“If you are happy, do not fear but I shall be also,” he responded tenderly. “How can I be otherwise in this lovely home?” Salome said, as she glanced around the luxurious room, adding earnestly, “and with you.” He thanked her for those last words with a look that brought a lovely color to her cheeks. Then he said, as some one tapped upon the door: “Here comes Nellie to attend you; let her undress you, so that you can rest more comfortably, and try to sleep if you can.” He left her then, and she heard him cross the hall and enter another room. She went obediently to bed, telling Nellie that she might come to her again, and in a little while she had fallen into a restful slumber. She felt greatly refreshed when she awoke, and, her trunk having arrived, she allowed Nellie to help her dress in the pretty gray silk in which she had been married, and then, with some delicate pink roses—which Dr. Winthrop had sent up—fastened in her corsage, she went down to her husband, looking brighter and lovelier than he had yet seen her. She found the dining-room in perfect keeping with the rest of the house—finished in natural wood, the floor inlaid in an intricate and lovely pattern—the furniture beautifully carved, and upholstered in embossed leather. In the centre of the room there stood a table covered with a heavy white damask cloth and spread with a glittering array of cut-glass and silver, while a butler stood waiting to serve them. Dr. Winthrop led Salome to one end of the table and then took his own place opposite. More and more the young wife found herself wondering how a man of Dr. Winthrop’s apparent wealth and position could have been drawn toward a poor girl who had been a common nurse in a hospital, and have been willing to make her his wife without inquiring more particularly regarding her history. But there was a curious little smile hovering about her lips, as she took her seat at the table and for the first time assumed the duties of her new position, and Dr. Winthrop soon found himself wondering at his wife’s perfect self-possession in it—at the inimitable grace which characterized every movement, as if all her life she had been accustomed to the luxuries, the form and etiquette by which she was now environed. When dinner was over he led her to another room, which was fitted up as a library and music-room. Handsome book-cases filled with books lined the walls. A fine piano stood in one corner, and the hangings and furniture were of olive and old gold. There were rare pictures here also, while in every nook and corner there was some object of beauty and luxury. Dr. Winthrop exerted himself to entertain his bride, and neither had any idea of the lapse of time until the clock struck ten, when the young physician glanced at Salome in dismay half real, half assumed. “A fine physician I am!” he exclaimed, “to keep an invalid up until this hour. Dr. Hunt would surely read me a severe lecture if he knew it.”