ne of her boarders,
a cheerful little army wife.

"Well, we'll miss Mr. Kirby, I'm sure," said little Mrs. Camp, as they
mounted the steps. "And by the way, Mrs. Kirby, you won't mind if I ask
if we mayn't just now and then have some of the new towels on our
floor--will you? We never get anything but the old, thin towels. Of
course, it's Alma's fault; but I think every one ought to take a turn
at the new towels as well as the old, don't you?"

"I'll speak to Alma," said Margaret, turning her key.

A lonely, busy autumn fellowed, and a winter of hard and thankless work.

"I feel like a plumber's wife," smiled Margaret to Mrs. Kippam, when in
November John wrote her of a "raise."

But when he came down for two days at Christmastime, she noticed that
he was brown, cheerful, and amazingly strong. They were as shy as
lovers on this little holiday, Margaret finding that her old maternal,
half-patronizing attitude toward her husband did not fit the case at
all, and John almost as much at a loss.

In April she went up to Applebridge, and they spent a whole day roaming
about in the fresh spring fields together.

"It's really a delicious little place," she confided to Mrs. Kippam
when she returned. "The sort of place where kiddies carry their lunches
to school, and their mothers put up preserves, and everybody has a
surrey and an old horse. John's quite a big man up there."

After the April visit came a long break, for John went to Chicago in
the July fortnight they had planned to spend together; and when he at
last came to New York for another Christmas, Margaret was in bed with a
bad throat, and could only whisper her questions. So another winter
struggled by, and another spring, and when summer came Margaret found
that it was almost impossible to break away from her increasing
responsibilities.

But on a fragrant, soft October day she found herself getting off the
early train in the little station; and as a big man waved his hat to
her, and they turned to walk down the road together, they smiled into
each other's eyes like two children.

"Were you surprised at the letter?" said John.

"Not so much surprised as glad," said Margaret, coloring like a girl.

They presently turned off the main road, and entered a certain gate.
Beyond the gate was an old, overgrown garden, and beyond that a
house--a broad, shabby house; and beyond that again an orchard, and
barns and outhouses.

John took a key from his pocket, and t