“Well, I’m willing,” I answered.
“I guess you be,” said she.
At supper she returned to the theme, which appeared to amuse her endlessly. “Miss Goodwin,” she said, “I want ter warn you thet Mr. Upton’s terrible afraid somebody’s goin’ ter advise him how ter build his garden. He’s a regular man.”
I replied quickly: “Your warning is too late,” said I; “Miss Goodwin has already begun by naming my place.”
“You can change the name, you know,” the girl smiled.
“How can I?” I answered, with great sternness. “It’s the right one.”
Whereupon I went up to my work, and listened to the sounds of soft singing in the room across the hall.
Chapter VII
THE GHOST OF ROME IN ROSES
“Stella Goodwin.” “It’s rather a pretty name,” I thought, as I read it on the flyleaf of a volume she had left in Mrs. Bert’s sitting-room. The volume itself amused me–Chamberlain’s “Foundations of the Nineteenth Century.” Fancy coming to the country for a rest, and reading Chamberlain, most restless because most provocative of books! I was waiting for breakfast, impatiently, having been at work on my manuscripts since five. Mrs. Bert was in the kitchen; Bert was at the barn. The hour was seven-thirty. I was idly turning the leaves of Chamberlain when there was a rustle on the stairs, and Miss Stella Goodwin entered with a cheerful “Good morning.”