week old, and he says he's coming out to call this afternoon. There's
no place in the house I can show him, and I haven't got a decent
dress, either."

Betty swallowed her first impulse to say what she thought of a
husband who would make no effort to see that his wife received her
mail, and instead turned her practical mind to consideration of the
immediate moment. The so-called parlor was hopeless she knew, and she
dismissed it from the list of possibilities at once. It was a
sparsely furnished, gloomy room, damp and musty from being tightly
closed all summer, and the unpainted, rough boards had never been
carpeted.

"There's the porch," said Betty suddenly. "Luckily that's shady in
the afternoon, and we can bring out the best things to make it look
used. You let me fix it, Mrs. Peabody. And you can wear--let me see,
what can you wear?"

Mrs. Peabody waited patiently, her eyes mirroring her explicit faith
in Betty's planning powers.

"Your white shirtwaist and skirt," announced the girl at length.
"They're both clean, aren't they? I thought so. Well, I'll lend you a
ribbon girdle, and you can turn in the high neck so it will be more
in style. You'll see, it will look all right."

While Mrs. Peabody washed her dishes with more energy than usual
because she had a definite interest in the coming hours, Betty flew
to the shabby room that was titled by courtesy the parlor. She flung
up the windows and opened the blinds recklessly. She would take only