could bear to have about his house no remote suggestion of her former
marriage.

"All right, dearest," he answered quickly. "I'm a brute, I know,
but--you're mine now. Will you play for me? I believe I'm fond of music."

"Of course you are. But first, let's go upstairs. I'm almost as proud of
our guest-rooms as of this."

"Guest-rooms?" repeated Burns, a few minutes later, when he had examined
everything in the living-room and pronounced all things excellent. "We're
to have guests, are we? But not right away?"

"I thought you'd be eager to entertain those bachelor friends you
mentioned, so I lost no time in getting a second room ready for them."

"Well, I don't know." Burns was mounting the stairs, his arm about his
wife's shoulders. "By the way, Ellen, I don't believe I ever went up
these stairs before. Comfortable, aren't they? I'm glad there's covering
on them. I never like to hear people racketing up and down bare stairs,
be they never so polished and fine. That comes of my instincts for quiet
on my patients' account, I suppose. About the guests--we don't need to
have any for a year or two, do we?"

"Why, Red!" Ellen began to laugh. "I thought you were the most hospitable
man in the world."

"All in good time," agreed her husband, comfortably. He looked in at the
door of the gray-and-rose room, as he spoke. "Well, well!" he ejaculated.
"Well, well!"