we
don't want so much, may be around us, to the right of us, and the left
of us, but even so, nobody can ever--come between."

The door-bell rang.

"Oh, I hoped nobody would know you were home to-night!' cried Charlotte,
the smile fading from her lips. Doctor Churchill went quickly to the
door. A messenger boy with a telegram stood outside. The doctor read the
dispatch and dismissed the boy. Then he turned to Charlotte.

"No, it's no bad news," he said, and came close. "It's just--can you
bear up?--another impending guest! Charlotte, I've done a lot of talking
about hospitality, and I meant it all. I certainly want our latch-string
always out, but--_don't you think we rushed that copper motto into place
just a bit too soon_?"

* * * * *

CHAPTER III

"Charlotte, what are we going to do? It turns out Lee has his sister
with him!"

Mrs. Andrew Churchill, engaged in making up a fresh bed with linen
smelling faintly of lavender, dropped her sheets and blankets and stood
up straight. She gazed across the room at Andy, whose face expressed
both amusement and dismay.

"Andy," said she, "haven't I somewhere heard a proverb to the effect
that it never rains but it pours?"

"There's an impression on my mind that you have," said her husband. "You
are now about to have a practical demonstration of that same proverb. I
wrote Lee, as you suggested after his second telegram, and this is his
answer. He was detained by the illness of his sister Evelyn, who is with
him. It seems she was at school up here in our state, but overworked and
finally broke down, and he has come to take her home. But you see home
for them means a boarding-house. The family is broken up, mother dead,
father at the ends of the earth; and Lee has Evelyn on his hands. The
worst of it is, he wants me to see her professionally, so I can't very
well suggest that we're too full to entertain her."

"Of course you can't," agreed Charlotte, promptly. "But it means that we
must find another room somewhere in the house. Of course mother
would--but I don't want to begin right away to send extra guests over
there."

"Neither do I," said Doctor Churchill. "Do you suppose we could put a
cot into my private office for Lee? Then the sister could have this."

"How old is she?"

"Sixteen, he says."

"Oh, then this will do. And we can put a cot in your private
office--after office hours. If Mr. Lee is an old friend he won't