"Why, I suppose it works very well," said Carey cautiously. "Judith seems contented. We have as good meals as the average in such houses, and the people are rather a nice lot. We're invited around quite a good deal, and Judith likes that. I ought to like it better than I do, somehow. I'm so confoundedly tired when I get home nights I can't help thinking of you and Juliet here in this jolly room. There's an abominable blue and yellow wall-paper on our sitting-room--and it has a way of appearing to turn seasick in the evening under the electrics. Sometimes I think it's that that makes me feel----" "Seasick, too?" inquired the doctor with his professional air. He was standing with his arm on the chimney-piece, looking alternately down on his friends and around the long, low room. It _was_ a jolly room--the very essence of comfort and cosiness. It was a beautiful room, too, in a simple way; one which satisfied his sense of harmony in colours and fabrics--a keen sense with him, as it is apt to be with men of his profession. "Judith likes this, too, you know," Carey went on loyally. "She thinks it's great. But how to get it for ourselves--that's another matter. Somehow, you were lucky." "Did you ever happen to see," asked Anthony, "a photograph I took, just for fun, of this house as it was when Juliet saw it first? No? Well, just look in that box on the end of the farther bookcase, will you? It's near the top--there--that's it." He lay looking up through half-closed lashes at the two men as they studied the photograph, the doctor leaning over Carey's shoulder. "On your word, man, did it look like that?" cried Barnes. "Just like that." "Yes, I've heard it did," admitted Carey; "but I never quite believed it could have been as bad as that." "Who planned it all?" the doctor asked, getting possession of the photograph as Carey laid it down, and giving it careful scrutiny. "My little home-maker." "Jove--are there any more like her?" "They're pretty rare, I understand. Juliet has one in training--one with a good deal of native capacity, I should judge." "Let me know when her graduation day approaches," remarked the doctor. * * * * * When he fell asleep that night in the dainty guest-room Barnes was wondering whether Mrs. Robeson got her own breakfasts, and hoping that she certainly did not, at least when guests were in the house. He was down half an hour earlier than necessary, and to his great satisfaction found a slender figure brushing up ashes and setting the fireplace in order for the morning fire. As he begged leave to help he noted the satin smoothness of Miss Redding's heavy black hair and the trim perfection of her attire. She reminded him of his hospital nurses in their immaculate blue and white. When he saw the mistress of the house and found her similarly dressed a certain skepticism grew in his mind.