"Pardon!" said the young gentleman. "The delight in your face, Julia, was irresistible."
"Delight!" she echoed. "Miss Lothrop, do you find something here in which you take pleasure?"
Lois looked round. "Yes," she said simply. "I find something everywhere to take pleasure in."
"At Shampuashuh, of course. That is my home."
"But I never take pleasure in anything at home. It is all such an old story. Every day is just like any other day, and I know beforehand exactly how everything will be; and one dress is like another, and one party is like another. I must go away from home to get any real pleasure."
"That's a nice look-out for you, George," Caruthers remarked.
"I shall know how to make home so agreeable that she will not want to wander any more," said the other.
"That is what the women do for the men, down our way," said Lois, smiling. She began to feel a little mischief stirring.
"What sort of pleasures do you find, or make, at home, Miss Lothrop?" Julia went on. "You are very quiet, are you not?"
"There is always one's work," said Lois lightly. She knew it would be in vain to tell her questioner the instances that came up in her memory; the first dish of ripe strawberries brought in to surprise her grandmother; the new potatoes uncommonly early; the fine yield of her raspberry bushes; the wonderful beauty of the early mornings in her garden; the rarer, sweeter beauty of the Bible reading and talk with old Mrs. Armadale; the triumphant afternoons on the shore, from which she and her sisters came back with great baskets of long clams; and countless other visions of home comfort and home peace, things accomplished and the fruit of them enjoyed. Miss Caruthers could not understand all this; so Lois answered simply,
"Work! I hate work," cried the other woman. "What do you call work?"
"Everything that is to be done," said Lois. "Everything, except what we do for mere pleasure. We keep no servant; my sisters and I do all that there is to do, in doors and out."
"_Out_--of--doors!" cried Miss Caruthers. "What do you mean? You cannot do the farming?"
"No," said Lois, smiling merrily; "no; not the farming. That is done by men. But the gardening I do."
"Very seriously. If you will come and see us, I will give you some new potatoes of my planting. I am rather proud of them. I was just thinking of them."