"Bless your heart," answered Allan, fondly. "It's dear of you, and I hope it'll work. I'm starving this minute—kiss me."
"'Longing is divine compared with satiety,'" she reminded him, as she yielded. "How could you get away? Was nobody ill?"
"Nobody would have the heart to be ill on a Saturday in June, when a doctor's best girl was only fifty miles away. Monday, I'll go back and put some cholera or typhoid germs in the water supply, and get nice and busy. Who's up yonder?" indicating the hotel.
"Nobody we know, but very few of the guests have come, so far."
"Guests"
"In all our varied speech," commented Allan, "I know of nothing so exquisitely ironical as alluding to the people who stop at a hotel as 'guests.' In Mexico, they call them 'passengers,' which is more in keeping with the facts. Fancy the feelings of a real guest upon receiving a bill of the usual proportions. I should consider it a violation of hospitality if a man at my house had to pay three prices for his dinner and a tip besides."
"You always had queer notions," remarked Eloise, with a sidelong glance which set his heart to pounding. "We'll call them inmates if you like it better. As yet, there are only eight inmates besides ourselves, though more are coming next week. Two old couples, one widow, one divorcée, and two spinsters with life-works."
"No galloping cherubs?"
"School isn't out yet."
Life-Works