"Oh, I shouldn't need to do that!" said Mother, hurrying away to get her magazine, which was never far away these last two or three days. "There's a whole long list here of books 'your young people will want to have in their library.' Wells and Shaw and Ibsen, and a lot of others I never heard of, but these first three I remembered because Stephen spoke of them in one of his first letters about college. Don't you know he was studying a course with those men's books in it? He said he didn't know as he was always going to agree with all they said, but they were big, broad men, and had some fine thoughts. He thought sometimes they hadn't just got the inner light about God and the Bible and all, but they were the kind of men who were getting there, striving after truth, and would likely find it and hand it out to the world again when they got it; like the wise men hunting everywhere for a Saviour. Don't you remember, Father?" "I remember!" Father tried to speak cheerily, but his breath ended in a sigh, for the carpet was heavy. Mother looked at him sharply and changed the subject. It wasn't always easy to keep Father cheerful about Stephen's going. "You don't suppose we could get those curtains up to-night, too, do you?" "Why, I reckon!" said Father, stopping for a puff of breath and looking up to the white woodwork at the top of the windows. "You got 'em all ready to put up, all sewed and everything? Why, I reckon I could put up those rods after I get across this end, and then you could slip the curtains on while I was doing the rest. You don't want to get too tired, Mother. You know you been sewing a long time to-day." "Oh, I'm not tired! I'm just childish enough to want to see how it's all going to look. Say, Father, that wasn't the telephone ringing, was it? You don't think we might get a telegram yet to-night?" "Not scarcely!" said Father, with his mouth full of tacks. "You see, it's been bad weather, and like as not your letter got storm-stayed a day or so. You mustn't count on hearing 'fore Monday I guess." They both knew that that letter ought to have reached the hospital where Bonnie Brentwood was supposed to be about six o'clock that evening, for so they had calculated the time between Stephen's letters to a nicety; but each was engaged in trying to keep the other from getting anxious about the telegram that did not come. For it was now half past eight by the kitchen clock, and both of them were as nervous as fleas listening for that telephone to ring that would decide the fate of the pretty pink room, whether it was to have an occupant or not.