Cynthia's
magnificent muffins?"

"No, thank you. And I'll plunge into my errand, for I know at any minute
you may jump up and run away. You may, anyway, when you hear what I want!
Promise me, Red, that you won't go until you've heard me out."

"What a reputation I have for speed at escape!" But Burns glanced at his
watch as he spoke. "Fire away, Martha. Five minutes you shall have--and
I'm afraid no more. I'm due at the hospital in half an hour."

"Well, I want to give a reception for you." Martha took the plunge. "I
know you hate them, but Ellen doesn't,--at least, she knows such things
are necessary, no matter how much you may wish they weren't. I don't mean
a formal reception, of course. I know how you both feel about trying to
ape city society customs, in a little suburban village like this. But I
do think, since you had such a quiet wedding, you ought to give people a
chance to come in and greet you, as a newly married pair."

Burns's eyes met his wife's across the table. There was a comical look of
dismay in his face. "I thought," said he, "you and I agreed to cut out
all that sort of thing. As for being a newly married pair--we aren't.
We've been married since the beginning of time. I can't conceive of
existence apart from Mrs. Redfield Pepper Burns, nor recall any period
of my life when she wasn't a part of it."

"You've been married just seven weeks and three days, however," retorted
his sister-in-law, with a touch of impatience, though she smiled, "and
not a quarter of the people in town have ever met Ellen. You'll find that
it's not the same, now that you're married. They won't flock to your
office, just out of admiration for you, unless you show them some
attention."

Burns chuckled. "Won't they? By George, I wish they wouldn't! Then I
could find time to spend an uninterrupted hour with my wife, at least
once a day."

"Do be reasonable, Red. Ellen, will you make him see it's a very simple
thing I'm asking of him? Just to stand by you and shake hands for a
couple of hours. Then he can go out and stand on his head on the lawn,
if he wants to."

"To relieve the tension?" her victim suggested. "That's an excellent
idea--real compensation. But as the blood will be all at the top, anyway,
after two hours' effort at being agreeable, saying the same idiotic
things over and over, and grinning steadily all the time, I think I'd
prefer soaking my head under a pump."

"Do what pleases you, if you'll only let