Love Stories

en large all over it, leaving Jane to the continued possession of Room 33, a pink kimono with slippers to match, a hand-embroidered face pillow with a rose-col

the family, under the pretence of getting a match, go out into the hall and swear softly under its breath. But it was temper, and the family was not deceived. Als

merge and to brighten the world again with her presence. The family, being her father, said it would be damned if it would, and t

o which would take the count. Not that this appeared on the surface. The masculine Johnson, having closed the summer home on Jane's defection and gone back to the city, sent daily telegrams, novels and hothouse grapes, all three of which Jane devoured indiscriminately. Once, indeed, Father Johnson h

-aunts and cousins routed, her father sulking in town, and the victor herself-or is victor

and yawn. At this hour Jane was accustomed to be washed with tepid water, scented daintily with violet, alcohol-rubbed, talcum-powdered, and final

distinctly. This was an outrage! She would report it to the superintendent. She had been ringi

g a scarlet O as she yawned. In her sleeveless and neckless nightgown, with her hair over her shoulders, minus the more elaborate coiffure which later in

ard and visible token of what she had suffered. Then she found her slippers, a pair of stockings to match an

on. She hitched herself along the boards to the radiato

apped the pink bands into place, thrust her feet into her slippers and rose, shivering. She went to the bed, and by dint of carefu

s achieving a sort of effect a thousand times more bewildering than she had ever managed with a curling iron and twenty seven hair pins, and flinging

ainly just outside her door was a strange man, strangely

at that bore the words "furnace room" down the front in red letters on a white tape, and a clean and spotless

with your bell," said the yo

t to," said

round here, you know," he asserte

the racket I can until

ou done-put

course the young man could not know this, and, besides, he was red-headed. "Look here," said Jane, "I don't know who you are and I do

d at Jane and smiled. Then he walked past her into the r

t present, but if you do that again I'll take the bell out of the room

Jane speechless. After he'd gone about a dozen feet

ything about co

went directly to the bell and put it behind the bed and set it to ringing again. Then she sat down in a chair and picked up a book. Had

isfying jangle for about two minutes and then died away, and no amount of poking

out. From somewhere near at hand there came a pungent odor of burning toast. Jane sniffed; then, driven by hunger, she made a short sally down the hall to the parlour where the nurses on duty ma

nary circumstances the patients' trays were prepared by a pantrymaid, the food being shipped there fr

window scraping busily at a blackened piece of toas

he toast into a corner where there already lay a sma

"I say, since you claim to know so much a

holding her kimono round her. "I said I

n one hand and a toaster in the other, he said: "Madam, I prithee forgive me fo

said Jane, looking at th

red-haired person with a s

"if you'll explain who you are and what you are

t down on the edge of th

nless he's fed soon. He's dangerous, empty. He's reached the cannibalistic stage. If he should see you in that ravishing pink thing, I-I wouldn't answer for the consequences. I'll te

of her kimono, and stepping daintily into the pantry

d, licking some butter off her

cook and the

te of the

tight and th

w of the ca

e red-hair

with the bread ha

perintendent, the staff, the training school, the

ook a sip or two before she would give him the satisfaction of asking him

l's chair and, what with the tea inside and somebody to quarrel with, feelin

e chignon and little else except a kimono was almost too much for him. From somewhere near by came a terrific thumping, as of some

he convalescent typhoid banging for his breakfast. He's be

to feed hi

hing yet. Perhaps if you're ready

ad and tea by this time a

," she said primly. But

en trying at intervals since daylight to make him a piece of toast. The minute I put i

t on eggs to boil, and the re

furnace man from the waist up and an interne from

ast one," she said severely. "He wa

nce. The other fellow left last night and took with him everything portable except the ambulance-nurses, st

. "Are you going

e fashionable summer colony on the hill. I cannot telephone from the village-the telegraph operator is deaf when I speak to h

eats, canned oysters and sausages, or do any plumbing

dollar,

ommented. "Old Sheets wrote it himself. Mr. Cashdolla

hat we are to do," said the red-haired p

iercely, "I shall hate y

red person could imagine nothing more horrible, i

an's ward Mary O'Shaughnessy is looking after them. The furnaces are the worst. I'd have forgiven almost anything else. I've sat up al

at time and four eggs. Also she had a fine flush,

" she cried angrily, "leav

k ones. Two or three neurasthenics like yourself and a convalescent typh

going out the door with her chin up. He called after her, and finding she did not turn he followed her, shouting apologies at her back until

ch had been boiling for two hours by that time, and put it outside the door on the floor. But Jane refused to ge

d the ginger and was wondering what the person about whom she and the family had disagreed would think when he heard the way