The Press., 1918-12-26

Miss Ferris did not take the trouble to remind Mrs. Van Deusen that as SIr. Rogers was staid and studlors and forty and the girls were for the most part uneducated young Polack girls on their vacations from factories it was not likely that he would find much to interest him in their presence. 1n- stead she looked very grave and as- sured Mrs. Van Deusen that she would keep a motherly eye on everything. And Mrs. Van Deusen made it quite clear to Mir. Rogers himself that he was not even to cross the threshold of his own house; hence arose within Mir. Rogers breast an unsuitable de sire to do just that thing. The fact was, from glimpses he had secured from outside, marvellous transfor- nation had been wrought in the in- terior of that house. The swiss cur tains in the windows swaying back and forth in the breeze, the glimpses or bouquets of flowers on the tables, the afriness and spaciousneSS of the house as entrusted with the stuffiness and formality of it as 1t had been handed down to him by his old aunt and uncle five years before fairly staggered him. ApparentIy 1t had become the house he vaguely dreamed that 1t might be- come, yet Miss Ferris had brought only a few hampers of "fixlngs" and had made no definite change that he knew about save to move some or the furniture into the attic ''tO make more room" She had asked his permission to do that.
 No doubt Mir. Rogers was sorely tempted; at any rate, he fell and, for getting his promise to Mrs. Van Deu- sen, sneaked into that transformed house of his, one day when Miss Fer ris was in the orchard with the girls, and looked around. What had been done he could not say, but that the house had been transformed into home, he knew, and it was only by Cint of firm reSolve-and fear of being caught by Miss Ferris, or worse still, by Mrs. Van Deusen-that he tore himself from the charming rooms.
 The experience left an impress that seemed really out of proportion to the importance of it. It seemed to William Rogers as If seeing that modified in- terlor left him transformed as if he had gone through a great experience, It left him more with a desire to seek out the woman who had wrought the change than with a desire to revisit 1t again as 1t would be after the eight girls had returned from their days work. So 1t was that message was carried by the solitary hired man through the cook to Miss Ferris that Mir. Rogers had important business to discuss in the orchard after the girls had retired.
 In a week more the girls had gone and the peaches had all been sold, and thereby contributed to the national food supply, and Mrs. Van Deusen was telling guests at dinner parties in her spacious house how successful had been her work.
 "And you didn't know was match maker, did yOu?" she would say. There was 8 lonely old bachelor far mer and just made up my mind to find a wife for him. So I worked my little plan tO get her in there to trans. form his house and show him how much be needed a wife. and l threw them together as much as l decently could and-well, I have actually made the match. They were married yes- terday and they have settled down there in the old house with the pro- ceeds or the peach crop that got for him."