"I got the new hedges all set out today," Grace went on, as she patted her husband's rather grimy hand. "They will be charming, against the gray stone of the wall. But we must have new gate posts. The old ones are likely to tumble into the road at any moment."
"I'll have Martin come out tomorrow and look them over. There's plenty of stone—down in the lower pasture. Why not carry the wall right along the whole front of the property? It ought not to cost a great deal."
"We will. And I'm going to have a new spring house built, too. The old one is falling to pieces." She looked up at her husband as he deposited the rake in the tool room and they started up the shaded walk toward the house. "Aren't you glad, Dick, that we're alive?"
He pressed her arm. "Well—I should say so, little girl! Why do you ask me that?"
"Oh—you know what your friends all said—that a man might as well be dead, as buried out here in the country. I think they are the ones who are not alive—cooped up in the city. Don't you?"
Richard nodded. He was thinking for the moment of his former active life—when some battle of wits with a noted crook had kept him sleepless for nights. "It's—rather different," he laughed. "Isn't it?"
"Yes—and much better. Don't you think so, dear? You wouldn't want to go back to it—would you?"
"Not for anything in the world," he assured her, as he swept the newly seeded lawns with a contented glance. "I liked the other life, of course—the excitement, the danger of it; but this is better—much better. Here, Don!" he called to a graceful collie which was barking vociferously at some distant vehicle in the road. "Come here and be quiet." He turned with Grace to the great vine-covered side porch and sank contentedly into a rocking chair. "Well, little girl—it's been a busy day, and I'm tired. We got the early rye all cut on the lower field today. Guess we'll put in late potatoes, after it's plowed. Here, Don—come back here! What's the matter with you?" He rose and whistled to the dog, which was bounding across the lawn in the direction of the road. "Come back, I say!"
"It's someone coming in," said Grace, uneasily. "In a machine. I wonder who it can be?"
"Possibly Hudson, the veterinary. He was coming today, to look at that heifer."