The girl shot a look around Mrs. Bert’s sitting-room, where a small stuffed owl stood on the mantel under a glass case and a transparent pink muslin sack filled with burst milkweed pods was draped over a crayon portrait of Bert as a young man. I followed her glance and then our eyes met.
“Just the same, they are dear, good souls,” she smiled.
“Of course,” I answered. “But to sit here on a cold, rainy day! You may read by the fire while I work. Only please come!”
“May I read ’The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century,’ Doctor Upton?” she said.
“You may read the dictionary, if you wish,” I replied.
She went to get her raincoat. It was cold out of doors, and the rain drove in our faces as we splashed down the road. The painters had made a fire in the kitchen range, and as we stepped in the warmth greeted us in a curious, friendly way. I brought several logs of dead apple wood into the big room, made a second trip for kindlings, brought my one pair of andirons from the shed and improvised a pair with bricks for the other fireplace, and soon had the twin hearths cheerful with dancing flames. Then I went back to the shed, and brought the two cushions which had been on my window-seats at college, to place them on the settle. But as I came into the room, instead of finding the girl waiting to sit by the fire, I saw her with sleeves rolled up washing the west window. Her body was outlined against the light, her hair making an aura about her head. As she turned a little, I caught the saucy grace of her profile. She was so intent upon her task that she had not heard me enter, and I paused a full moment watching her. Then I dropped the cushions and cried, “Come, here’s your seat! That is no task for a Ph. D.”
“I don’t want a seat,” she laughed. “I’m having a grand time, and don’t care to have my erudition thrown in my face. I love to wash windows.”
“But ’The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century?’” said I.
“The whole nineteenth century is on these windows,” she replied. “I’ve got to scrub here to get at its foundations.”
“But you’ll get tired again,” I laughed, though with real solicitude. “I didn’t want you to come to work–only to be company.”