Mr. Falconer
thought, and so he said very cordially.

"Oh," sighed our poor Susan when she was again at home, "how good it
seems to have such appreciation!"

Susan made inquiries of Mr. Hamilton of the Hamilton Block concerning
Mr. Falconer.

"Very nice man--very nice man, indeed!" Mr. Hamilton answered briskly:
"deals on the square, and always up to time."

So the papers were drawn up, and Mr. Falconer paid the first month's
rent--forty dollars.

"Here, Gertrude," Susan said, handing her sister a roll of bills:
"half the rent of my house I shall allow you. Make yourself as pretty
as you can with it."

"Oh, you blessed darling angel!" Gertrude cried in a transport.
"You're the best sister that ever lived, Susie: you really are. Make
myself pretty! I tell you I mean to shine like a star with this money.
Twenty dollars a month! Delia Spaulding spends five times as much, I
suppose. But never mind. I have an eye and I have fingers: I'll make
my money do wonders."

This Gertrude indeed did. She knew instinctively what colors and what
shapes would suit her form and face and harmonize with her general
wardrobe. So she wasted nothing in experiments or in articles to be
discarded because unbecoming or inharmonious. If Gertrude's toilets
were less expensive than Delia Spaulding's, they were more unique
and more picturesque. Indeed, there was not in her set a more
prettily-dressed girl than Gertrude, and scarcely a prettier girl. Her
society among the gentlemen was soon quoted at par, and then rose to a
premium.

Promptly on the first day of the second month Mr. Falconer called to
pay Susan's rent.

"How does your friend like the house?" she asked with a pardonable
desire to hear her house praised.

"Very much indeed. She says it is the most complete house of its kind
that she ever saw. Who was your architect, Miss Summerhaze? I
ask because the question has been asked of me by a gentleman who
contemplates building an inexpensive residence."

"I planned the house," Susan answered, a light coming into her face.

"Indeed! In all its details?"

"Yes, I planned everything."

"Have you studied architecture?"

"Not until I undertook to plan that house."

"That is your first effort? You never planned a house before?"

"No."

"You ought to turn builder: you ought to open an architect's office."

Susan laughed at the novel suggestion, for that was before the days
when women were showing their heads in all the wal