it will be lonely there at first, since
Aunt Eloise is gone--but just listen to this. I shall rent the
down-stairs part to a small family and I shall live up-stairs. Part of
the furniture I am going to sell, use what I want to furnish my dove cote
in the clouds, and the rest that is too nice to sell but can't be used I
shall store in the east bedroom, which I won't use. That will leave me
three rooms and a bath--bedroom, sitting-room and dining-room. I can fix
up a corner of the dining-room into a kitchen with my electric percolator
and grills and things. Isn't it a glorious idea? And aren't you surprised
that I thought of anything so clever by myself?"

"Not half bad," said Burton approvingly,--for Burton had long since
learned that the pleasantest way of keeping friends with in-laws is by
perpetual approval.

"But you can never find a small family to take the down-stairs part of
the house," came pessimistically from Winifred.

"Oh, but I have found it, and they are in the house already. A bride and
groom. The cunningest things! She calls him Dody, and they hold hands.
And I sold part of the furniture yesterday, and had the rest moved
up-stairs. But there is one thing more."

"I thought so," said Burton grimly. "I remember the Saturday-afternoon-off.
I thought perhaps you had me in mind for your furniture-heaver. But since
that is done it is evident you have something far more deadly in store for
me. Let me know the worst, quickly."

"Well, you know, dearie," said Eveley in most seductively sweet tones,
"you know how the house is built. There is only one stairway, and it
rises directly from the west room down-stairs. Unfortunately, my bride
and groom wish to use that room for a bedroom. Now you can readily
perceive that a young and unattached female could not in conscience--not
even in my conscience--utilize a stairway emanating from the boudoir of a
bridal party. And there you are!"

"I am no carpenter," Burton shouted quickly, when Eveley's voice drifted
away into an apologetic murmur. "Get that idea out of your head right
away. I don't know a nail from a hammer."

"No, Burtie, of course you don't," she said soothingly. "But this will be
very simple. I thought of a rambling, rustic stairway outside the house,
in the back yard. You know the sun parlor was an afterthought, only one
story high with a flat roof. So the rustic stairway could go up to the
roof of the sun parlor, and I could make that up into a sort