"A fine woman, and a most devoted wife!" pronounced Dr. Bradley, at his luncheon-table, that day. "Let me hear no more gossip about her, girls. Remember!"
"But, Papa, they do say they live queerly!" ventured the irrepressible Selina. "Mrs. Wyllys—"
"Is a fool! see that you don't become another in listening to her twaddle!" was the peremptory reply.
Orrin Wyllys, hearing accidentally of his cousin's indisposition, called at noon, and was conducted by Phoebe, by warrant of the relationship, into Roy's presence. The chamber was heated usually by the furnace register, but Roy lay in bed gazing at the glowing pile of coals in the grate. There was a happy ray in his eyes, spontaneity in the gayety with which he welcomed his guest, that did not accord with the latter's preconceived ideas of the dolor of a sick-room.
"You look like an invalid—don't you?" was Wyllys' second remark. "This is the cheeriest place I have been in to-day. It is what the English call beastly weather, out-of-doors. I don't blame anybody for keeping his bed. I thought you showed me the room across the hall as yours when you took me through the house, that night, 'the last of your quasi widowerhood.'"
"We changed the arrangement afterward," rejoined Roy, carelessly. "But it is a luxury—is'n't it? to lie still on a stormy day, and stare a fire like that out of countenance; especially on a holiday, when there are no phantoms of unsaid lectures to torment one's reveries. I am enjoying it amazingly. I hadn't the remotest conception that being sick was so delightful."
"By Jove! I should think you would luxuriate in it, unless you have less brains than I give you credit for! With an houri for head-nurse, too! I say! get out of that! I can play the sentimental sufferer as well as you, and I have a native bias for lazy luxury, which you haven't. I dare say, you cunning dog! if all were told, there is some dainty mess preparing for you below stairs,—a triumph of conjugal affection and culinary skill, that should be tasted by none but an educated appetite. A Teuton like yourself would be as well suited with bretzels and sauerkraut, washed down by a gallon of lager. I am a devout predestinarian, and here lies the case. I have a canine hunger upon me. I am on my way home to luncheon. Without, 'the day is dark and cold and dreary.' I am led to this corner of cosiness and comfort and fairy fare to dispossess you. Impostor! how dare you lie there, and grin at my emptiness and agony! Confess! what did you have for breakfast? What do you mean to devour for lunch? What do you hope to consume for dinner?"
Roy could never resist the infection of this merry banter, seldom indulged in by Orrin except when with him. It brought back their early days—"when you thrashed the big boys for bullying me"—he liked to remind the other when they slept, played, and studied together. Orrin had his foibles, and a graver fault or so, but he was his friend, as he had told Dr. Baxter, and the boyish love for his gallant senior was still strong upon him. His laugh now was hearty and mischievous.
"Such a breakfast!" he said. "Gotten up in strict conformity with the injunction—'Feed a cold'"—
"And you will have a fever to starve!" interjected Wyllys. "That would be poetical justice! But go on!"