ake a break. That is why I am letting
or selling the house.... There will be no more Euphemia."

His voice fell to silence.

The lady surveyed the long low clear room so cleverly prepared for life,
with its white wall, its Dutch clock, its Dutch dresser, its pretty
seats about the open fireplace, its cleverly placed bureau, its
sun-trap at the garden end; she could feel the rich intention of living
in its every arrangement and a sense of uncertainty in things struck
home to her. She seemed to see a woman, a woman like herself--only very,
very much cleverer--flitting about the room and making it. And then this
woman had vanished--nowhither. Leaving this gentleman--sadly left--in
the care of Mrs. Rabbit.

"And she is dead?" she said with a softness in her dark eyes and a fall
in her voice that was quite natural and very pretty.

"She died," said Mr. Brumley, "three years and a half ago." He
reflected. "Almost exactly."

He paused and she filled the pause with feeling.

He became suddenly very brave and brisk and businesslike. He led the way
back into the hall and made explanations. "It is not so much a hall as a
hall living-room. We use that end, except when we go out upon the
verandah beyond, as our dining-room. The door to the right is the
kitchen."

The lady's attention was caught again by the bright long eventful
pictures that had already pleased her. "They are copies of two of
Carpaccio's St. George series in Venice," he said. "We bought them
together there. But no doubt you've seen the originals. In a little old
place with a custodian and rather dark. One of those corners--so full of
that delightful out-of-the-wayishness which is so characteristic, I
think, of Venice. I don't know if you found that in Venice?"

"I've never been abroad," said the lady. "Never. I should love to go. I
suppose you and your wife went--ever so much."

He had a transitory wonder that so fine a lady should be untravelled,
but his eagerness to display his backgrounds prevented him thinking that
out at the time. "Two or three times," he said, "before our little boy
came to us. And always returning with something for this place. Look!"
he went on, stepped across an exquisite little brick court to a lawn of
soft emerald and turning back upon the house. "That Dellia Robbia
placque we lugged all the way back from Florence with us, and that stone
bird-bath is from Siena."

"How bright it is!" murmured the lady after a brief still appre