ick-headache, and she was obliged to quit.

When Arthur first heard of the raised roof, he went down to see it, and
approving of everything which had thus far been done, insisted upon
furnishing the room himself. But Harold refused, saying decidedly that
it was his own surprise for Jerrie, and no one must help him. So Arthur
went away, and told Maude confidentially that the young man Hastings was
made of the right kind of stuff, that he liked his independence, and
that, although he should allow him to pay his debt, he should deposit
the money as fast as received to his credit in the savings bank, so that
he would eventually get it all.

'You are the darlingest uncle in the world!' Maude said, rubbing her
soft cheek against his, in that purring way many men like, which made
Arthur kiss her, and tell her she was a little simpleton, but rather
nice on the whole.

'And you'll not tell Jerrie a word about the room!' Maude charged him
again and again, while they were in New York selecting the dress.

'Not if I can help it,' was his reply, although, as the reader knows, he
came near letting it out twice, but _held on in time_, so that the
raised roof was still a secret from Jerrie when she reached the station
and was met by Maude and Harold.

The room, was all ready, and a most inviting looking room it was, with
its pretty carpet of blue and drab, and a delicate shading of pink in
it; its cottage furniture, simple, but suitable; its muslin curtains and
chintz covered lounge, and the willow chair and round table, which Maude
had insisted upon furnishing. She _would_ have some part in furnishing
the room, she said, and Harold allowed her to get the chair, which she
put by the window looking toward the Tramp House, and the round table,
which stood in the bay-window, with a Japanese bowl upon it filled with
the lilies Harold had gathered in the early morning. He had found it
impossible to go to Vassar there were so many last things to be done,
and so little money left in his purse with which to make the journey,
and as Maude had more confidence in her own taste for the arrangement
of furniture than in his, she too decided to remain at home and see it
through. The carpet was not put down until the morning of the day when
the young men started for Vassar, and it was the noise of the
tack-hammer which Tom had heard and likened to the shingling of a roof.

'There must be flowers everywhere, Jerrie is so fond of them,' Maude
said