er, that she felt herself entitled to physical
comforts after the labors of her day. There were half a dozen
easy-chairs and a big divan covered with cushions. The carpet and
cushions were red, but although the room was delightfully comfortable
and homelike it might have been a bachelor's, so entirely were lacking
all the little devices of femininity. The only ornaments in the room
were an odd assortment of Tyrolese pipes and Indian baskets. On a shelf
above the divan, however, were many books, and Gwynne ran his eye over
them. They included masterpieces of the modern Russian, German, French,
and Italian schools; only three or four volumes of English criticism. A
set of shelves opposite was filled with the standard English and
American histories, essays, and novels, many of them old and bound in
calf. The upper shelf was devoted entirely to the Russian novelists, and
the bindings were new.

When Isabel came down, looking very pretty in a blue evening frock,
simple enough to make her guest feel at ease in his travelling-clothes,
but carefully selected with an eye to effect, she sent him up to her
room to make his own simple toilet.

"I suppose I should furnish a spare room," she remarked. "But if I did I
should have Paula--my adopted sister--and her family here whenever they
happened to want to come, which would be always when I didn't want them.
But you won't mind."

Gwynne made a wry face as he sat down before the dressing-table that he
might reflect his visage while he brushed his hair. Nevertheless, he
cast about a curious and apologetic eye, in the belief that a woman's
bedroom must reveal some secret of her personality. This bedroom was so
simple and girlish that it gave him a vague sense of pleasure. The
windows and dressing-table were covered with white muslin, and there was
a canopy of the same above the little brass bedstead. The flounces were
so full and fluffy that he held his knees back nervously lest he should
disturb a puff. There was no other furniture in the room but two
rocking-chairs, and the only color was in the blue Japanese rugs
scattered over the white matting, and in two immense bows above the
dressing-table and bed. He decided, as he ran down the stairs to the
warm room below, that she understood both taste and comfort, and looked
forward to his own lonely ranch-house with more equanimity than when he
had paid the bill.

IV

There were two miles between Rosewater and Old Inn, but a