So Marian followed her own path beside the creek until she neared
its head, which was a big, gushing icy spring at the foot of the
mountain keeping watch over the small plateau that in her heart
she had thought of as hers for years. As she neared the location
strange sounds began to reach her, voices of men, clanging of
hammers, the rip of saws. A look of deep consternation
overspread her face. She listened an instant and then began to
run. When she broke through the rank foliage flourishing from
the waters of the spring and looked out on the plateau what she
saw was Peter Morrison's house in the process of being floored
and shingled. For a minute Marian was physically ill. Her heart
hurt until her hand crept to her side in an effort to soothe it.
Before she asked the question of a man coming to the spring with
a pail in his hand, she knew the answer. It was Peter Morrison's
house. Marian sprang across the brook, climbed to the temporary
roadway, and walked down in front of the building. She stood
looking at it intently. It was in a rough stage, but much
disguise is needed to prevent a mother from knowing her own
child. Marian's dark eyes began to widen and to blaze. She
walked up to the front of the house and found that rough flooring
had been laid so that she could go over the first floor. When
she had done this she left the back door a deeply indignant
woman.
"There is some connection," she told herself tersely, "between my
lost sketch and this house, which is merely a left-to-right
rehearsal of my plans; and it's the same plan with which Henry
Anderson won the Nicholson and Snow prize money and the still
more valuable honor of being the prize winner.
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