r's reply, with a graceful shrug of his shoulders.
'Don't bother about that there is money enough for us both. What I
invested in Europe has trebled itself, and more too, and would make me a
rich man if I had nothing else. I am always lucky. I played but once at
Monte Carlo, just before I came home, and won ten thousand dollars,
which I invested in--But no matter; that is a surprise--something for
your wife and Gretchen. I have come home to stay. I do not think I am
quite what I used to be. I was sick all that time when you heard from me
so seldom, and I am not strong yet. I need quite a rest. I have seen the
world, and am tired of it, and now I want a house for Gretchen and
myself, and you too. I expect you to stay with me as long as we pull
together pleasantly and you do not interfere with my plans. I am going
to take the three south rooms on the second floor for my own. I shall
put folding-doors, or rather a wide arch between two of them, making
them almost like one, and these I shall fit up to suit my own taste. In
the smaller and middle room, where I slept last night, I shall have a
large bow window, with shelves for books in the spaces between and
beneath, and by the sides of the windows. I got the idea in a villa a
little way out of Florence. Opposite this bow window, on the other side
of the room, I shall have niches in the wall and corners for statuary,
with shelves for books above and below. I have some beautiful pieces of
marble from Florence and Rome. The Venus de Milo, Apollo Belvidere,
Nydra and Psyche, and Ruth at the Well. But the crowning glory of this
room will be the upper half of the middle window of the bow. This is to
be of stained glass, bright but soft colors which harmonize perfectly,
two rows on the four sides, and in the centre a lovely picture of
Gretchen, also of cathedral glass, and so like her that it seems to
speak to me in her soft German tongue. I had it made from a photograph I
have of her, and it is very natural--the same sad, sweet smile around
the lips which never said an unkind word to any one--the same bright,
wavy hair, and eyes of blue, innocent as a child--and Gretchen is little
more than that. She is only twenty-one--poor little Gretchen!' and,
leaning back in his chair, Arthur seemed to be lost in recollections of
the past.

Not pleasant, all of them, it would seem, for there was a moisture in
his eyes when he at last looked up in response to his brother's
questioning.

'Wh