me a stick."

"Isn't she awful," laughed Mary. "Don't you dare give her a stick, Tom."
But Tom did dare, and Mrs. Norris, with her smiling benignity, stood
waving the stick back and forth over the fire in time with the andante
movement of her favourite Brahms sonata.

"Well, we might as well get ready to eat that old stuff," said Nancy to
Furbush. "Don't you dread it?"

"I would not dread it, dear, so much, dreaded I not mother more," he
replied, to Mary's intense gratification. But Tom, who heard the
low-spoken words, thought them decidedly forced and disliked Furbush the
more for them.

Furbush's presence was undoubtedly a drawback to Tom's pleasure. How
could he be natural with a person whom he disliked as much as he did
Furbush and who he knew disliked him? Besides, he did not feel like
being sprightly and picnicky with Nancy beside him. Instead, he felt
homesick, or at least that is the way it seemed to him. Still, how could
it be genuine homesickness when the object of his yearning was beside
him? Nevertheless, there had been in his thoughts recently the picture
of a certain small colonial house in Tutors' Lane, a house now for rent
or for sale. Possibly, however, the contrast of such a life--the house
would be furnished with highboys and gate-leg tables and oval, woven
mats--with his present one at Mrs. Ruddel's furnished him with a genuine
case of homesickness, after all. How perfect would life be in such
surroundings! He liked to think of breakfast: He and Nancy, alone,
except, of course, for the pretty, efficient maid--at their mahogany
breakfast table. Nancy, busy with the coffee things at one end and he at
the other--no, at the side--tucking away his grapefruit and bacon and
hot buttered muffins and jam in the last few minutes before he dashed
off up the hill to his eight-thirty. Good heavens, what a life that
would be! He saw Nancy with the morning light on her hair and her
pleasant, lively face--the nose with only the faintest possible trace of
powder--bending over his cup; and then he realized that he was gazing at
her now in the same position, only with the sunset light in her hair,
and with a white porcelain cup receiving the coffee out of a thermos
bottle, instead of a china cup from a swelling-silver pot.

"Careful Tommy, you are dribbling it all over me."

"Oh, Nancy, I'm so sorry. I ask you, isn't that stupid. Please excuse
me."

"A little lemon or a hot iron or soap and water will fix it, p