"I thought you didn't like it," I said, my eyes turning from her brisk, clever hands, to her absorbed face. A wave passed over it as I looked—that baffled expression I had noticed before.

"Did I say so!" Her hammer was poised in mid air.

"Why, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose so. It doesn't matter. Nicknames seldom stick, anyway." She placed a nail in the hole.

"Oh, I don't object to 'Chet' at all."

"'Chet' goes, then." She drove in her nail with a frown.

Before I had thought of my promise, I said: "It's funny you don't remember it!"

Bang, bang-bang! Another nail went in, driven viciously.

I fully expected that she would speak of "the island" again, but she didn't. Instead, she dropped her tools, and said:

"I'm building a house, too!"