carpet-slipper.
"Oh-h-h, das-a fine music," he cried, clapping his hands as Nils
finished. "Now 'Marble Halls, Marble Halls'! Clara, you sing him."

Clara smiled and leaned back in her chair, beginning softly:

"_I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls,
With vassals and serfs at my knee,_"

and Joe hummed like a big bumble-bee.

"There's one more you always played," Clara said quietly; "I
remember that best." She locked her hands over her knee and began
"The Heart Bowed Down," and sang it through without groping for the
words. She was singing with a good deal of warmth when she came to
the end of the old song:

"_For memory is the only friend
That grief can call its own._"

Joe flashed out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose, shaking
his head. "No-no-no-no-no-no-no! Too sad, too sad! I not like-a dat.
Play quick somet'ing gay now."

Nils put his lips to the instrument, and Joe lay back in his chair,
laughing and singing, "Oh, Evelina, Sweet Evelina!" Clara laughed,
too. Long ago, when she and Nils went to high school, the model
student of their class was a very homely girl in thick spectacles.
Her name was Evelina Oleson; she had a long, swinging walk which
somehow suggested the measure of that song, and they used
mercilessly to sing it at her.

"Dat ugly Oleson girl, she teach in de school," Joe gasped, "an' she
still walk chust like dat, yup-a, yup-a, yup-a, chust like a camel
she go! Now, Nils, we have some more li'l drink. Oh,
yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-_yes!_ Dis time you haf to drink, and Clara
she haf to, so she show she not jealous. So, we all drink to your
girl. You not tell her name, eh? No-no-no, I no make you tell. She
pretty, eh? She make good sweetheart? I bet!" Joe winked and lifted
his glass. "How soon you get married?"

Nils screwed up his eyes. "That I don't know. When she says."

Joe threw out his chest. "Das-a way boys talks. No way for mans.
Mans say, 'You come to de church, an' get a hurry on you.' Das-a way
mans talks."

"Maybe Nils hasn't got enough to keep a wife," put in Clara
ironically. "How about that, Nils?" she asked him frankly, as if she
wanted to know.

Nils looked at her coolly, raising one eyebrow. "Oh, I can keep her,
all right."

"The way she wants to be kept?"

"With my wife, I'll decide that," replied Nils calmly. "I'll give
her what's good for her."

Clara made a wry face. "You'll give her the strap, I expect, like
old Peter Oleson gave his w