at a fascinatingly funny
place it is."

She was surveying the neighborhood from the front door when the agent
returned, accompanied by the architect.

She wanted very little, she announced reassuringly; a fireplace in the
shop was the chief thing.

The agent suggested that it would be far more expensive to heat the
room with an open grate than with an anthracite base burner. Whereupon
she explained that an open fire was part of her stock in trade, and it
would be impossible to carry on her line of business without one.

The agent ventured to inquire what her line was, and she answered with
a twinkle in her eye, "Notions."

The architect was doubtful about the fireplace, but not unwilling to
discuss it, and they grew so friendly over the matter that the agent
retired to the door and stared gloomily up the street.

From the fireplace the discussion turned to other things. As a
possible tenant, the young lady consulted the architect about the best
color for the walls, so adroitly insinuating her own ideas as to the
proper stain for the woodwork that they seemed his own.

While they talked, a small boy in a gingham apron, with a sailor hat
on the back of his curly head and a gray flannel donkey under his arm,
wandered in and stood surveying them with great composure.

"Who's going to live here?" he presently asked, his brown eyes upon
the lady.

She met his gaze with a smile that drew him a step nearer, but caused
no break in his seriousness. "I am thinking of it," she said, adding,
with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, "if they will let me have a
fireplace in this room. Shouldn't you want a fireplace if you were
going to live here?"

He nodded, "'Cause if you didn't, Santa Claus couldn't come."

The lady turned gravely to the architect. "That is a consideration
which had not occurred to me, but it is an important one. I shall not
take it without the fireplace." Her manner said there was no need for
further discussion.

"What is your name?" she asked the small boy.

He shook his head.

"Do you mean you haven't any?"

Another more vigorous shake.

"Perhaps you have forgotten it?"

"No, I haven't."

"Why not tell, then? I am always willing to tell mine."

"What is it?" he inquired with great promptness.

"But I don't think it is fair to ask me when you won't tell yours."

"You said you would."

The lady laughed. "Very well, I am Miss Pennington."

The small boy pondered this for a moment, then