"Go back to the hotel and come for me at twelve, Simpson," she said to her chauffeur as she passed him, and the next moment she was inside the house and had flung the door heavily shut behind her. "O Don!" she cried, and assailed the tall figure before her with a furry embrace, which was returned with a right good will. "Well, well, Sue girl! Have you driven seventy miles to see me?" was Brown's response. Bim, circling madly around the pair, barked his emotion. "Is this--" began Brown's visitor, glancing rapidly about her as she released herself. "Is this--" she began again, and stopped helplessly. Then, "O Don!" she said once more, and again, "O Don!"--and laughed. "Yes, I know," said Brown, smiling. "Here, let me take off your furs. It's pretty warm here, I imagine. Bim and I are apt to keep a lot of wood on the fire." "Bim?" "At your feet--and your service." The lady looked at the dog, who stood watching her. "Your only companion, Don?" she asked. "My best chum. He's so nearly human he understands at this moment that you don't think him handsome. Never mind! We're used to it, aren't we, Bim? Come over and take this chair, Sue. Are you cold? Would you like something hot? Tea--or coffee?" She sat in the chair he drew to the fire for her. As he looked at his sister's charming, youthful face, and saw her sitting there in her handsome street dress with its various little indications of wealth and fashion--the gold-meshed purse on its slender chain, the rare jewel in the brooch at the throat, the flashing rings on the white hands--he drew in his breath in an incredulous little whistle. "Is it really you, Sis?" he said. "You look pretty good to me, do you know, sitting there in my old chair!" She glanced at the arm of the old rocker, worn smooth by the rubbing of many hands. "Why do you have such a chair?" she answered impatiently--or so it sounded. "Why in the world, if you must live in a hovel like this, don't you make yourself comfortable? Send home for some easy chairs, and rugs and pictures." Her eye wandered about the room. "And a decent desk--and--and--a well-bred dog!" He laughed. "A better bred dog, in one sense, than Bim you couldn't find. His manners are finer than those of most men. And as for this being a hovel, you do it injustice. It was built at the beginning of the last century by a titled Englishman, who used it for an office on his estate. Look at the big oak beams. Look at the floor, the doors, the fireplace. It's a distinguished little old house, Sue. Admit it!" She shook her head. "I'll admit nothing, except that you are the most eccentric fellow who ever lived, to come off here and stay all by yourself, when you've been the idol of a congregation like St. Timothy's--and might still be their idol, if you would take just a little more assistance and not kill yourself with work. I've no patience with you, Don!"