THE young carpenter approached Bodet cautiously with his solution of the roof-line. They had talked it over a dozen times and Bodet had become restlessly impatient.... Ordway might be right, after all.... He looked at different forms of lattice-work and stone foundations and swore softly at a terrace—Ordway’s idea—with morning glories alongside.... Uncle William, any day, at any time of day, was in favor of a new plan altogether. He stood ready to furnish details—like his own house, mebbe, only bigger.... After this suggestion, every time it came up, he went out and sat on the rocks a long while and looked at the water. Andy coming by hailed him. “What you doing?” he called.

“Just a-settin’ here a little,” replied Uncle William.

“Ain’t Benjy to home?” demanded Andy.

“Yes, he’s to home,” admitted William.

Andy looked toward the house.

“I wouldn’t go in, if I was you,” said William, “He’s kind o’ tending to things—in his mind.”

But if Bodet fretted at delays and slow decisions and failure of material to arrive, he caught the spirit of the place, after a little, and settled down to it and held up work—a week at a time—while he changed details or pottered over new ones. Uncle William—in his element—went back and forth between the old chimney-place and his house, carrying ideas and bricks with impartial hand. George Manning, with one eye on his plans and the other on his men, pushed the work or held it back, as the wind blew. When the men grumbled over a foundation wall torn out and put in again, with a hair’s breadth of difference, he looked at them with slow, sympathetic eye and admitted that it wasn’t so very much different, maybe—just enough to look different, somehow.

It was when he had studied on the roofline a week or more, that he came in one morning—a look of cautious elation in his face.

Bodet sat before the fire reading day-before-yesterday’s paper. Uncle William was pottering about, finishing the last of the dishes, and Celia was down at, Andy’s helping Harriet who was ill.

Bodet looked up as the young man came in, and laid down his paper. “How is it coming on?” he said. The tone was mild. He had had a good night’s rest, and he had come somehow to share Uncle William’s belief that Manning would find a way out—“only give him time enough and suthin’ to figger on.”

The young man seated himself on the red lounge, his hat between his knees. “I don’t suppose you ’d like going up and down stairs?” he said.

Bodet looked at him a little quizzically and swung his glasses to his nose. “That depends,” he replied.

“It won’t be stairs exactly,” said Manning, “just steps, maybe. You drop the floor of the south room to get your level and then put some steps here—” He came over with the paper.

Bodet took it in cautious fingers.

Manning bent over him. “There’s the living-room and the fire-place,” He indicated the rough lines, “—just where you want them—You kind of look down into the room, you see, when the door’s open—instead of all on a level—?”

“I see.” Bodet studied it with lifting face.

Uncle William came over and stood by them, his dish towel on his arm and his glasses alert—“The house sort o’ climbs down the rocks, don’t it?” he suggested. “I’ve seen them that way—foreign parts—a lot.” The glow in his face swept the room. “I do’ ’no’ how we didn’t come to think of it, fust thing—easy as settin’.”

“Just about,” said Bodet. “How did you get it?” He looked at the young man. “You never saw a room like that, did you?”

“No, I never saw one,” he replied slowly—“but something ’d got to give way somewheres. You wouldn’t let the roof-line be touched, nor the ground, and there wasn’t anything left to give way—but the floor. I guess it kind of dropped down by itself—while I was figuring on it.” He looked at it fondly.

“It improves the thing fifty per cent,” said Bodet. He held off the paper, scanning it with happy vision, “We ’ll have a little railing here, with carving on it, and something leading up to it—It’s the feature of the place.” He handed it back. “Go ahead with it. There isn’t anything else to decide, is there?”

“No. Things are coming on.” He took the paper, tucking it in his pocket. “The ’Happy Thought’ got in last night with her lumber and the new masons came this morning. I was kind of bothered about their not getting here, and the Widow Deman’s well going dryer and dryer all the while, and no brickwork getting done. I’ll go set ’em to work.” He nodded and was gone.

Uncle William looked after him with smiling face. “He’s a nice boy,” he said, “You just can’t find a thing George can’t figger out.”

“He’s a genius,” said Bodet thoughtfully, “He ought to be somewhere besides on this island—somewhere he ’d have a chance.”

“Chance for what?” asked Uncle William, with simple interest.

“A chance to rise,” said Bodet with emphasis. “It’s all right for you and me, William—old men—with our work done—”

“Mine ain’t quite done,” said William, “—your bed and two-three things,&r............