She disappeared as the Green Imp's horn vociferated a signal of greeting from far down the road.
"They'll never get time to grow tired of each other," commented Martha, as the two friends descended the old-time winding staircase. "Isn't this old hall delightful, now? I never realized the possibilities of the house, with this part closed so long."
"One more peep at the living-room, and then we'll go. Isn't it just like Ellen? Such a charming, quiet room, without the least bit of ostentation, yet simply breathing beauty and refinement. She is the most wonderful shopper I know. She made every dollar Red furnished go twice as far as I could. I don't suppose he would let her spend a penny of her own on this house."
"He's too busy to know or care what she does—till he sees it. I'll venture she has slipped in a penny or two. That magnificent piano is hers, you know,—and two or three pieces of furniture. All he'll realize is that it's delightful and that she's in it. It's all so funny, anyhow,—this bringing home a bride and having her fall to work to furnish her own nest."
"She's enjoyed it. I'd like to be on the scene to-night, when she shows it to him."
"No chance of that. When Red does get her to himself for ten minutes he quite plainly prefers to have the rest of us depart. Have you noticed?"
"Yes, indeed. I only hope that state of things will last." And Winifred smiled and sighed at once, as if she were skeptical concerning of the permanency of married bliss.
Office-hours were full ones that evening, and it was quite nine o'clock before R.P. Burns, M.D. closed the door on the last of his patients. The moment he was free he turned to Miss Mathewson, his office nurse, with a deep breath of relief.
"Let's put out the lights and call it off," he said. "Run home and get an hour to yourself before bedtime, and never mind finishing the books. Do you know,"—he was smiling 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 than anybody in the world, though he did not at all realize this,—"do you know, I find it harder to settle down to work again than I thought I should? Curious, isn't it?"
"Not at all curious, Doctor Burns." Miss Mathewson spoke in her usual quiet tone, smiling in return. "It is distracting, even to me, to know that a person so lovely as your wife is under the same roof."