Mrs. Red Pepper

iend Winifred, Mrs. Arthur Chester. In precisely these same relative positions were they also her neighbours as to their own homes. Their husbands were Red Pepper's best friends, outside those

declared Winifred Chester, "and I'm goin

ts browns and blues will be too dull for them, and Ellen's old Turkey carpet too different from their

furnishes the keynote of the whole room. Isn't it fortunate that the room should be so lon

ng gesture. "Red will forget every care, the minute h

If he hadn't been so busy it would have been hard to keep him away, but

in it with you. How you both will hate the

ut I suppose I shall dread them,

t comfortable looking thing I ever saw," sighed Winifred Chester, casting her plump little figure

and can't be found, when a call finds him stretched

ed the way, an engaging figure in a fresh white mornin

had been wife and widow, and had lost her li

e seems to have gone back and begun

wouldn't have had if she hadn't gone through so

hung rooms, one large, one somewhat smaller, b

ere inspecting both rooms for the first time instead of the fortieth. She had made the gray-an

ls admiringly. "This is your bachelor's room, you say, Ellen? Oh, you've put a d

e's always wanted to ask certain ones, and neve

love with you. By the way, do you know Red has a terribly je

like my idea of a book-shelf

bachelors. You'll never be rid of

I never saw a trace of i

ords. He couldn't help it

trustful wife, because I happen to have them? Oh!"-she ran to the window-"there come

's horn vociferated a signal of

friends descended the old-time winding staircase. "Isn't this old hall delightful,

ast bit of ostentation, yet simply breathing beauty and refinement. She is the most wonderful shopper I know. She made ever

ficent piano is hers, you know,-and two or three pieces of furniture. All he'll realize is that it's delightful and that

to be on the scene to-nigh

mself for ten minutes he quite plainly prefers

." And Winifred smiled and sighed at once, as if she wer

.P. Burns, M.D. closed the door on the last of his patients. The moment he was f

g down at her, where she sat, a trim white figure at her desk, an assistant who had been his right hand for nine years, and who perhaps knew his moods and tempers better

al quiet tone, smiling in return. "It is distracting, even to me, t

astonishment. "So she's got you, too!" he ejaculated. "I'm mighty glad of that, for it will tend to make you sympathe

ent on getting to his room and exchanging his working garb for one suited to the evening he meant to sp

yman loomed i

tor

l lies to nobody, "but he is engaged. Office-hou

him," said the co

unless it is quite necessar

hen a fellow has a broken leg. Got him out her

d Miss Mathewson sm

who came out, frowning,

you know it's against the law to break

med by the men in bringing the injured man

e living-room. "But after that I shall not be here to answer the d

res, one in the severe white of a uniform, the other in the filmy,

hand on the nurse's arm, "how good it is of you to care! But I can wai

len. The nurse was the taller, and looked the older of the two, but the affectionate phrase "little person" had somehow touched a heart

ush of pleasure. Then the nurse flew back to the office, while Ellen, after listen

e so rich and one so poor-under the same roof? She sees more of him than I,-lives her life closer to him, in a way,-and yet I am rich and she i

nveyed back to the wagon which had brought him; and Red Pepper Burns took a l

e home'll be no midsummer-night's-dream, but I see that upper lip of your

e than once, his offices being in the wing, and the upright portion having been totally unused since he had

e, dear," said a voice from behi

ded arm kept his wife away from him. "Let me go and refresh," he begged. "I can't bear t

ntleman of leisure, with hands cleaner than those of any fastidious clubman, and clothes which

A man has some rights, if he is a doctor. Morgan, up the street there, is the new man in town, and he has a d

, in absolute contentment. He seemed to see nothing of the new quarters, though he was now just outside the li

said she. "Have

I have you. Still

m suggested, above all things, quiet and repose, yet there was a soft and mellow cheer about it which made it anything but sombre. Its browns and blues and ivories wrought out an exquisite harmony. The furniture was simple but solid, the roomy high-backed d

ook, and she discovered that he was not finding it easy to tell her what he thought of it all. She led him to the couch and drew him down beside her. He put his arm about her, and with h

it, but I had no possible notion how beautiful it would be. There is just one thing about it that breaks me up a bit. Perhaps you won't

spared enough of that t

me, every time," he said. "Yes, I could have spared love enough-no doubt of that. But it

decorator. And why should you want to take away from me the happiness of making my own nest? Don't you know it's the home-maker w

first begin to think about it, coming toward it. Home! It's Paradise! This great

t, down in the pillows. I hope you

here. I'm used to catching forty winks in my old leat

an one tale of hours spent there, when you needed sounder sleep. It's

never going to think I'm being badly used, no matter what goes wrong. Come, let's stroll about. I want to look at every separate

And Aunt Lucy gave me this big rug, made from the old drawing-room carpet. I built the whole room on the rug colouri

d? Not-in your W

, R

em under their heavy brows the feeling he could not conceal that he could

'm a brute, I know, but-you're mine now. Will

t's go upstairs. I'm almost as pr

examined everything in the living-room and pronounced all thin

bachelor friends you mentioned, so I lost no

efore. Comfortable, aren't they? I'm glad there's covering on them. I never like to hear people racketing up and down bare stairs, be they never so polish

gh. "I thought you were the mo

He looked in at the door of the gray-and-rose room, a

silent, staring

d sitting down in that willow chair

hs of the white willow chair, her dark head against its cushioning of so

e. "This is no guest-r

downstairs, with you-unle

," he repeated. "It's easy enough to recognize it. It looks just like you. I've been uncomfortable a

ing in her eyes told him that all was not yet sa

brought up here," he added-and found her arms about his neck.

oom," he reminded her presently. "T

the bachelor's room. Burns s

nfessed. "And I know the bachelor who will sleep in i

Why,

disturb you. They won't bother Bob a minute. And when I come in at 2 a.m. I can

r the bachelor! The desk,-th

r arrangement. The two rooms together make a

ests? There's only one more ro

go an

Burns lit it and proceeded to explore, Ellen following.

said he, throwing open a do

mfortable room, even if I do my best wi

ed, "if he's really a desirable chap, and we want him around more than a day or two, he can bunk in my old room downstairs. When he's not there I'll use it for an annex to my offices. Somebody

e gray-and-rose room. "Remember how long you have had that downstairs room,-you are atta

, a judicial expression on his brow. Beneath his coppery hair his black eyebrows drew together a little above a

your rooms up here. I am quite contented there, with you, and not in the least afraid with Cynthia sle

re would be a good place to have the door cut thro

rial, with an applied border of the gray-and-rose chintz. As he moved it light burst through from

is wife laid a hand on either richly colouring cheek, gently forcing her face

me, the one downstairs certainly looks like you. I d

aughed. "What is it, now, do you thi

e refuge there, just as you're used to doing. Leave those three pictures on your walls, and look at them often, as you've always done. And be sure of this, R

her eyes, which gave him back his look as str

At the same time I'm confident you understand one thing more: