McLean lifted his hat.  “Thank you,” he said simply, and parted the bushes for her to enter Freckles’ room.

It was her first visit.  Before she left she sent for her cameras and made studies of each side of it and of the cathedral.  She was entranced with the delicate beauty of the place, while her eyes kept following Freckles as if she could not believe that it could be his conception and work.

That was a happy day.  The Bird Woman had brought a lunch, and they spread it, with Freckles’ dinner, on the study floor and sat, resting and enjoying themselves.  But the Angel put her banjo into its case, silently gathered her music, and no one mentioned the concert.

The Bird Woman left McLean and the Angel to clear away the lunch, and with Freckles examined the walls of his room and told him all she knew about his shrubs and flowers.  She analyzed a cardinal-flower and showed him what he had wanted to know all summer—­why the bees buzzed ineffectually around it while the humming-birds found in it an ever-ready feast.  Some of his specimens were so rare that she was unfamiliar with them, and with the flower book between them they knelt, studying the different varieties.  She wandered the length of the cathedral aisle with him, and it was at her suggestion that he lighted his altar with a row of flaming foxfire.

As Freckles came to the cabin from his long day at the swamp he saw Mrs. Chicken sweeping to the south and wondered where she was going.  He stepped into the bright, cosy little kitchen, and as he reached down the wash-basin he asked Mrs. Duncan a question.

“Mother Duncan, do kisses wash off?”

So warm a wave swept her heart that a half-flush mantled her face.  She straightened her shoulders and glanced at her hands tenderly.

“Lord, na!  Freckles,” she cried.  “At least, the anes ye get from people ye love dinna.  They dinna stay on the outside.  They strike in until they find the center of your heart and make their stopping-place there, and naething can take them from ye—­I doubt if even death——­Na, lad, ye can be reet sure kisses dinna wash off!”

Freckles set the basin down and muttered as he plunged his hot, tired face into the water, “I needn’t be afraid to be washing, then, for that one struck in.”

CHAPTER XI

Wherein the Butterflies Go on a Spree and Freckles Informs the Bird Woman

“I wish,” said Freckles at breakfast one morning, “that I had some way to be sending a message to the Bird Woman.  I’ve something at the swamp that I’m believing never happened before, and surely she’ll be wanting it.”

“What now, Freckles?” asked Mrs. Duncan.