“Aren't they beautiful!” she cried. “A perfect carpet of dazzling green and purple!”
“Come right in,” the Doctor urged from the steps. “My neighbor's a patient of mine. He hasn't moved in yet but he told me always to make myself at home.”
Mary lifted the boy from his wagon, tied the goat and led the child into the house. The Doctor showed her through without comment. None was needed. The woman's keen eye saw at a glance the perfection of care with which the master builder had wrought the slightest detail of every room. The floors were immaculate native hard-wood—its grain brought out through shining mirrors of clean varnish. There was not one shoddy piece of work from the kitchen sink to the big open fireplace in the spacious hall and living-room.
“It's exquisite!” she exclaimed at last. “It seems all hand-made—doesn't it?”
“It is, too. The owner literally built it with his own hands—a work of love.”
“For himself?” Mary asked with a smile.
“For the woman he loves, of course! My neighbor's a sort of crank and insisted on expressing himself in this way. Come, I want you to see two rooms upstairs.”
He led her into the room Jim had built for his wife.
“Observe this furniture, if you please.”
“Don't tell me that he built that too?” she laughed.