e looked at was so old and mouldy, or so new and
inartistic, or so high-priced, or so far away--well, we couldn't seem to
get at it, so we said we'd board a while and wait until we could look
around."

"How does it work?"

"Why, I suppose it works very well," said Carey cautiously. "Judith seems
contented. We have as good meals as the average in such houses, and the
people are rather a nice lot. We're invited around quite a good deal, and
Judith likes that. I ought to like it better than I do, somehow. I'm so
confoundedly tired when I get home nights I can't help thinking of you and
Juliet here in this jolly room. There's an abominable blue and yellow
wall-paper on our sitting-room--and it has a way of appearing to turn
seasick in the evening under the electrics. Sometimes I think it's that
that makes me feel----"

"Seasick, too?" inquired the doctor with his professional air. He was
standing with his arm on the chimney-piece, looking alternately down on
his friends and around the long, low room. It _was_ a jolly room--the very
essence of comfort and cosiness. It was a beautiful room, too, in a simple
way; one which satisfied his sense of harmony in colours and fabrics--a
keen sense with him, as it is apt to be with men of his profession.

"Judith likes this, too, you know," Carey went on loyally. "She thinks
it's great. But how to get it for ourselves--that's another matter.
Somehow, you were lucky."

"Did you ever happen to see," asked Anthony, "a photograph I took, just
for fun, of this house as it was when Juliet saw it first? No? Well, just
look in that box on the end of the farther bookcase, will you? It's near
the top--there--that's it."

He lay looking up through half-closed lashes at the two men as they
studied the photograph, the doctor leaning over Carey's shoulder.

"On your word, man, did it look like that?" cried Barnes.

"Just like that."

"Yes, I've heard it did," admitted Carey; "but I never quite believed it
could have been as bad as that."

"Who planned it all?" the doctor asked, getting possession of the
photograph as Carey laid it down, and giving it careful scrutiny.

"My little home-maker."

"Jove--are there any more like her?"

"They're pretty rare, I understand. Juliet has one in training--one with a
good deal of native capacity, I should judge."

"Let me know when her graduation day approaches," remarked the doctor.

* * * * *

Whe