Macauley looked at her. "Not in that dress, I hope," he observed, bluntly. "It beats me, the way women wear their thinnest clothes in the coldest weather. I wonder how I'd feel with the kind of rig you're wearing. And it's none too warm here, it strikes me, if you don't mind my saying it, in spite of that good-looking fire." "The room warms rather slowly in this extreme weather," Charlotte admitted. She was standing close to the fire, in the unquestionably summerlike dress of the blue cotton she chose for all her working frocks. With its low rolling collar and short sleeves it certainly did not suggest comfort. If Macauley had suspected that beneath it was no compensating protection, he would have been considerably more concerned than he was. His wife was accustomed to explain to him, when he criticised the inadequacy of her attire, that she fully made up for it by some extra, hidden warmth of clothing. And when he complained that anyhow she didn't look warm she invariably replied that nothing could be more deceiving than looks. He walked over to the windows. They were rattling stormily with each gust of the tempest raging outside, and as he held his hand at their edges he could feel all the winds of heaven raging in. "Jupiter!" he exclaimed. "No wonder you're cold. That stage fire of yours can't warm all outdoors. I'll send for some window strips and nail you up." "Please don't bother, Mr. Macauley. I am going to stuff them with cotton myself, and that will do quite well. If you will be so kind as to telephone this order to the grocery for me I shall be grateful, though I hardly see how the delivery wagons can get about." He took the paper she handed him, and absently, after the manner of the householder, his eyes scanned it. "Why, you want to order in larger lots than these!" he exclaimed. Then, as he looked up and saw her smiling without reply, he reddened and stammered hastily: "I beg your pardon; I looked without thinking. But, if you don't mind my advising you, I'd say double each of these items, at least; it's economy in the end. And--where's the meat order? Have you forgotten?" "There are eggs on the grocery list," said Charlotte, a little flame of colour rising in her own cheek. "Granny prefers those. But you may double each item, if you wish. Probably you don't realize that I'm not ordering for a family like yours, and things spoil quickly when kept in the kitchen, as we keep ours." "Of course you know your own affairs," mumbled Macauley, in some embarrassment. "But, if you'd heard R.P. Burns charging me to look after you as if you belonged to me, you'd pardon my impertinence."