MARSDEN OPENED HIS MOUTH TO SPEAK.

Marsden ate wordlessly, looking at Nicholas from under his wild eyebrows. The boy went on with his work, which consisted now in bundling up the tumbled bed-clothing and throwing it over a line in the yard. Marsden finished his breakfast and finally spoke.

"You'll find some meal in that corner cupboard," he said. "We might have some porridge tomorrow morning." Nicholas nodded. "Now, stop all that woman's work and let's get on with that chest. I've promised it for next Wednesday, and even if that silly Enid Grondin is fool enough to get married, we must have our work out when it is promised."

But after that morning, Marsden was careful to shake out his bed-clothing after he arose, and to clean up the dishes after his breakfast. And the cottage gradually came to look more like a place where human beings could live.

One night, as Marsden sat in front of his fire, silently smoking his long pipe, he noticed that Nicholas was still bent over the work-bench.

"Here, lad," he said almost kindly, in his gruff voice, "I'm not such a hard master that I have you work night as well as day. What's that you're doing? Why don't you go to your bed, hey? "

Nicholas answered hastily. "It's just a piece of wood you threw away, master, and I thought I'd see if I could copy that fine chair you made for Mistress Grozik. This is a little one—a toy," he ended fearfully; for he well knew that the word "toy" would mean children to old Marsden, and for some strange reason just to mention a child in his presence sent him into a rage.

Tonight, however, he contented himself with merely a black look, and said, "Let me see it. Hmm—not bad, but you have that scroll on the back bigger on one side than the other. Here, give me that knife."

Nicholas hastened with the tool, and watched admiringly as the old wood-carver deftly corrected the mistake.

"There," Marsden said finally, holding his work away from him, "that's the way it should be done."

Then, instead of handing the little chair to Nicholas, who was waiting expectantly, he continued holding it in his hands, while a bitter and yet rather sad expression came into the fierce old eyes, and a smile,—Nicholas blinked and looked again,—yes, a real smile was tugging at the corners of that stern mouth which had been turned down for so many years.

"It's a long time since I made one of these wee things," he murmured half to himself. "Yet I made plenty, years and years ago, when they were little."