ew apartment house in Sacramento
Street.

"What is it, Mark?" the girl asked, as they went in. "Some one we know
live here?"

"You wait!" Mark said mysteriously. He went to a desk in the handsome
entrance hall, and talked for a few moments to a clerk who sat there.
Then a quiet-looking, middle-aged woman came out, and Mark and Julia
went upstairs with her, in a little elevator.

The woman turned a key in a door, and led them into a charmingly bright
front apartment of four good-sized rooms and a shining bathroom. There
was a bedroom with curly-maple furniture, a dining-room with a hanging
lamp of art glass on a brass chain, and Mission oak table and chairs, a
kitchen delightfully convenient and completely equipped, and a little
drawing-room, with a gas log, a bookshelf, a good rug, a little desk,
and some rocking chairs and small tables. The sun shone in through fresh
net curtains, and the high windows commanded a bright view of city roofs
and a glimpse of the bay.

Julia began to feel nervous and uncomfortable. She did not understand at
all what Mark meant by this, but it was impossible to doubt, from his
beaming face, that some plan involving her was afoot. He couldn't have
furnished this apartment in the hope--?

"Whose place _is_ this, Mark?" she asked, trying to laugh naturally.

"Do you like it?" Mark countered, his eyes dancing.

"Like it? It's simply sweet, of course! But whose is it?"

"Well, now listen," Mark explained. "It's Joe Kirk's furniture; he's
just been married, you know. He and his wife had just got back from
their honeymoon when Joe got an offer of a fine job in New York. He
asked me to see if I couldn't find a tenant for this--two years' lease
to run--just as it stands; no raise in rent. And the rent's fifty-five?"
he called to the woman in the next room.

"Fifty, Mr. Rosenthal," she answered impassively.

"Fifty!" Mark exulted. "Think of getting all this for fifty! Ah,
Julia"--he came close to her as she stood staring down from the window,
and lowered his voice--"will you, darling? Will you? You like it, don't
you? Will you marry me, dearest, and make a little home here with me?"
"Oh, Mark!" Julia stammered, a nervous smile twitching her lips.

"Well, why won't you, Ju? Do you doubt that I love you? Answer me that!"

"Why, no--no, I don't, of course." Julia moved a little away.

"Don't go over there; she'll hear us! And you love me, don't you, Ju?"

"But not that way I don't, Mark,