"Never."

"Well, try it. It will make you warmer than the fire would. Afterward we will play 'Paddy cake, Paddy cake,' and 'Bean Porridge hot.'"

"Do men in danger always carry on the way you do?" asked Phyllis.

"Always," he answered.

"I can understand trying to be funny during a cavalry charge, or while falling off a cliff," said Phyllis, "but not while slowly and miserably congealing."

"You are not a Bostonian," said Herring. "Half the inhabitants of that municipality freeze to death and the others burn."

"I've stayed in Boston," said Phyllis, "and the only difference that I could see between it and other places was that the people were more agreeable and things were done in better taste. And what gardens!"

"Ever seen the Arboretum?"

"Have I?"

"In lilac time?"

"Mm!"

She was on her favorite topic. She forgot that she was cold, wet, miserable, and a frightful anxiety to her family.

"But why be an innkeeper?" asked Herring. "Why not set up as a landscape-gardener?"

"I don't know enough. But I've often thought—"

"I've got five hundred acres outside of Boston that I'd like to turn you loose on."

"You speak as if I were a goat."

"The first thing to do is to drain the swamps. Now, I'll make you a proposition. I can't put it in writing, because it's too dark to see and I have no writing materials, but there is nothing fishy about us Herrings. You to landscape my place for me, cause a suitable house to be built, and so forth; I to pay you a thousand dollars a month, and a five per cent commission on the total expenditure."

"And what might that amount to?"

"What you please," said Herring politely.

"Who says Bostonians are cold?" exclaimed Phyllis. And there began to float through her head lovely visions of landscapes of her own making.

"You're still joking, aren't you?" she said after a while.

"I don't know landscapes well enough to joke about them," he said.

"But I can't design a house!"

"Oh, you will have architects to do that part. You just pick the general type."

"What kind of a house do you want?"

"It depends on what kind of a house you want."

"Oh, dear," she exclaimed, "what fun it would be!"

"Will you do it?"

She was tempted beyond her strength.

"Yes," she said, and began to talk with irresponsible delight and enthusiasm.

"Ah," thought Herring to himself, "find out what really interests a girl and she'll forget all her troubles."

It began suddenly to grow light.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Phyllis. "The woods must be on fire! Oh, the poor trees!"

"It isn't fire," said Herring, "it's the moon—'Queen and huntress, chaste and fair—goddess excellently bright'—was ever such luck! I hoped we were going to stand here cosily all night talking about marigolds and cowslips and wallpapers, and now it's our duty to move on. Come, Goody Two Shoes, Policeman Moon has told us to move on. I shall never forget this spot. And I shan't ever be able to find it again."