"Do you know," he said earnestly, "it's been a great thing to me to watch you make a real home out of this bare barn? It's wonderful! It's like a miracle. I wouldn't have believed it could be done. And you have done it so wonderfully! I can just see what kind of a delightful home it is going to be."
There was something in his tone that made Shirley forget he was rich and a stranger and her landlord. She lifted her face to the stars, and spoke her thoughts.
"You can't possibly know how much like heaven it is going to be to us after coming from that other awful little house," she said; "and you are the one who has made it possible. If it hadn't been for you I know I never could have done it."
"Oh, nonsense, Miss Hollister! You mustn't think of it, I haven't done anything at all, just the simplest things that were absolutely necessary."
"Oh, I understand," said Shirley; "and I can't ever repay you, but I think God will. That is the kind of thing the kingdom of heaven is made of."
"Oh, really, now," said Graham, deeply embarrassed; he was not much accustomed to being connected with the kingdom of heaven in any way. "Oh, really, you--you over-estimate it. And as for pay, I don't ask any better than the fun my sister and I have had helping you get settled. It has been a great play for us. We never really moved, you see. We've always gone off and had some one do it for us. I've learned a lot since I've known you."
That night as she prepared to lie down on the mattress and blanket that had been left behind for herself and Carol to camp out on, Shirley remembered her first worries about Mr. Graham, and wondered whether it could be possible that he thought she had been forward in any way, and what her mother would think when she heard the whole story of the new landlord; for up to this time the secret had been beautifully kept from mother, all the children joining to clap their hands over wayward mouths that started to utter tell-tale sentences, and the mystery grew, and became almost like Christmas-time for little Doris and her mother. It must, however, be stated that Mrs. Hollister, that last night, as she lay wakeful on her bed in the little bare room in the tiny house, had many misgivings, and wondered whether perchance she would not be sighing to be back even here twenty-four hours later. She was holding her peace wonderfully, because there really was nothing she could do about it even if she was going out of the frying-pan into the fire; but the tumult and worry in her heart had been by no means bliss. So the midnight drew on, and the weary family slept for the last night in the cramped old house where they had lived since trouble and poverty had come upon them.