A woman's figure, clad from head to
foot in furs, sprang from the car at the curb, ran across the sidewalk,
and in at the open door.

"Go back to the hotel and come for me at twelve, Simpson," she said to
her chauffeur as she passed him, and the next moment she was inside the
house and had flung the door heavily shut behind her.

"O Don!" she cried, and assailed the tall figure before her with a furry
embrace, which was returned with a right good will.

"Well, well, Sue girl! Have you driven seventy miles to see me?"
was Brown's response. Bim, circling madly around the pair, barked
his emotion.

"Is this--" began Brown's visitor, glancing rapidly about her as she
released herself. "Is this--" she began again, and stopped helplessly.
Then, "O Don!" she said once more, and again, "O Don!"--and laughed.

"Yes, I know," said Brown, smiling. "Here, let me take off your furs.
It's pretty warm here, I imagine. Bim and I are apt to keep a lot of wood
on the fire."

"Bim?"

"At your feet--and your service."

The lady looked at the dog, who stood watching her.

"Your only companion, Don?" she asked.

"My best chum. He's so nearly human he understands at this moment that
you don't think him handsome. Never mind! We're used to it, aren't we,
Bim? Come over and take this chair, Sue. Are you cold? Would you like
something hot? Tea--or coffee?"

She sat in the chair he drew to the fire for her. As he looked at his
sister's charming, youthful face, and saw her sitting there in her
handsome street dress with its various little indications of wealth and
fashion--the gold-meshed purse on its slender chain, the rare jewel in
the brooch at the throat, the flashing rings on the white hands--he drew
in his breath in an incredulous little whistle.

"Is it really you, Sis?" he said. "You look pretty good to me, do you
know, sitting there in my old chair!"

She glanced at the arm of the old rocker, worn smooth by the rubbing of
many hands.

"Why do you have such a chair?" she answered impatiently--or so it
sounded. "Why in the world, if you must live in a hovel like this, don't
you make yourself comfortable? Send home for some easy chairs, and rugs
and pictures." Her eye wandered about the room. "And a decent
desk--and--and--a well-bred dog!"

He laughed. "A better bred dog, in one sense, than Bim you couldn't
find. His manners are finer than those of most men. And as for this being
a hovel, you do it injustice. It was built