ins, and Mrs. Dingley good humouredly lent the two
her chaperonage and her occasional counsel, such as only the gray-haired
matron of long housewifely experience can furnish.

The selection of the furniture took perhaps the most time, and was the
hardest, because of the difficulty of finding good styles in keeping with
the limited purse. Anthony possessed a number of good pieces of antique
character, but beyond these everything was to be purchased. Juliet turned
in despair from one shop after another, and when it came to the fitting of
the dining-room she grew distinctly indignant.

"It's a perfect shame," she said, "that they can't offer really good
designs in the cheap things. Did you ever see anything so hideous? Tony,
if I were you I'd rather eat my breakfast off one of those white kitchen
tables--or----"

She broke off suddenly, rushed away down the long room to a group of
chastely elegant dining-room furniture and came back after a little with a
face of great eagerness to drag her companions away with her. She took
them to survey a set of the costliest of all.

"Have you gone crazy?" Anthony inquired.

"Not at all. Tony, just study that table. It's massive, but it's
simple--simple as beauty always is. Look at those perfectly straight
legs--what clever cabinet maker couldn't copy that in--in ash, Tony? Then
there are stains--I've heard of them--that rub into wood and then finish
in some way so it's smooth and satiny. You could do that--I'm sure you
could. Then you'd get the lovely big top you want. And the chairs--do you
see the plain, solid-looking things? I know they could be made this way.
Then the dining-room would be simply dear!"

* * * * *

"Juliet, you're coming on," declared Anthony with satisfaction that
evening as the two, back at the Marcy country place, strolled slowly over
the lawn toward the river edge. "At this rate you'll do for a poor man's
wife yourself some day. That frock you have on now--isn't that a sort of
concession to the humble company you're in?"

"In what way?" Juliet glanced down at the pale-green gown whose delicate
skirts she was daintily lifting, and in which she looked like a flower in
its calyx. She had rejoiced to exchange the dusty dress in which she had
come home from town for this, which suggested coolness in each fresh
fold.

"Why, it strikes me as about the simplest dress I ever saw you wear. Isn't
it really--well--the le