flowers, and farther on over the beautiful
valleys of the Swannanoa and the French Broad rivers. Beyond the river
valleys rose range after range of mountains until the last dim peaks
were lost in the clouds.

The magnificence of her bed-room was stunning. Stuart rubbed his eyes
in amazement.

The bedstead seemed a thing of life--so elaborate and wonderful was its
art. Built of massive ebony with the most remarkable ivory carvings set
in its gleaming black surface, artists, as many as could touch the
material, had worked two years on the carving alone. The allegorical
pictures cut into the broad band of ivory which ran around the frame
had required the time of four art-workmen for eighteen months.

Stuart stood fascinated.

"You see that magnificent piece of ivory on the head, Jim?" she asked,
with sparkling eyes.

"The most massive solid piece I ever saw!" he exclaimed. "I never
dreamed the elephant had ever lived with such a tusk."

"We found him at last!" Nan cried, with pride. "It took the time of
fourteen hunters in Africa for seven months."

"I can easily believe it," Stuart answered. "Ludwig of Bavaria surely
never dreamed anything like this."

"The walls you see are panelled in Louis XV style, permitting the most
elaborate carvings which I had heavily guilded on backgrounds of white
enamel, but the thing I love best about this panelling, is not the
panel at all--it's the rich purple and gold Genoese velvet. I had it
made by a noted firm in Lyons. Don't you think it exquisite?"

"If I ever get rich I'll have a piece of it for the collar of my coat."

"I got my painters from Paris to do the ceilings. They worked very
quickly, but they knew how to charge. The window curtains, you see, are
of the same material as the purple and gold velvet in the panels, while
the under curtains are hand-woven of Brussels net and interwoven with
silk. The wardrobe, little washstand and dressing table are of ebony
and ivory, the chairs, of solid ivory inlaid with gold and ebony, were
all made to match the bedstead."

Stuart looked at his hostess curiously.

"I thought I knew you, Nan, but this is a revelation. I could never
have guessed by the wildest leap of my imagination. It's beyond
belief."

"Don't you like it?" she asked, with a hurt expression.

"I'm stunned. The most wonderful thing to me in the room, though, is
not the bedstead, but the woman standing beside it."

A flash of light came from the dark eyes a