Rose’s explanations were not the plainest that could have been given, but Jimmie extracted from the medley of facts a very prominent one. It was not a _Miss_ but a _Mrs._, to whom he was to be agreeable. It had not seemed a very unpleasant duty to change a beautiful young girl’s opinion of himself, but a Mrs. was a very different affair, and for the first time since his arrival his old, merry, half-sarcastic laugh rang through the room, as with a mocking whistle, he said, “A widow, hey! How many children does she boast?” “Not a single bit of a one,” Rose answered, feeling that Jimmie had said something very bad of Annie. He saw it in her countenance, and hastened to make amends by asking numberless questions about Annie, whose history from the time of Rose’s first acquaintance with her up to the present hour, he managed at last to get, the result being that he was not as much interested in the Widow Graham, as he mischievously called her, as he might have been in _Miss Annie_. The easily disheartened Rose gave him up as incorrigible, and mentally hoping Tom would not prove as refractory as Jimmie had done, she turned the conversation upon Will, whose goodness she extolled until the supper bell rang and Jimmie arose to leave her for a time, as she was not prepared to go down that night and do the honors of the table. * * * * * The gas was lighted in the dining-room, and the heavy damask curtains were dropped before the long French windows. A cheerful coal fire was blazing on the marble hearth, while the table, with its snowy linen, its china, silver and cut glass, presented a most inviting appearance, making Jimmie feel more at home than he had through all the long years of his voluntary exile from the parental roof. “This is nice,” he said, with a pleasant feeling of satisfaction not unmingled with a certain degree of self-reproach, which whispered that after what had passed he was hardly worthy to be the recipient of so much luxury.