-room, and recommend
the periodicals, and take the children's Civic League reports, and
oversee the Rooms generally. Now I'd be there Wednesdays to meet the
mothers, and Mrs. Underwood Saturdays for the Band of Hope and the
kitchen-garden. It would be just Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Fridays from ten to twelve, say!"

"From ten to twelve, say," he repeated absently, with his eyes on her
handsome, eager face. He had never seen her so animated, so girlishly
insistent. She urged with the vivid earnestness of twenty years.

"My dear lady," he brought out finally, "you are like Greek architecture
or Eastlake furniture or--or 'God Save the Queen'--perfectly absolute!
And I am so hideously relative--But, after all, why should a sense of
humor be an essential? One is really more complete--I suppose Mahomet
had none--When shall I begin?"

The interested villagers were informed early and regularly of the
progress of the latest scheme of their benefactress. Henry and Mr.
Waters furnished most satisfactory and detailed bulletins to gatherings
of leisurely and congenial spirits, who listened with incredulous
amazement to the accounts of Mr. Welles's proceedings.

"Him an' that hired man o' his, they have took more stuff over to them
Rooms than you c'd shake a stick at! I never see nothing like it--never!
Waxed that floor, they have, and put more mats onto it--fur and colored.
An' the stuff--oh, Lord! China--all that blue china he got fr'm ol' Mis'
Simms, an' them ol' stoneware platters that Mis' Rivers was goin' to
fire away, an' he give her two dollars for the lot--all that's scattered
round on tables and shelves. An' that ol' black secr'tary he got fr'm
Lord knows where, an' brakes growin' in colored pots standin' right up
there, an' statyers o' men an' women--no heads onto 'em, some ain't got;
it's all one to him--he'd buy any ol' thing so's 'twas broke, you might
say. An' them ol' straight chairs--no upholsterin' on 'em, an' some o'
them wicker kind that bends any way, with piliers in 'em. An' cups and
sassers, with a tea-pot 'n' kittle; an' he makes tea himself an' drinks
it--I swear it's so. An' a guitar, an', Lord, the pictures! You can't
see no wall for 'em!

"'It's a mighty lucky thing, havin' this room, Thompson,' says he to
that hired man, 'the things was spillin' over. We'll make it a bower o'
beauty, Thompson,' says he. 'Yes, sir,' says the man. That's all he ever
says, you might say. I never see nothin' like