n the maid had gone Margaret walked to the door and tried it, for
no reason whatever; it was shut. Her heart was beating violently. She
walked into the middle of the room and looked at herself in the
mirror, and laughed a little breathless laugh. Then she took off her
hat carefully and went into the bedroom that was beyond her sitting
room, and hung her hat in a fragrant white closet that was entirely
and delightfully empty, and put her coat on a hanger, and her gloves
and bag in the empty big top drawer of a great mahogany bureau. Then
she went back to the mirror and looked hard at her own beauty
reflected in it; and laughed her little laugh again.

"It's too good--it's too much!" she whispered.

She investigated her domain, after quelling a wild desire to sit down
at the beautiful desk and try the new pens, the crystal ink-well, and
the heavy paper, with its severely engraved address, in a long letter
to Mother.

There was a tiny upright piano in the sitting-room, and at the
fireplace a deep thick rug, and an immense leather arm-chair. A clock
in crystal and gold flanked by two crystal candlesticks had the centre
of the mantelpiece. On the little round mahogany centre table was a
lamp with a wonderful mosaic shade; a little book-case was filled with
books and magazines. Margaret went to one of the three windows, and
looked down upon the bare trees and the snow in the park, and upon the
rumbling green omnibuses, all bathed in bright chilly sunlight.

A mahogany door with a crystal knob opened into the bedroom, where
there was a polished floor, and more rugs, and a gay rosy wall paper,
and a great bed with a lace cover. Beyond was a bathroom, all enamel,
marble, glass, and nickel-plate, with heavy monogrammed towels on the
rack, three new little wash-cloths sealed in glazed paper, three new
tooth-brushes in paper cases, and a cake of famous English soap just
out of its wrapper.

Over the whole little suite there brooded an exquisite order. Not a
particle of dust broke the shining surfaces of the mahogany, not a
fallen leaf lay under the great bowl of roses on the desk. Now and
then the radiator clanked in the stress; it was hard to believe in
that warmth and silence that a cold winter wind was blowing outside,
and that snow still lay on the ground.

Margaret, resting luxuriously in the big chair, became thoughtful;
presently she went into the bedroom, and knelt down beside the bed.

"O Lord, let me stay here," s