Mr. Paul Shaw stayed a week; it was a busy week for the parsonage folk and for some other people besides. Before it was over, the story-book uncle had come to know his nieces and Winton fairly thoroughly; while they, on their side, had grown very well acquainted with the tall, rather silent man, who had a fashion of suggesting the most delightful things to do in the most matter-of-fact manner.
There were one or two trips decidedly outside that ten-mile limit, including an all day sail up the lake, stopping for the night at a hotel on the New York shore and returning by the next day's boat. There was a visit to Vergennes, which took in a round of the shops, a concert, and another night away from home.
"Was there ever such a week!" Hilary sighed blissfully one morning, as she and her uncle waited on the porch for Bedelia and the trap. Hilary was to drive him over to The Maples for dinner.
"Or such a summer altogether," Pauline added, from just inside the study window.
"Then Winton has possibilities?" Mr. Shaw asked.
"I should think it has; we ought to be eternally grateful to you for making us find them out," Pauline declared.
Mr. Shaw smiled, more as if to himself. "I daresay they're not all exhausted yet."
"Perhaps," Hilary said slowly, "some places are like some people, the longer and better you know them, the more you keep finding out in them to like."
"Father says," Pauline suggested, "that one finds, as a rule, what one is looking for."
"Here we are," her uncle exclaimed, as Patience appeared, driving Bedelia. "Do you know," he said, as he and Hilary turned out into the wide village street, "I haven't seen the schoolhouse yet?"