a Our Home."

Norman would hardly have been human if he had not cast a quick glance at
her as she stood thoughtfully before the picture. Mae was almost as good
as an Italian for involuntary posing. She had made a tableau of herself
now, with one hand at her eyes to shade them from the glare of the sun
that fell fiercely through the window, her head half on one side, and a
bit of drapery, of lace or soft silk, tight around her white throat. She
felt Norman's glance, and looked up quickly, and smiled and shook her
head: "No, Italy is not my home, although I love it so well. There is
a certain wide old doorway not many miles from New York, and the hills
around it, and the great river before it, and the people in it, all
belong together, too. That's where we belong, Norman, in America,
our home," and Mae struck a grand final pose with her hands clasped
ecstatically, and her eyes flashing in the true Goddess of Liberty
style.

"Yes, I believe we do, Mae; I am almost anxious to get back and begin
work in that young, eager country."

"And so am I," said Mae.

Norman laughed. "To think of your coming down to work, you young
butterfly."

"It is what we all have to come to, isn't it?--unless we go to that
creature that finds some mischief still for idle hands to do. I don't
expect to come to stone-cutting or cattle-driving, but I do expect to
settle down into a tolerable housewifely little woman, and--"

"And look after me."

"Yes, I suppose so--and myself, and probably a sewing-class and
the cook's lame son. Heigh-ho-hum! What a pity it is, that it is so
uninteresting to be good."

"How do you know?"

"Don't be saucy. I do know, perfectly well, that Mae Madden, naughty,
idle, and silly, may be, after all, not so stupid; but get me good,
industrious and wise, and it will take all of my time when I'm not
asleep to keep so. No, there'll be nothing to say about me any more.
I'll be as humdrum as--"

"As I am."

"You--why Norman, are you humdrum?"

"Of course I am, dreadfully humdrum. If you and I were in a story-book,
you would have ten pages to my one, to keep the reader awake. But then,
story-books aren't the end of life. Suppose you, Mae Madden, have been
odd, full of variety, ready to twist common occurrences into something
startling and romantic, have you been happy? Haven't you been restless
and discontented? Now, can't you, grown humdrum and good, be very happy
and contented and joyful, even if the sun rises