"Eight dollars f'r the two of us. All right; we'll be with you a week or two if we have luck."
Mrs. Welsh smiled. "Excuse me, won't you? I've got to be at my baking; make y'rselves at home."
Bert remarked how much she looked like his own mother in the back. She had the same tired droop in the shoulders, the same colorless dress, characterless with much washing.
"Certainly. I feel at home already," replied Bert. "Now, Jim," he said, after she left the room, "I'm going t' stay right here while you go and order our trunks around—just t' pay you off f'r last night."
"All right," said Hartley cheerily, going out.
After getting warm, Bert returned to the sitting-room, and sat down at the parlor organ and played a gospel hymn or two from the Moody and Sankey hymnal. He was in the midst of the chorus of Let Your Lower Lights, etc., when a young woman entered the room. She had a whisk-broom in her hand, and stood a picture of gentle surprise. Bert wheeled about on his stool.
"I thought it was Stella," she began.
"I'm a book agent," Bert explained. "I might as well out with it. There are two of us. Come here to board."
"Oh!" said the girl, with some relief. She was very fair and very slight, almost frail. Her eyes were of the sunniest blue, her face pale and somewhat thin, but her lips showed scarlet, and her teeth were fine. Bert liked her and smiled.
"A book agent is the next thing to a burglar, I know; but still—"