"Mr. Allen will like it just the way it is," said Henry, regarding
the old stove with a sneaking admiration of which he was ashamed. It
had always seemed to him that Sylvia's taste must be better than his.
He had always thought vaguely of women as creatures of taste.

"I think maybe he'll like a fire in it sometimes," he said, timidly.

"A fire, when there's a furnace?"

"I mean chilly days in the fall, before we start the furnace."

"Then we could have that nice air-tight that we had in the other
house put up. If we had a fire in this old thing the heat would all
go up chimney."

"But it would look kind of pretty."

"I was brought up to think a fire was for warmth, not for looks,"
said Sylvia, tartly. She had lost the odd expression which Henry had
dimly perceived several days before, or she was able to successfully
keep it in abeyance; still, there was no doubt that a strange and
subtle change had occurred within the woman. Henry was constantly
looking at her when she spoke, because he vaguely detected unwonted
tones in her familiar voice; that voice which had come to seem almost
as his own. He was constantly surprised at a look in the familiar
eyes, which had seemed heretofore to gaze at life in entire unison
with his own.

He often turned upon Sylvia and asked her abruptly if she did not