I thought I could move into my house on the first of June — but I didn't. A rainy day followed the holiday, and in the rain we first set out the roses, which had arrived by freight and which Bert brought over from the village on an early trip, and then tackled the rest of the interior of the house. I wouldn't let Miss Goodwin wash any windows, as that appeared to me to be Mrs. Pillig's job, but we hung my few remaining pictures in the dining-room and hall, set up my old mahogany drop-leaf table for a dining-table — it was large enough for four people, on a pinch — and placed the only two straight-backed chairs I possessed on either side of it.

"Dear, dear!" said I. "I was going to have Mr. and Mrs. Bert and you as my guests at my first meal, but it looks as if you'd have to come alone."

"You could bring in a chair and the piano bench from the south room," she smiled. "A more important item seems to be dishes."

"Heavens!" I cried, "I never thought of that! But I've got silver, anyway. I've kept all my mother's silver. It's in a tin box in the bottom drawer of my desk."

"Well, that's something," she admitted. "Have you got tablecloths and napkins and kitchen utensils — to cook with, you know? And have you got some bedding for Mrs. Pillig and son Peter?"

I ruefully shook my head. "I've got a sleeping-bag, though, which Peter could put on the floor. What am I going to do?"

"I think you're going to make a trip to-morrow to the nearest large town, and stock up," she smiled.

"Am I going alone?"

She laughed at me. "No, you helpless child, mamma will go with you."

So the next morning we set off early, provided with a list of necessary articles compiled with Mrs. Bert's assistance. We tramped over to Bentford and took the train there for a city some seventeen miles away, which we reached about half-past eight. It was a clean, neat little city, with fine old trees on the residence streets, and prosperous, well-stocked shops. The girl was dressed jauntily in blue, and I wore my last year's best suit and a hat and collar. I sniffed the city smell, and declared, "Rather nice, just for a contrast. I've got an all-dressed-up-in-my-best feeling. Have you?"

"It is a lark," she smiled. "I never saw a city from the country point of view before. It seems queer to me — as if I didn't belong in it."

"You don't," said I; "you belong in the country."

She said nothing, but led me into a shop. It was a household-goods shop, and here we looked at dishes first. The woman who waited on us assumed a motherly air. It began to dawn upon me that she thought we were stocking our little prospective home. I shot a covert glance at the girl. Her eyes were twinkling, her colour high. I said nothing, but pointed to the dinner set I desired.

She laughed. "That's Royal Worcester," she said.

"What of it? I like it."

"Well, then, look at it all you can now," she answered, "for you can't have it."

The clerk laughed. "You see what you're in for, young man," she said, with the familiarity which rather too often characterizes clerks in our semi-rural regions.

I fear I coloured more than Miss Goodwin, which didn't help matters any.

"Please show us something at a reasonable cost," the girl said, with a curious, dignified severity, which was effective.

"That will do, won't it, Mr. Upton?" she presently asked, with pointed emphasis on the formal address, as a pretty set of dishes with a simple pattern on the edge was displayed for $25.

"Admirably," said I. "But I wanted the crimson and gold ones."

"Now for the kitchen things," said she, with her old smile again.

Here we made use of Mrs. Bert's list, and left our order to be filled. As we stepped out on the street, we looked at each other, and laughed.

"It's preposterous, but I suppose the evidence is against us," she twinkled.

"The evidence is against us, at any rate," I answered.

She looked away quickly, and said, "Where is the furniture store?"

We found it, and here we looked at iron beds for Mrs. Pillig and son Peter, and for one of the spare rooms so that I might have a guest up after college closed. She let me have the bed I wanted for the spare room, but the other two had to be plainer — or rather less plain, for the cheaper furniture is, the more jimcracky it appears to be. I asked the clerk why simplicity is always expensive, but he threw no light on the point. Next we bought a few cheap bedroom chairs, and a cheap bureau for Mrs. Pillig, and a better bureau for the spare room. I bought no other furniture, preferring to wait till I could get to New York or Boston, or better yet pick up old mahogany at country auctions, which I then believed in my ignorance was possible. Then we invaded the dry-goods shop, where again I stood helplessly by while the girl bought bedding and tablecloths and napkins and dishcloths and towels.

"I know you haven't any decent towels," she said, "because you've been a bachelor so long, and sent 'em to laundries. I send mine to laundries, too. That's how I know."

