what the General was saying to convince herself that this was not
another dream but a reality, and she became so excited that her mother
advised her to go to bed for a while before dinner, if she expected to
appear at her best when Eddie arrived.

For the first time since early childhood, Martha blushed as she
attempted to trip lightly upstairs. As a matter of fact, she DID trip
on next to the top step and sprawled. Under ordinary circumstances she
would have been as mad as a wet hen, but on this happy occasion she
merely cried out, when her parents dashed into the hall below on
hearing the crash:

"It's good luck to fall upstairs!"

The fires of life had been rekindled, and when such a thing happens to
a person of Martha's horse-power, the effect is astonishing. At four o
'clock she began dressing for the coming suitor. When he arrived at
seven, she was still trying to decide whether her hair looked better
by itself or with augmentations.

Below, in the huge library, Eddie Ten Eyck sat disconsolate, nervously
contemplating the immediate future. He was all alone. Not even a
servant was to be seen or heard. It was as still as the Christmas Eve
whose jingle we love so well.

Never in all his aimless existence had he felt so small, so
unimportant, so put-upon as at this moment. His gaze, sweeping the
ceiling of the library, tried to penetrate to the sacred precincts
above. Even the riches and the stateliness of the Gamble mansion
failed to reimburse his fancy for the losses it was sustaining with