"Restful!" Mrs. Chester clasped her hands in a speaking gesture. "Red will forget every care, the minute he steps into it. When are you going to show it to him?" "To-night, when the fire is lighted and evening office-hours are over. If he hadn't been so busy it would have been hard to keep him away, but he hasn't had an hour to spare even for guessing what I've been doing." "I hope he'll have an hour to spare, to stay in it with you. How you both will hate the sound of the office-bell and the telephones!" "I'm going to try hard not to, but I suppose I shall dread them, in spite of myself," Ellen owned. "This great couch, facing the fire, with all these lovely blue silk pillows, is certainly the most comfortable looking thing I ever saw," sighed Winifred Chester, casting her plump little figure into the davenport's roomy depths and clasping her hands under her head in an attitude of repose. "If Red doesn't send out word that he's not at home and can't be found, when a call finds him stretched out here, he's a stronger character than I think him." "Now let's go up and look at the guest-rooms." Ellen led the way, an engaging figure in a fresh white morning dress, her cheeks glowing with colour like a girl's. "If you didn't know, would you ever dream she had been wife and widow, and had lost her little son?" murmured Winifred in Martha's ear. Martha Macauley shook her head. "She seems to have gone back and begun all over again. Yet there's a look--" Winifred nodded. "Of course there is--a look she wouldn't have had if she hadn't gone through so much. It's given her such a rich sort of bloom." The guest-rooms were airy, attractive, chintz-hung rooms, one large, one somewhat smaller, but both wearing a hospitable look of readiness. "I like the gray-and-rose room best," announced Winifred, after a critical survey, as if she were inspecting both rooms for the first time instead of the fortieth. She had made the gray-and-rose chintz hangings herself, delighting in each exquisite yard of the fine imported material. "I prefer the green-leaf pattern, it looks so cool and fresh." Martha eyed details admiringly. "This is your bachelor's room, you say, Ellen? Oh, you've put a desk in it! The bachelor will want to stay forever. Who do you suppose he will be?" "The first friend of Red's who comes. He says he's always wanted to ask certain ones, and never had a place to put them, except at the hotel." "He'd better be careful whom he asks--now. They'll all fall in love with you. By the way, do you know Red has a terribly jealous streak?" Winifred glanced quickly at Ellen as she spoke. "No--what nonsense! How do you like my idea of a book-shelf by the bed, and a drop-light?" "Pampering--pure pampering of your bachelors. You'll never be rid of them. But he can be jealous, Ellen." "What makes you think so? I never saw a trace of it," cried Martha Macauley. "It's there--you mark my words. He couldn't help it--with his hair and eyes."