nd if they all breed, you'll
have about thirty-five hundred; and if--"

"Stop! stop!" cried Carroll, covering her ears.

"All right," agreed Orde equably, "but that's the way it figures. Funny
the earth isn't overrun with chickens, isn't it?"

She thrust her tables of figures into her desk drawer. "You're just
making fun of me always," she said reproachfully.

Two days later Orde took her one block up the street to look at a
tiny little house tucked on a fifty-foot lot beneath the shadow of the
church.

"It's mighty little," said he. "I'll have to go out in the hall to
change my collar, and we couldn't have more than two people at a time to
call on us."

"It's a dear!" said she, "and I'm not so e-nor-mous myself, whatever YOU
may be."

They ended by renting the little house, and Carroll took charge of it
delightedly. What difficulties she overcame, and what laughable and
cryable mistakes she made only those who have encountered a like
situation could realise. She learned fast, however, and took a real
pride in her tiny box of a home. A piano was, of course, out of the
question, but the great golden harp occupied one corner, or rather
one side, of the parlour. Standing thus enshrouded in its covering, it
rather resembled an august and tremendous veiled deity. To Carroll's
great delight, Orde used solemnly to go down on all fours and knock
his forehead thrice on the floor before it when he entered the house
at evening. When the very cold weather came and they had to light the
base-burner stove, which Orde stoutly maintained occupied all the other
half of the parlour, the harp's delicate constitution necessitated its
standing in the hall. Nevertheless, Carroll had great comfort from it.
While Orde was away at the office, she whispered through its mellow
strings her great happiness, the dreams for her young motherhood which
would come in the summer, the vague and lingering pain over the hapless
but beloved ones she had left behind her in her other life. Then she
arose refreshed, and went about the simple duties of her tiny domain.

The winter was severe. All the world was white. The piles of snow along
the sidewalks grew until Carroll could hardly look over them. Great
fierce winds swept in from the lake. Sometimes Orde and his wife drove
two miles to the top of the sand hills, where first they had met in this
their present home, and looked out beyond the tumbled shore ice to the
steel-gray, angry waters. The wind