I myself, old and wrinkled as I am, have never forgotten how I rapped at the wrong door one morning--the kitchen door--and found her in that same costume, with her arms bare to the elbows and covered with flour, where she had been making a "sally lunn" for daddy.

Nor can I forget her ringing laugh as she saw the look of astonishment on my face, or my delight when she ordered me inside and made me open the oven door so that she could slide in the finished product without burning her fingers.
The packing up of their own household impedimenta complete, there came a few days of leisure--the first breathing spell that either MacFarlane or Jack, or Ruth, too, for that matter, had had for weeks.

MacFarlane, in view of the coming winter--a long and arduous one, took advantage of the interim and went south, to his club, for a few days' shooting--a rare luxury for him of late years.

Jack made up his mind to devote every one of his spare hours to getting better acquainted with Ruth, and that young woman, not wishing to be considered either neglectful or selfish, determined to sacrifice every hour of the day and as much of the night as was proper and possible to getting better acquainted with Jack; and the two had a royal time in the doing.
Jack, too, had another feeling about it all.

It seemed to him that he had a debt of gratitude--the rasping word had long since lost its edge--to discharge; and that he owed her every leisure hour he could steal from his work.