ing-room?"

"Yes. Or it was there when we passed the door just now."

I looked at him. He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not. I hate
riddles.

"Oh, go to blazes!" I retorted, and turned away.

I looked into the dining-room as I went by. There was no story in sight
there, so far as I could see. Hephzy was seated by the table, mending
something, something of mine, of course. She looked up.

"Oh, Hosy," she said, "that letter you brought was a travel book from
the Raymond and Whitcomb folks. I sent a stamp for it. It's awfully
interesting! All about tours through England and France and Switzerland
and everywhere. So cheap they are! I'm pickin' out the ones I'm goin' on
some day. The pictures are lovely. Don't you want to see 'em?"

"Not now," I replied. Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel. She,
who had never been further from Bayport than Hartford, Connecticut, was
forever dreaming of globe-trotting. It was not a new disease with her,
by any means; she had been dreaming the same things ever since I had
known her, and that is since I knew anything. Some day, SOME day she
was going to this, that and the other place. She knew all about these
places, because she had read about them over and over again. Her
knowledge, derived as it was from so many sources, was curiously mixed,
but it was comprehensive, of its kind. She was continually sending
for Cook's circulars and booklets advertising personally conducted
excursions. And, with the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she
picked out, as she had just done, the particular tours she would go on
when her "some day" came. It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but
not half as funny as the thought of her really going would have been. I
would have as soon thought of our front door leaving home and starting
on its travels as of Hephzy's doing it. The door was no more a part and
fixture of that home than she was.

I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down at my
desk. Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of considering
something to write about. That I made up my mind to forget for this
night, at least. My desk chair was my usual seat in that room and I took
that seat as a matter of habit.

As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book. I did not have to
look far. Books were my extravagance--almost my only one. They filled
the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study and overflowed in
untidy heaps on th