on the
right looks like it might be a bedroom," Father announced, after a hasty
exploration, while the maid stared doubtfully. He went on, half
whispering, "Let's peep into the bedroom."

"No, no, we mustn't do that," Mother insisted, but regretfully. For she
was already wondering where, if she were running things, she would put a
sewing-machine. She had always agreed with Matilda Tubbs that
sewing-machines belonged in bedrooms.

While the maid shadowed him and Mother opened her mouth to rebuke him,
Father boldly pushed open the door on the right. He had guessed
correctly. It was a bedroom. Mother haughtily stayed in the center of
the living-room, but she couldn't help glancing through the open door,
and she sighed enviously as she saw the splendor of twin beds, with a
little table and an electric light between them, and the open door of a
tiled bathroom. It was too much that the mistress of the house should
have left her canary-yellow silk sweater on the foot of one bed. Mother
had wanted a silk sweater ever since she had beheld one flaunted on Cape
Cod.

Father darted out, seized her wrists, dragged her into the bedroom, and
while she was exploding in the lecture he so richly deserved she
stopped, transfixed. Father was pointing to a picture over one bed, and
smiling strangely.

The picture was an oldish one, in a blackened old frame. It showed a
baby playing with kittens.

"Why!" gasped Mother--"why--why, it's just like the picture--it _is_ the
picture--that we got when Lulu was born--that we had to leave on the
Cape."

"Yump," said Father. He still smiled strangely. He pointed at the table
between the twin beds. On the table was a little brown, dusty book.
Mother gazed at it dazedly. Her step was feeble as she tottered between
the beds, picked up the book, opened it. It was the New Testament which
she had had since girlhood, which she had carried all through their
hike, which she supposed to be in their rooms back at the Star Hotel.

There was a giggle from the doorway, and the apparently stupid maid was
there, bowing.

"Lena, has our trunk come from the hotel?" Father asked.

"Yessir, I just been sneaking it in the back way. Welcome home, mum,"
said the maid, and shut the door--from the other side.

Mother suddenly crumpled, burrowed her head against Father's shoulder
and sobbed: "This is ours? Our own? Now?"

"Yes, Mother, it sure am ours." Father still tried to speak airily, but
in his voice were