I stood by helplessly, but not without emotion. Many emotions are possible to a man while watching a woman shop, the most common, perhaps, being impatience. Your average woman shopping is the epitome of irresolution, or so it seems to the man. She always explains the huge pile of goods, which she compels the poor clerk to heap on the counter, by an alleged desire to get the most for her money — though she almost invariably comes back to the first thing exhibited and buys that in the end. A mere man buys the first thing he likes then and there. But my companion was not the usual woman shopper. She wanted towels of a certain grade, for instance, inspected them, and if they were up to her standard bought them without further to-do. At my enthusiastic comments she smiled. "That's because it is your money I'm spending. I don't have to count the pennies!"

No, my emotion was not one of impatience. Indeed, I should have liked to prolong the process. It was one which only a man with his bachelor days fresh in mind can understand. It was the subtle thrill of being led helpless by a woman who is intent on providing him creature comforts which he could not arrange for himself, of seeing her purchase for him the most intimate of domestic necessities, and inevitably filling his mind with thoughts of her in his establishment. If I were a woman and wanted to win a man, I should make him take me shopping when he needed new towels!

We finished in the dry-goods store at last, and I said, "I am sorry."

"Why?" asked the girl.

"Because," I answered, "with every purchase you make for me, you lay a new brick in the structure of our friendship — or a new towel!"

She turned her face quickly away, and made no reply.

Our next quest was for a sundial plate, but it was a vain search, for not a store in town carried such an article. As we came out of the last shop, she sighed. "Well, I can't spend any more of your money!" she said. "But I've really saved it for you. Goodness knows how much you'd have spent by yourself. Why, you wanted the most expensive kind of everything!"

"Of course," said I; "nothing is too good for Twin Fires."

"Well, it's lucky I was along, then."

"Lucky isn't just the word," said I. "I feel already as if Twin Fires was as much yours as mine."

Again she made no reply, except to ask when the train went back. But the train had long since gone back. It was nearly two o'clock, and we realized that we were hungry. So we gayly hunted out the hotel, and here I took command. "I'm going to order this lunch," I declared, "and the expense go hang. We'll have a regular spree, cocktails and all."

The hotel was really a good one, and the presence of several motor parties gave the cafe almost a metropolitan appearance. The change from Mrs. Bert's simple service to this was abrupt, and we were in the highest spirits. The cocktails came, and we clinked glasses.

"To Twin Fires!" said the girl.

"To the fairy godmother of Twin Fires!" said I.

Our eyes met as our glasses touched, and something electric passed between us. Then we drank.

"That is my first cocktail," she laughed, as she set her glass down.

"Heavens!" I exclaimed, "and we in a public place!"

It was my first since I came to Bentford, and we both enjoyed the luxury of dissipation, and laughed brazenly at our enjoyment. Then the lunch came, and we enjoyed that, and then we caught a train, and half an hour later were walking toward the farm. We passed the golf links on the way, at the end of the beautiful, elm-hung main street of Bentford, and saw players striding over the green turf along the winding river.

"Quick, drag me past!" I cried. "Oh, Lord, lead us not into temptation!"

"Haven't you joined yet?" she asked.

"No, I don't dare. I shan't join till the farm is in running order. The game is like Brand's conscience, it demands all or nothing."

"You men are dreadful babies about your sports," she said.

"Yes'm," I replied, "quite so. We haven't the firm-mindedness of your sex, about bridge, for instance."

"I never played a game of bridge in my life," said she indignantly.

"I wasn't thinking of you, but your sex," I answered.

"You find a difference?"

"Decidedly."

"That is just what Sentimental Tommy told every woman he met."

"Except Grizel — of whom it was true." I looked at her keenly, and she cast down her eyes.

"A farmer shouldn't talk in literary allusions," she said softly.

"Well," I laughed, "they've got me past the golf links!"

We reached Twin Fires, and walked out to see if the roses were all alive, though they hadn't had time to die. Then I went into the house to work, and she gathered a few sprays of lilac, and while I was settling down at my desk she arranged them in water and stood them on the mantels, humming to herself. Then she turned to go.

"Don't go," I cried.

She looked at me with a little smile, as if of query.

"It's been such a nice day," I added, "and it's so pleasant to feel you here in the house. Please strum something while I work."

"For ten minutes," she replied, sitting down at the piano. "Then I must work, too — horrid letters."

She rose presently, while I was scarce aware of it, and slipped out. I worked on, in silence save for the talk of the painters putting aside their brushes after the day's work. But I could smell the lilacs she had left, and the scent of them seemed like the wraith of her presence in the sunny room.