"But won't that be a rest for you?"
"Scarcely; for Eliza has taken such a laboring oar that I live in the lap of luxury, so far as work is concerned."
Eliza came in, in time to hear this statement. "Don't you believe it, Mr. Philip. She's the busy bee of the house; but we've both had just enough to do."
"Eliza!" exclaimed Phil, approaching and taking both her hard hands. "Why, I didn't half see you in that shade hat! You look like a new being."
Eliza laughed and colored under the scrutiny. Her added pounds had distributed themselves comfortably and becomingly. She did, indeed, bear little resemblance to the haggard creature of the autumn.
"Why, let me look at you!" went on the artist gladly. "You've robbed me of a whole lot of good material. If you posed for me now, it would amount to nothing more than the portrait of a lady."
Mrs. Wright laughed, well pleased, and amused, too, at the embarrassed manner in which Eliza pulled away her hands.
"But you stay on here, I suppose, just the same," said Phil, turning back to his hostess.
"Oh, yes. I've taken a room for Violet, my niece, and Miss Foster has made a business arrangement with Eliza to be her helper, so the only great difference will be the arrival of new people."
Considerations immediately ran through Phil's head of this home as a possibility for his prolonged stay. Second thought, however, pictured the going and coming of summer boarders and the impossibility of privacy. Besides, he could not afford it.