rmation.

"How perfectly sweet of them," cried the irresponsible bride. "Oh! Win,
we must stay here and see them. Isn't it the dearest sleepy hollow of a
place?"

Attended by the impressed and impressive clerk, they made an inspection
of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Hawley settled upon a suite just over the
main entrance. Mead was established across the hall. But Kate found a
wonderful panorama which could only be seen from the rooms on the third
floor, and there, down a dreary length of oil-clothed hall, she bestowed
herself and her belongings.

"For I must," she explained to Patty, "I simply _must_ get out of this
veil and breathe, and I shouldn't dare to do it within reach of that
horribly supercilious friend of Winthrop's. I'm going to plead headache
or something, and have my dinner sent up here."

Mead, meanwhile, was unfolding similar plans to Hawley. "I should have
joined you," said he, "if your wife's friend had been a little less
self-sufficient and unsympathetic. Of course, I don't require any
sympathy; but I don't want ridicule either. So, while she is of the
party I'll have my meals in my room. I can't act the 'Man in the Iron
Mask' forever. You just leave the ladies together after dinner and come
up here for a pipe with me."

And when Mr. and Mrs. Hawley next encountered one another and reported
the wishes of their friends, he suggested and she rapturously agreed,
that they should dine in their horse-hair-covered sitting-room.

"I have a reason, dear," she told him, "for not wishing to go to the
dining-room for our first meal together. I'll explain later."

"Your wishing it is enough," he answered before the conversation sank to
banalities.

And when these several intentions were made clear to the conscientious
clerk, he sent for the police force of the town--it consisted of a mild,
little old man in a uniform and helmet which might have belonged to some
mountainous member of the Broadway Squad in its prime--and implored him
to spend the evening in the hall.

"They're beginning to act up funny already," the clerk imparted. "This
eatin' all over the house don't seem just right to me. What do they
think the dining-room's for anyway? Sam was up with the bag belonging to
the single fellow, and he says he's got the worst looking pair of black
eyes he ever saw. Here, Sam, you come and tell Jimmie what he looks
like."

Sam, a middle-aged combination of porter, bellboy, furnace-man, office
assistant and eme