t settled, do you know I missed the noise!"

She led Hertha into her parlor, a singularly ugly room, the floor
covered with a series of brightly colored, cheap rugs, the walls
decorated with colored lithographs that might have been bought by the
dozen at some store, so little did they show any individual taste. And
not only did every variety of color leap up from the floor and shine
down from the walls, but the furniture also was bright, the wood a high
varnish in imitation of mahogany, the upholstering in gay green with
lines of yellow.

"I like this room," Dick said emphatically as he seated himself; "it's
so jolly. Now there's a picture for every season of the year. The
Spring's right over your head, Miss Hertha; apple blossoms and a pretty
girl sitting under the tree. And there's Winter in the farther corner
with the snow on the ground like we found it that Sunday morning. It's
fine to have a lot of stories like this hanging on the wall. And Mrs.
Pickens is better than any story, the way she looks after us. There
aren't many here. Only old Mrs. Wood and her daughter and me, and I hope
you."

He had chosen the largest chair, crossed his legs, and looked quite at
home. Mrs. Pickens, beaming at him from the other side of the room,
evidently made much of her one masculine guest. Hertha could see him as
he would come back from work at night, loud-voiced, a little
domineering, wanting attention, demanding that every one laugh at his
least joke. Decidedly, she would not leave Kathleen.

"Won't you show Miss Hertha your vacant room, Mrs. Pickens?" Dick said
as, leaning back in his chair, he stroked the gleaming knob at the end
of the arm. "If you'd just look at it, please?" he added, changing his
tone to one of entreaty as he addressed Hertha.

"I should be glad to," Mrs. Pickens answered. And Hertha, not wishing to
be rude, followed the woman upstairs.

When she turned into the vacant room on the second story at the back,
she gave a start of surprise. Nothing could have been more unlike the
many-hued parlor that she had left. Here was simple furnishing, a white
bed and plain white chairs, a soft gray rug, white curtains, no color
save in the pretty flowered paper that covered the pictureless wall. A
vacant lot in the rear gave an outlook across the next street to the
park, where a long line of trees would soon begin to show their first
blossoms.

"I don't wonder you're surprised," Mrs. Pickens said, "after the parl