nshine and fresh air!" she cried.
Whereat he shook with laughter and patted her back as she clung to him.

"Promise me, Red," she begged, lifting her head, "that you won't let
anything--anything--keep you from going off with Ellen in the Imp. She's
been so lovely about this horrid delay, but I'm always suspicious of
you. Promise!"

"I promise you this," agreed her brother: "Wherever the Imp and I go,
after the minister has said the words, for this two weeks Ellen shall go
with me."

"Chester," said Dick Warburton as he stood in that gentleman's company,
looking over a stupendous assortment of wedding gifts, which, in
spite of the fact that nobody outside the family had been asked to see
Redfield Pepper Burns married, overflowed two large rooms into the upper
hall and almost over the railing, "will you tell me who in the name of
time sent that rat-trap? This is the most extraordinary display of
gold, silver, and tinware that I ever saw, and I'm at the end of my
astonishment. But that rat-trap, is it a joke?"

"No joke whatever--," declared Chester. "It comes from one of R,
Red's--devoted friends--his own invention. And the point of the thing is
that the making of that rat-trap is going to be the making of the
worst dead-beat of a patient Red ever stood by. I really believe Joe
Tressler's going to get a patent on it, which also will be Red's doing.
But this is a special, particular rat-trap made of extra fine materials,
suitable for a wedding gift!"

"Well, well," mused Burns's brother-in-law. "And what millionaire sent
the diamond pendant? By Jove, I haven't seen finer jewels than those
this side of the water."

"That came from the Walworths, I believe. Take it all together, it's a
great collection, isn't it? It shows up the odder because Ellen wouldn't
have the freak grateful-patient gifts put to one side--or even thrown
into a sort of refining shadow. Fix your eye on that rainbow quilt, will
you, Dicky, alongside of the Florentine tapestry? That quilt would put
out your eye if you gazed upon it steadily, so let up on it by regarding
this match-safe. Wouldn't that--"

"That came from Johnny Caruthers," said a richly modulated low voice
behind him. "Please set it down carefully, Mr. Arthur Chester."

The two men wheeled to see the bride come to the defense of her wedding
gifts. Behind her loomed her husband, laughing over her head, his eyes
none the less tender, like hers, for the queer presents which meant