at dainty laces and shining silver were to be
used for his daily fare and not merely as "company fixings," and being
adaptable, the good-natured man obediently fell in with her wishes.

And now he was as deft and handy with his table appointments as Patty
herself, and quite free from self-consciousness or awkwardness.

"You've made me all over, Patty," he would sometimes say; "now, I really
like these dinky doo-daddles better than the 'old oaken bucket' effects
on which I was brought up!"

And then Patty would beg him to tell her more about his early days and
his wild Western life in the years before she knew him.

It was her great regret that Bill had no parents, nor indeed any near
relatives. An only child, and early orphaned, he had lived a few years
with a cousin and then had shifted for himself. A self-made man,--as
they are styled,--he had developed fine business ability, and had also
managed to acquire a familiarity with the best in literature. Patty was
continually astonished by his ready references and his quotations from
the works of the best authors.

Indeed, the room he took the deepest interest in furnishing in their new
home was the library.

For the purpose he selected the largest room in the house. It had been
designed as a drawing-room or ballroom; but Farnsworth said that its
location and outlook made it an ideal library. He had an enormous window
cut, that filled almost the whole of one side of the room, and which
looked out upon a beautiful view, especially at sunset.

Then the furnishings were chosen for comfort and ease as well as
preserving the dignified effect that should belong to a library. The book
cases were filled with the books already owned by the two and new ones
were chosen and bought by degrees as they were desired or needed.

The reference portion was complete and the cases devoted to poetry and
essays well filled. Fiction, too, of the lasting kind, and delightful
books of travel, biography and humour.

There were reading chairs, arranged near windows and with handy tables;
there were desks, perfectly appointed; racks of new books and magazines;
portfolios of pictures, and cosy window seats and _tete-a-tetes_.

There were a few fine pictures, and many little intimate sketches by
worth-while pencils or brushes. And there were treasured books, valuable
intrinsically or because of their inscriptions, that Farnsworth had
collected here and there.

Small wonder, then, that the l