. A canary chirped in the tiny
dining-room. There were books and magazines on the sitting-room table.
The bedroom was brave in its snowy spread and the toilet silver that
had been Henry's gift to her the Christmas they became engaged.

Emma examined everything, exclaimed over everything, admired
everything. Hortense glowed like a rose.

"Do you really like it? I like the green velours in the sitting-room,
don't you? It's always so kind and cheerful. We're not all settled
yet. I don't suppose we ever will be. Sundays, Henry putters around,
putting up shelves, and fooling around with a can of paint. I always
tell him he ought to have lived on a farm, where he'd have elbow-room."

"No wonder you're so happy and busy," Emma exclaimed, and patted the
girl's fresh, young cheek.

Hortense was silent a moment.

"I'm happy," she said, at last, "but I ain't busy. And--well, if
you're not busy, you can't be happy very long, can you?"

"No," said Emma, "idleness, when you're not used to it, is misery."

"There! You've said it! It's like running on half-time when you're
used to a day-and-night shift. Something's lacking. It isn't that
Henry isn't grand to me, because he is. Evenings, we're so happy that
we just sit and grin at each other and half the time we forget to go to
a 'movie.' After Henry leaves in the morning, I get to work. I
suppose, in the old days, when women used to have to chop the kindling,
and catch the water for washing in a rain-barrel, and keep up a fire in
the kitchen stove and do their own bread baking and all, it used to
keep 'em hustling. But, my goodness! A four-room flat for two isn't
any work. By eleven, I'm through. I've straightened everything, from
the bed to the refrigerator; the marketing's done, and the dinner
vegetables are sitting around in cold water. The mending for two is a
joke. Henry says it's a wonder I don't sew double-breasted buttons on
his undershirts."

Emma was not smiling. But, then, neither was Hortense. She was
talking lightly, seemingly, but her pretty face was quite serious.

"The big noise in my day is when Henry comes home at six. That was all
right and natural, I suppose, in those times when a quilting-bee was a
wild afternoon's work, and teaching school was the most advanced job a
woman could hold down."

Emma was gazing fascinated at the girl's sparkling face. Her own eyes
were very bright, and her lips were parted.

"Tell me, Hortense," sh