s a new atmosphere
of wistfulness about the girl that made his heart ache.

They were alone in the little parlor with its brown lamp and blue silk
shade, and its small nude Eve--which Anna kept because it had been a
gift from her husband, but retired behind a photograph of the minister,
so that only the head and a bare arm holding the apple appeared above
the reverend gentleman.

K. never smoked in the parlor, but by sheer force of habit he held the
pipe in his teeth.

"And how have things been going?" asked Sidney practically.

"Your steward has little to report. Aunt Harriet, who left you her love,
has had the complete order for the Lorenz trousseau. She and I have
picked out a stunning design for the wedding dress. I thought I'd ask
you about the veil. We're rather in a quandary. Do you like this new
fashion of draping the veil from behind the coiffure in the back--"

Sidney had been sitting on the edge of her chair, staring.

"There," she said--"I knew it! This house is fatal! They're making an
old woman of you already." Her tone was tragic.

"Miss Lorenz likes the new method, but my personal preference is for the
old way, with the bride's face covered."

He sucked calmly at his dead pipe.

"Katie has a new prescription--recipe--for bread. It has more bread and
fewer air-holes. One cake of yeast--"

Sidney sprang to her feet.

"It's perfectly terrible!" she cried. "Because you rent a room in
this house is no reason why you should give up your personality and
your--intelligence. Not but that it's good for you. But Katie has
made bread without masculine assistance for a good many years, and if
Christine can't decide about her own veil she'd better not get married.
Mother says you water the flowers every evening, and lock up the house
before you go to bed. I--I never meant you to adopt the family!"

K. removed his pipe and gazed earnestly into the bowl.

"Bill Taft has had kittens under the porch," he said. "And the
groceryman has been sending short weight. We've bought scales now, and
weigh everything."

"You are evading the question."

"Dear child, I am doing these things because I like to do them. For--for
some time I've been floating, and now I've got a home. Every time I
lock up the windows at night, or cut a picture out of a magazine as a
suggestion to your Aunt Harriet, it's an anchor to windward."

Sidney gazed helplessly at his imperturbable face. He seemed older than
she had recalled him: