owly. "I'm
afraid she will think so. But it is all I can afford just now. I
dream of giving her a palace some day, of course. But we'll have to
begin humbly. Do you think anything can be made of it?"

Miss Sally was busily engaged in sizing up the possibilities of the
place.

"It is pretty small," she said meditatively. "And the yard is small
too--and there are far too many trees and shrubs all messed up
together. They must be thinned out--and that paling taken down. I
think a good deal can be done with it. As for the house--well, let us
see the inside."

Willard unlocked the door and showed Miss Sally over the place. Miss
Sally poked and pried and sniffed and wrinkled her forehead, and
finally stood on the stairs and delivered her ultimatum.

"This house can be done up very nicely. Paint and paper will work
wonders. But I wouldn't paint it outside. Leave it that pretty silver
weather-grey and plant vines to run over it. Oh, we'll see what we can
do. Of course it is small--a kitchen, a dining room, a living room,
and two bedrooms. You won't want anything stuffy. You can do the
painting yourself, and I'll help you hang the paper. How much money
can you spend on it?"

Willard named the sum. It was not a large one.

"But I think it will do," mused Miss Sally. "We'll _make_ it do.
There's such satisfaction getting as much as you possibly can out of a
dollar, and twice as much as anybody else would get. I enjoy that sort
of thing. This will be a game, and we'll play it with a right good
will. But I do wish you would give the place a sensible name."

"I think Eden is the most appropriate name in the world," laughed
Willard. "It will be Eden for me when she comes."

"I suppose you tell her all that and she believes it," said Miss Sally
sarcastically. "You'll both find out that there is a good deal more
prose than poetry in life."

"But we'll find it out _together_," said Willard tenderly. "Won't
that be worth something, Miss Sally? Prose, rightly written and read,
is sometimes as beautiful as poetry."

Miss Sally deigned no reply. She carefully gathered up her grey silken
skirts from the dusty floor and walked out. "Get Christina Bowes to
come up tomorrow and scrub this place out," she said practically. "We
can go to town and select paint and paper. I should like the dining
room done in pale green and the living room in creamy tones, ranging
from white to almost golden brown. But perhaps my taste won't be
hers."