when he had examined
everything in the living-room and pronounced all things excellent. "We're
to have guests, are we? But not right away?"

"I thought you'd be eager to entertain those bachelor friends you
mentioned, so I lost no time in getting a second room ready for them."

"Well, I don't know." Burns was mounting the stairs, his arm about his
wife's shoulders. "By the way, Ellen, I don't believe I ever went up
these stairs before. Comfortable, aren't they? I'm glad there's covering
on them. I never like to hear people racketing up and down bare stairs,
be they never so polished and fine. That comes of my instincts for quiet
on my patients' account, I suppose. About the guests--we don't need to
have any for a year or two, do we?"

"Why, Red!" Ellen began to laugh. "I thought you were the most hospitable
man in the world."

"All in good time," agreed her husband, comfortably. He looked in at the
door of the gray-and-rose room, as he spoke. "Well, well!" he ejaculated.
"Well, well!"

And again he was silent, staring. When he spoke:

"Would you mind going over there and sitting down in that willow chair
with the high back?" he requested.

His wife acceded, and crossing the room smiled back at him from the
depths of the white willow chair, her dark head against its cushioning of
soft, mingled tints of pale gray and glowing rose. Red Pepper nodded at
her.

"I thought so," said he. "This is no guest-room. This is your room."

"Oh, no, dear. My place is downstairs, with you--unless--you don't want
me there."

He crossed the room also and stood before her, his hands thrust into his
pockets. "This is your room," he repeated. "It's easy enough to recognize
it. It looks just like you. I've been uncomfortable about you downstairs,
whenever I had to leave you. You'll be safe here, with every window wide
open."

She looked up at him, mutely smiling, but something in her eyes told him
that all was not yet said. Red Pepper leaned still lower and kissed her.

"It will be easy enough to have an extension of the telephone brought up
here," he added--and found her arms about his neck. But she shook her
head. "Don't settle it so quickly," she urged.

"You said there was another guest-room," he reminded her presently. "The
bachelor's room. Is it next door?"

They went together to look at the bachelor's room. Burns surveyed it with
satisfaction.

"The jolliest room for the purpose I ever saw," he confessed. "And I know