* * * * *

Jennings hastened in to where Stephen was sitting alone.

"Mr. Stephen," he cried, "what's coming to us? There's that French hussy
outside, and a motor-car in the drive, and the chauffeur's asking where
he's to sleep. The woman wants to know whether she can have the same
bedroom for her mistress as last time!"

"Then why don't you go and see about it, you old fool?" Stephen replied.
"Pick up those pieces of glass there, lay the cloth, and get some supper
ready."

Jennings gazed at his master, dumbfounded. No power of speech remained
to him.

Through the open doorway they heard Aline's voice in the hall.

"Meester Jennings, will you please come and help me with the luggage?"

"Get along with you!" Stephen ordered. "You'd better hurry up with the
supper, too. The boy Tom can see to the luggage."

The old man recovered himself slowly.

"You're taking 'em in, sir--taking 'em into the house?" he gasped. "What
about that toast?"

Stephen refilled two glasses.

"We'd better alter it a little," he declared. "Here's confusion to most
women, but luck to John and his wife!"

"Mr. John and his wife!" Jennings repeated, as he set his glass down
empty. "I'll just see that them sheets is aired up-stairs, sir, or that
hussy will be making eyes at Tom!"

He departed, and Stephen was left alone. He sat and listened to the
sound of luggage being taken upstairs, to Aline's little torrent of
directions, good-humored but profuse, to the sound of preparations in
the kitchen. In the room the tall clock ticked solemnly; a fragment of
the log every now and then fell upon the hearth.

Presently he rose to his feet. He heard the click of the garden gate,
the sound of John and Louise returning. He rose and stood ready to
welcome them.

THE END

Popular Copyright Novels

_AT MODERATE PRICES_

Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of
A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction

=Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.= By Frank L. Packard.
=Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle.
=Affinities, and Other Stories.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
=After House, The.= By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
=Against the Winds.= By Kate Jordan.
=Ailsa Paige.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=Also Ran.= By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.
=Amateur Gentleman, The.= By Jeffery