Picking up the long brass tongs, she began to trace pictures on the sooty background of the chimney while she tried to think of a better answer. "It concerns _all_ of you!" "Yes." With his hands in his pockets, Phil walked over to the window and stood looking out over the wide stretch of city roofs below, now almost hidden by the rapidly deepening twilight. He was smiling while he waited, and humming half under his breath a song that his old English nurse used to sing to him and his sister Elsie: "Maid Elsie roams by lane and lea." He had whistled it almost constantly the last few days: "Kling! lang-ling! She seems to hear her bride-bells ring, Her bonnie bride-bells ring!" He hummed it again when Joyce's second guess was wrong, while he waited for the third. Then, when it, too, was wide of the mark and she demanded to be told, he began it again; but this time he sang it meaningly, and loud enough to fill the room with the deep, sweet notes: "A year by seas, a year by lands, A year since then has died, And Elsie at the altar stands, Her sailor at her side. While kling! lang! ling! Their bonnie bride-bells gaily ring!" Joyce's face grew bright with sudden understanding as he finished, and she cried, "Elsie is to be married! Is _that_ what you came to tell me?" "Yes, my littlest, onliest sister is to be married, immediately after Easter, out in California, in the Gold-of-Ophir rose-garden you have heard so much about. We are all going--Daddy and Stuart and Eugenia and little Patricia and your obedient servant, 'Pat's Pill,' himself." He left the window, and stretching himself out in the big chair opposite hers, gave her the details that she instantly demanded. "Elsie's sailor lad is a navy surgeon. The wedding is to be in the rose-garden, because there is where they first met, and there is where Elsie has had all the best times of her life. She has always lived with mother's people, you know, since our home was broken up, and even before mother's death, we used to spend our winters there. Yes, Daddy opposed the marriage at first, but you know Daddy. He'd hardly think an archangel good enough for Elsie." The news had the effect which Phil had foreseen, and Joyce's own affairs retired into the background, while she discussed the matter which was of such vital importance to the whole Tremont family. Later, he asked her to name all the things she considered the most desirable and unique as wedding gifts, and they were still adding to the list from which he was to make his choice, when they heard Mrs. Boyd come out into the hall to turn on the light. In the bright firelight, they had not noticed how dark it had grown outside. Joyce looked at the clock and sprang up, exclaiming: "Lucy will be wanting her cream toast, and it's time also for me to pay my forfeit to you. How much of a supper are you going to claim, young man?"