upted
her husband)--"seems to think the matter perfectly settled."

"You see, Mrs. March," added the Colonel, "he's able to bully us in this
way because he has the architecture on his side. There isn't another room
in the house."

"Let me think a moment," said Isabel not thinking an instant. She had
taken a fancy to at least two of these people from the first, and in the
last hour they had all become very well acquainted now she said, "I'll
tell you: there are two beds in our room also; we ladies will take one
room, and you gentlemen the other!"

"Mrs. March, I bow to the superiority of the Boston mind," said the
Colonel, while his females civilly protested and consented; "and I might
almost hail you as our preserver. If ever you come to Milwaukee,--which
is the centre of the world, as Boston is,--we--I--shall be happy to have
you call at my place of business.--I didn't commit myself, did I,
Fanny?--I am sometimes hospitable to excess, Mrs. March," he said, to
explain his aside. "And now, let us reconnoitre. Lead on, madam, and the
gratitude of the houseless stranger will follow you."

The whole party explored both rooms, and the ladies decided to keep
Isabel's. The Colonel was dispatched to see that the wraps and traps of
his party were sent to this number, and Basil went with him. The things
came long before the gentlemen returned, but the ladies happily employed
the interval in talking over the excitements of the day, and in saying
from time to time, "So very kind of you, Mrs. March," and "I don't know
what we should have done," and "Don't speak of it, please," and "I'm sure
it 's a great pleasure to me."

In the room adjoining theirs, where the invalid actor lay, and where
lately there had been minstrelsy and apparently dancing for his solace,
there was now comparative silence. Two women's voices talked together,
and now and then a guitar was touched by a wandering hand. Isabel had
just put up her handkerchief to conceal her first yawn, when the
gentlemen, odorous of cigars, returned to say good-night.

"It's the second door from this, isn't it, Isabel?" asked her husband.

"Yes, the second door. Good-night. Good-night."

The two men walked off together; but in a minute afterwards they had
returned and were knocking tremulously at the closed door.

"O, what has happened?" chorused the ladies in woeful tune, seeing a
certain wildness in the face that confronted them.

"We don't know!" answered the others i