ard home. Then Billy asked:

"Have you settled on where you're going to live?"

"Not quite. We're going to talk of that to-night; but we _do_ know that
we aren't going to live at the Strata."

"Marie!"

Marie stirred uneasily at the obvious disappointment and reproach in her
friend's voice.

"But, dear, it wouldn't be wise, I'm sure," she argued hastily. "There
will be you and Bertram--"

"We sha'n't be there for a year, nearly," cut in Billy, with swift
promptness. "Besides, I think it would be lovely--all together."

Marie smiled, but she shook her head.

"Lovely--but not practical, dear."

Billy laughed ruefully.

"I know; you're worrying about those puddings of yours. You're afraid
somebody is going to interfere with your making quite so many as you
want to; and Cyril is worrying for fear there'll be somebody else in the
circle of his shaded lamp besides his little Marie with the light on her
hair, and the mending basket by her side."

"Billy, what are you talking about?"

Billy threw a roguish glance into her friend's amazed blue eyes.

"Oh, just a little picture Cyril drew once for me of what home meant for
him: a room with a table and a shaded lamp, and a little woman beside it
with the light on her hair and a great basket of sewing by her side."

Marie's eyes softened.

"Did he say--that?"

"Yes. Oh, he declared he shouldn't want her to sit under that lamp all
the time, of course; but he hoped she'd like that sort of thing."

Marie threw a quick glance at the stolid back of John beyond the two
empty seats in front of them. Although she knew he could not hear her
words, instinctively she lowered her voice.

"Did you know--then--about--me?" she asked, with heightened color.

"No, only that there was a girl somewhere who, he hoped, would sit under
the lamp some day. And when I asked him if the girl did like that sort
of thing, he said yes, he thought so; for she had told him once that
the things she liked best of all to do were to mend stockings and make
puddings. Then I knew, of course, 'twas you, for I'd heard you say the
same thing. So I sent him right along out to you in the summer-house."

The pink flush on Marie's face grew to a red one. Her blue eyes turned
again to John's broad back, then drifted to the long, imposing line of
windowed walls and doorways on the right. The automobile was passing
smoothly along Beacon Street now with the Public Garden just behind them
on the left. Afte