sighed Winifred Chester, casting her plump little figure into the
davenport's roomy depths and clasping her hands under her head in an
attitude of repose.

"If Red doesn't send out word that he's not at home and can't be found,
when a call finds him stretched out here, he's a stronger character than
I think him."

"Now let's go up and look at the guest-rooms." Ellen led the way, an
engaging figure in a fresh white morning dress, her cheeks glowing with
colour like a girl's.

"If you didn't know, would you ever dream she had been wife and widow,
and had lost her little son?" murmured Winifred in Martha's ear.

Martha Macauley shook her head. "She seems to have gone back and begun
all over again. Yet there's a look--"

Winifred nodded. "Of course there is--a look she wouldn't have had if she
hadn't gone through so much. It's given her such a rich sort of bloom."

The guest-rooms were airy, attractive, chintz-hung rooms, one large, one
somewhat smaller, but both wearing a hospitable look of readiness.

"I like the gray-and-rose room best," announced Winifred, after a
critical survey, as if she were inspecting both rooms for the first time
instead of the fortieth. She had made the gray-and-rose chintz hangings
herself, delighting in each exquisite yard of the fine imported material.

"I prefer the green-leaf pattern, it looks so cool and fresh." Martha