"Not there," she said, gravely; "that is my husband's study, and he may come in any moment. This is our sitting-room."
She opened another door as she spoke, and we followed her dazedly across the threshold into a space which, properly utilized, might have made a comfortable single sleeping-room. It was quite seven feet by nine and had one window, looking out on a dingy barn. The painted floor was partly covered by a rug. Katrina's zither stood stiffly in a corner, three chairs backed themselves sternly against the wall. Katrina indicated two of these, and dropped on the third with her radiant smile.
"We use this as the sitting-room," she remarked, casually, "because my husband needs plenty of light and space when he works. Oh, my dear girls!" she broke out; "you don't know how glad I am to see you! Tell me everything that has happened since we met—all about college and your friends there."
As she spoke, there was the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall, followed by the noisy opening and shutting of a door. The pushing about of chairs in the next room and the drop of a heavy body into one of them suggested that the professor was at home and in his study. Katrina corroborated this surmise.
"My husband," she murmured, with a little blush. "He is early to-day."
The words were drowned by a roar.
"Katrina," bellowed a bass voice of startling depth, "bring my slippers!"
Katrina rose on the instant.
"You will excuse me?" she said, hastily. "Talk till I come back."
We did not talk, having some abysmal suspicion that if we talked we might say something. I gazed steadily at a little German picture on the wall—one I had given our hostess years before—and Jessica hummed a college-song under her breath. We heard Katrina's feet fly up-stairs, down again, and into the study. Almost immediately she returned to us, her cheeks pink from her exertions.