ing and muttering to himself, and Mrs. Bradford
and Miss Ethel walked up the tiny path to the house which was to be
their home for the rest of their lives. But before they reached the
door it opened from within, and there stood Laura Temple. She was
smiling, and yet her kind eyes were bright with tears which she could
scarcely keep from falling--for the two ageing women looked somehow so
forlorn in the bright sunshine on the threshold of all this
strangeness. But after the briefest pause Miss Ethel relieved the
situation by saying briskly: "So you have opened the windows. Now that
was good of you."

"Oh, Nanty did that. She's here, too," said Laura. Then they all went
through the narrow passage into the front room.

"There is only one corner where I can have my chair," said Mrs.
Bradford immediately. "Laura dear, those who lead an active life can't
understand how important it is for anyone like me to have a chair in
the right place. But you have not been well yourself. I can quite
understand your not wanting to go away on a honeymoon when you are not
feeling well. I shall never forget having a bilious attack on my own
honeymoon. I would always recommend a small medicine chest as part of
the wedding outfit--sore-throat remedies and gregory powder, and so on.
My dear husband said that, so far as he was concerned, biliousness did
not destroy romance; but there are bridegrooms and bridegrooms, and you
never know until----"

"We'd better begin measuring the floor," interposed Miss Ethel
uneasily, anxious to cut short this unusual loquacity on the part of
Mrs. Bradford, which she knew to be caused by the general upset of
looking forward to an entire change of place and routine. "Don't you
think the old dining-room carpet will do very well here?"

She opened the room door suddenly to discover Miss Panton just outside
suppressing her emotion with a handkerchief pressed to her lips. Now
she was obliged to let it finally escape in a sort of whoop. "Oh!
Excuse me. I can't help it! It's the thought of you here," she said
excitedly. "I know silence is golden, but there are tibes---- And to
see Miss Ethel going round on her hands and dees with a tape beasure as
if it was only an ordinary spring cleaning----" Never had the catarrh
been so marked and so marked in its effects on her m's and n's.

"Nonsense! We shall be quite comfortable here and much less work to
do. Thousands of richer people than ourselves ar