m, he was met by
warmth and brightness. Here was the light of leaping flames and of a
low-shaded lamp. On the table beside the lamp was a pot of pink
hyacinths, and their fragrance made the air sweet. The inner room was
no longer a rosy bower, but a man's retreat, with its substantial
furniture, its simplicity, its absence of non-essentials. In this room
Roger set down his bag, and Susan Jenks, hanging big towels and little
ones in the bathroom, drawing the curtains, and coaxing the fire,
flitted cozily back and forth for a few minutes and then withdrew.

It was then that Roger surveyed his domain. He was monarch of all of
it. The big chair was his to rest in, the fire was his, the low lamp,
all the old friends in the bookcases!

He went again into the inner room. The glass candlesticks were gone
and the photographs in their silver and ivory frames, but over the
mantel there was a Corot print with forest vistas, and another above
his little bedside table. On the table was a small electric lamp with
a green shade, a new magazine, and a little old bulging Bible with a
limp leather binding.

As he stood looking down at the little table, he was thrilled by the
sense of safety after a storm. Outside was the world with its harsh
judgments. Outside was the rain and the beating wind. Within were
these signs of a heart-warming hospitality. Here was no bleak
cleanliness, no perfunctory arrangement, but a place prepared as for an
honored guest.

Down-stairs Mary was explaining to Aunt Isabelle. "I'll have Susan
Jenks take some coffee to him. He's to get his dinners in town, and
Susan will serve his breakfast in his room. But I thought the coffee
to-night after the rain--might be comfortable."

The two women were in the dining-room. The table had been set for
three, but Barry had not come.

The dinner had been a simple affair--an unfashionably nourishing soup,
a broiled fish, a salad and now the coffee. Thus did Mary and Susan
Jenks make income and expenses meet. Susan's good cooking,
supplementing Mary's gastronomic discrimination, made a feast of the
simple fare.

"What's his business, my dear?"

"Mr. Poole's? He's in the Treasury. But I think he's studying
something. He seemed to be so eager for the books----"

"Your father's books?"

"Yes. I left them all up there. I even left father's old Bible.
Somehow I felt that if any one was tired or lonely that the old Bible
would open at the right pa