the bedroom. She did not
come down in half an hour.

"Was she REALLY getting up when she said she was?" he asked of Annie.

"Yes, she was," replied Annie.

He waited a while, then went to the stairs again.

"Happy New Year," he called.

"Thank you, Chubby dear!" came the laughing voice, far away.

"Buck up!" he implored.

It was nearly an hour, and still he was waiting for her. Morel, who
always rose before six, looked at the clock.

"Well, it's a winder!" he exclaimed.

The family had breakfasted, all but William. He went to the foot of the
stairs.

"Shall I have to send you an Easter egg up there?" he called, rather
crossly. She only laughed. The family expected, after that time of
preparation, something like magic. At last she came, looking very nice
in a blouse and skirt.

"Have you REALLY been all this time getting ready?" he asked.

"Chubby dear! That question is not permitted, is it, Mrs. Morel?"

She played the grand lady at first. When she went with William
to chapel, he in his frock-coat and silk hat, she in her furs and
London-made costume, Paul and Arthur and Annie expected everybody to bow
to the ground in admiration. And Morel, standing in his Sunday suit
at the end of the road, watching the gallant pair go, felt he was the
father of princes and princesses.

And yet she was not so grand. For a year now she had been a sort of
secretary or clerk in a London office. But while she was with the Morels
she queened it. She sat and let Annie or Paul wait on her as if they
were her servants. She treated Mrs. Morel with a certain glibness and
Morel with patronage. But after a day or so she began to change her
tune.

William always wanted Paul or Annie to go along with them on their
walks. It was so much more interesting. And Paul really DID admire
"Gipsy" wholeheartedly; in fact, his mother scarcely forgave the boy for
the adulation with which he treated the girl.

On the second day, when Lily said: "Oh, Annie, do you know where I left
my muff?" William replied:

"You know it is in your bedroom. Why do you ask Annie?"

And Lily went upstairs with a cross, shut mouth. But it angered the
young man that she made a servant of his sister.

On the third evening William and Lily were sitting together in the
parlour by the fire in the dark. At a quarter to eleven Mrs. Morel was
heard raking the fire. William came out to the kitchen, followed by his
beloved.

"Is it as late as that, mother?" he sai