nk of
the wilderness of pretty things that you have been buying, to make this
room the very neatest in the house."

"Do you think so?" said Marion. "I am very glad if you like them. I am
very glad when I please any one, and very unhappy when I do not. I do
not quite know how to arrange them all. Will you help me?" and in a
moment more the episode of the picture seemed to be quite forgotten in
the bestowal of the remainder of Marion's "art-treasures."

Saturday afternoon saw a marked event in the history of the Crawford
family, in the crossing by Richard of the threshold of the outer door,
for the first time in so many weeks. He was weak, faint and feeble, but
the racking pains of his disease seemed hourly to leave him more
completely. He had no more thought of leaving the house, however, than
of flying, until the tempter appeared in the shape of his brother. John
had been reading over the morning paper, a little late; and after the
news had been thoroughly exhausted, he had happened upon the programme
of the music at the Central Park.

"Hallo!" he said. "Here, Dick! Dodworth's Band at the Central Park this
afternoon. I have heard plenty of what they _called_ music, all the
while that I have been gone; but not Dodworth. Let's go up and hear it!
Besides, I want to see how much more they have wasted on the Park."

"I!" answered Richard Crawford, astounded. "You are not very kind,
brother John, to speak of _my_ going out, when you know that I have not
left the house for months."

"No," said John, "indeed I did not think of that! But now that I do
think of it, all the more reason why you should go."

"Why, I could not sit up to ride a block!" said Richard.

"Don't believe a word of it!" said John, gayly. "You never know what you
can do, until you try. You are better--you _say_ that you are
better--and the more you stay within the house, the more you may. In my
opinion, to get well rapidly, you should be out of the house more than
half the time, regaining the strength you have lost."

Just then there was a ring at the bell, and Dr. Thompson, the old family
physician who had attended both the brothers since boyhood, came in to
look at Richard and after the dressing of John's wounded arm. John had
made a personal call upon him that morning, and the genial, gray-haired,
but young-hearted old doctor had been very glad to see him returned,
with no worse wound than that in his arm.

"See here, Doctor," said John, the mome