to hold you on!"

His laughing eyes looked down at her. She shook her head. "If I came up the tree I should prove that I am still a girl. If I am still a girl—"

"Are you still a girl? Is that still your greatest desire?" He leaned forward, and the smile suddenly left his lips. His eyes searched hers.

The face she bravely lifted to him was a girl's for youthful beauty, but into it had come something very sweet and womanly, which at last gave him the leave he had waited so long for. "No—I think I've grown up." she said, quite clearly.

With an exclamation, the sinewy figure in the tree made short work of the ten feet to the ground, swinging itself off from the limb by both hands and dropping lightly down.

"I don't think I could have waited a day longer," said Jarvis Burnside. Then, with the sheltering trunk of the great oak shutting off all possible vision from the far distant house, he drew Sally Lane into his eager arms.

* * * * *

"Why so late?" Maxwell Lane looked up to ask, as his sister Sally came somewhat hurriedly in to dinner, when the rest of the household were half through.

"Please excuse my pink gingham," apologized Sally, as she dropped into her chair. She glanced from Mrs. Burnside in cool white to Josephine in crisp blue.

"Nothing could be more becoming," Josephine asserted, always ready to defend her friend.

"There's a strawberry stain on her right sleeve," Bob pointed out.

"Where's Jarve?" asked Alec.

"I saw him as I came in. He was on his way," replied Sally, lifting a glass of water to hide a pair of lips which wanted to laugh.

Jarvis appeared. He also was in the garb be had worn all day. The pair seemed oddly similar in the nonchalance they could not quite successfully carry through.

"Look here!" Alec scanned both faces. "You two have been up to something."

"I've been up a tree," Jarvis replied.

"Have you been up a tree too?" Alec questioned his sister.

"Not at all."

"Did you get him up one?"

Sally attempted to answer, but the merriment upon her lips would not be controlled. She gave way to it. Her eyes, in spite of themselves, met Jarvis's. He was laughing too. His face, red showing beneath the tan, was too radiant with his happiness for him to be able to help Sally with any further effort at concealment.

"Don't you think we may as well own up?" he questioned her.

"Own up!" cried Alec. "Do you people flatter yourselves there's anything for you to own up to, that we don't already know?"

"Good for you!" And Max rose up to shake Jarvis's hand.

"It's nothing new, but it's great!" roared Bob, and patted his sister's shoulder.

"My dear!" said Mrs. Burnside. She rose, and Sally ran to her. Josephine followed eagerly, pausing to embrace her brother on the way.

"I don't see," said Uncle Timothy, "but that I am the one to say the only fitting thing. Therefore I say it—from my heart." He seized Jarvis's hand. Sally turned from Josephine to put her arm about his neck.

"God bless you, my children," said Uncle Timothy.

THE END