"I do feel tired, but I'm repaid for it. Yes, this is the very house we have been hunting for; just the number of rooms we want, just the kind of garden we want, and so many things we thought we couldn't afford. Then the stable and coach-house--not that we have much use for them, but it looks well to have them, and to speak of them to our friends in an off-hand way. Then the fruit trees--what money it will save us, gathering the fruit quite fresh as we want it! I have in my eye the paper for the drawing and dining rooms; and your study, my dear, shall be as cozy as money can make it. I have something to tell you--a secret. I have put away--never mind where--a long stocking, and in it there is a nice little sum saved up out of housekeeping pennies. That money shall be spent in decorating No. 79 Lamb's Terrace." Thus rattled on this wonderful wife of mine, working herself into such a state of rapture at the prospect of obtaining the Ideal Residence I had drawn out for her, and which she believed she had obtained, that I could not help admiring more and more her sanguine temperament and her indomitable resolution. Her pluck, her endurance, her persistence, were beyond praise; such women are cut out for pioneers in difficult undertakings; they never give in, they never know when they are beaten. In the midst of her glowing utterances I heard the sound of rapid steps behind us, and, turning, saw the elderly man, whose head, bobbing up and down in Mr. Gascoigne's office, had so engaged my attention. He had been running after us very quickly, and his breath was almost gone. "I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon," he said, speaking with difficulty, "but--excuse me, I must get my breath." We waited till he had recovered, my wife with the expectation that he was charged with a message from Mr. Gascoigne, I with no such expectation. I felt that he had come after us on a purely personal matter, and as I gazed at him I had an odd impression that, at some period of my life, I had been familiar with a face like his. I could not, however, bring to my mind any person resembling him. "The agent has given us the keys of the wrong house," whispered my wife. "I hope it is no worse than that; I hope he hasn't made a mistake in the rent." She was in great fear lest the splendid chance was gone and the house in Lamb's Terrace was lost to us. "I am all right now," said the stranger, "and I must beg you to excuse me if I am mistaken. I think not, for I seem to recognize your features; and yet it is so long ago--so long ago!" The impression that I had known him in earlier years grew stronger. "I heard your name," he continued, "while I was working at my desk. When you handed your card to Mr. Gascoigne he spoke it aloud, and I recognized it as that of an old school friend. It so stirred me that I fear you must have thought me rude for staring at you as I did. My name is Millet, Bob Millet--don't you remember?"