this kind action you did to cause a blush."

"I blushed," said Mr. Billings, "to think of the lie I was going to tell
Theodora Merrill Corwin--"

"I thought you said her name was Theodora Mitchell Corwin," said Mrs.
Billings.

"Mitchell or Merill," said Mr. Billings. "I cannot remember exactly
which."

For several minutes Mrs. Billings was silent. Occasionally she would
open her mouth as if to ask a question, but each time she closed it
again without speaking. Mr. Billings sat regarding his wife with what,
in a man of less clear conscience, might be called anxiety. At length
Mrs. Billings put her sewing into her sewing-basket and arose.

"Rollin," she said, "I have enjoyed hearing you tell your experiences
greatly. I can say but one thing: Never in your life have you deceived
me. And you have not deceived me now."

For half an hour after this Mr. Billings sat alone, thinking.

III. OUR FIRST BURGLAR

When our new suburban house was completed I took Sarah out to see it,
and she liked it all but the stairs.

"Edgar," she said, when she had ascended to the second floor, "I don't
know whether it is imagination or not, but it seems to me that these
stairs are funny, some way. I can't understand it. They are not a long
flight, and they are not unusually steep, but they seem to be unusually
wearying. I never knew a short flight to tire me so, and I have climbed
many flights in the six years we have lived in flats."

"Perhaps, Sarah," I said, with mild dissimulation, "you are unusually
tired to-day."

The fact was that I had planned those stairs myself, and for a
particular reason I had made the rise of each step three inches more
than the customary height, and in this way I had saved two steps. I had
also made the tread of the steps unusually narrow; and the reason was
that I had found, from long experience, that stair carpet wears first on
the tread of the steps, where the foot falls. By making the steps tall
enough to save two, and by making the tread narrow, I reduced the wear
on the carpet to a minimum. I believe in economy where it is possible.
For the same reason I had the stair banisters made wide, with a
saddle-like top to the newel post, to tempt my son and daughter to slide
downstairs. The less they used the stairs the longer the carpet would
last.

I need hardly say that Sarah has a fear of burglars; most women have. As
for myself, I prefer not to meet a burglar. It is all very well to get
up