have the upper hand, they'll continue to carry out half of my directions—the half they approve, and neglect the other half—the really important half, and then come round and tell me I haven't helped them any—and why not? Oh, well—far be it from me to complain of the routine work, much as I prefer the sort which calls for all the skill and resource I happen to possess. And the dull part is going to take on a new interest, now, when I can escape from the office into my wife's quarters, between times, where no patient can follow me."

She smiled, watching a big cloud, low on the horizon before them, break into fragments and dissolve into blue sky and sunshine. "I hope," said she, "to be able to make those quarters attractive. You remember I haven't seen them yet—not even the bare rooms."

"That's bothered me a good deal, in spite of the assurance you gave me, when we discussed it by letter. If I hadn't been so horribly busy, and had had the faintest notion of what to do with them—or if you had wanted Martha and Winifred to put them in shape for you—"

"But I didn't! It's going to be such fun to work it out, you and I together."

He shook his head. "Don't count on me, dear. I probably shan't have time to do more than take you in to town and drop you in the shopping district. You'll have to do it all. You've married a doctor, Ellen—that's the whole story. And it's the knowledge of that fact that makes me realize that I may as well leave my bride at the fifty-mile-stone. It'll take my wife that fifty miles to prepare herself for the thing that's going to strike her the minute we are home. And, by the fates, I believe that's the stone, ahead there, at the curve of the road!"

He brought the Green Imp's pace down until it was moving very slowly toward the mile-stone. Then he turned and looked steadily down into the face beside him. "Shall you be sorry to get there?" he asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to be a bride. They are useless persons. And I don't care much for bridegrooms, either. I prefer a busy husband. And I shall enjoy getting those rooms in order, quite by myself. To tell the truth I'm not at all sure I don't prefer to do them alone. I've had one enlightening experience, shopping with you, you know."

"So you have." He laughed at the remembrance. "Yet I thought I was pretty meek, that day. Well, so you don't mind getting to the mile-stone?"

"Not a bit."

They were beside it now. Burns stopped the car. It was a country road, although it was the main highway between two large cities, and on this April afternoon it was deserted by motorists. Only in the distance could be discerned anything in the nature of a vehicle, and that was headed the other way.

"I suppose I'm a sentimental chap," he observed. "But in one way I've been rather dreading getting home, for your sake. It's come over me, since we turned our faces this way, that not a thing has been done to make my shabby old place fit for you—except to clean it thoroughly. Cynthia's seen to that. Does it seem as if I hadn't cared to give you a fit welcome home?"

His eyes were a little troubled, as they searched hers. But they grew light again as they read in her serene glance that she did not misunderstand him.

"Red," said she—and her hand slipped into his—"I like best to come into your house, just as it is. Take me in—that's all I ask—and trust me to make my own home there—and in your heart. That's all I want."

"You're in my heart," said her husband, "so close and warm there's not much room for anything else."

"Then don't worry about the house. It will be a dear delight to fill the empty rooms; I've a genius for that sort of thing. Wait and see. And meanwhile"—she smiled up into his nearing face—"say good-bye to your bride. She's quite ready to go—and give place to your wife."

So Redfield Pepper Burns kissed his bride, with the ardour of farewell. But the next minute, safe in the shelter of the deep-hooded top, he had welcomed his wife with his heart of hearts upon his lips, and a few low-spoken words in her ear which would make the fiftieth-from-the-office mile-stone a place to remember for them both.

Then he drove on, silently, for a while, as if the little roadside ceremony had left behind it thoughts too deep for expression. And, quite unconsciously, his hand upon the throttle was giving the Imp more and more power, so that the car flew past the succeeding mile-stones at such short intervals that before the pair knew it they were within sight of the city on the farther side of which lay the suburban village which was their home.

"I might stop at the hospital and see how things are," said Burns as they entered the city's outskirts. "But it would be precisely my luck to find something to detain me, and I think I owe it to you to take you home before I begin on anything else."

"Stop, if you want to, Red," said Ellen. "I expected you would."

"But I don't want to. I might have to send some one else to drive you out to the house, and that would break me up. I want to see you walk in at the door, and know that you belong there. Then, if you like, and not till then, I'll be content to go on duty at the old job."

So he took her home. As they approached the village the ninth April shower of the afternoon came blustering up, accompanied by a burst of wind and considerable thunder and lightning, so that when they caught sight of the low-lying old brick house, well back from the street, which was Red Pepper Burns's combined home and office, after the fashion of the village doctor, it was through a wall of rain.

But the house was not the only thing they saw. In the street before the house stood a row of vehicles. One electric runabout, hooded and luxurious; two "buggies," of the village type, drawn by single horses standing dejectedly with drooping ears and tails; one farmer's wagon, filled with boxes and barrels, its horses hitched to Burns's post by a rope: this was the assemblage.

Red Pepper drew one long, low whistle of dismay, then he burst into a laugh. "Confound that blundering angel, Cynthia," he ejaculated. "She's let it out that we're coming. And Amy Mathewson—my office nurse—not due till to-morrow, to protect us! I was prepared, in a way, to pitch into work, but, by George, I didn't expect to see that familiar sight to-day! Hang it all!"

"Never mind." Ellen was laughing, too. "Remember you've left the bride behind. Your wife will soon be used to it."

"We'll run in by the Chesters' driveway, and sneak in at the back door," and Burns suited the action to the word by turning in at the gateway of his next door neighbour. "I rather wonder Win or Martha didn't go over and drive away my too-eager clientele."

"Possibly they thought it would look more like home to you with an office full of patients."

"It certainly will, though I could dispense with them to-night without much sorrow. But—where am I going to put you? You can get to my room, but you won't want to stay there. The part of the house that will be the living part for you is either empty or cluttered up with wedding presents. By all that's crazy, Ellen, I'm just waking up to the fact that there isn't any place to put you, when there are patients in the house—which there ever-lastingly are—except the dining-room and kitchen! Lord Harry! what am I going to do? And what will you think of me? Dolt that I am!"

He had heard her laugh before. A low and melodious laugh she had, and he had often listened to it and joined in with it, and rejoiced at the ability she possessed to laugh where many women would cry. But he had never heard her laugh as she was laughing now. Her understanding of the situation which had only just struck him was complete. She knew precisely how busy he had been in the weeks preceding the wedding, and how thankfully he had accepted her suggestion that she come to his home just as it was, and plan for herself what disposal she would make of the empty rooms in a house of which