There could be no doubt that Juliet was becoming interested in her task.

Though the July heat was intense she led the way with rapid steps to the place where she meant to select her rugs. Here the three spent a trying two hours. It was hard to please Miss Marcy with j.a.panese jute rugs, satisfactory in colouring though many of them were, when she longed to buy Persian pieces of distinction. If Juliet had a special weakness it was for choice antique rugs.

She cornered Anthony at last, while Mrs. Dingley and the salesman were politely but unequivocally disputing over the quality of a certain piece of Chinese weaving.

"Tony," she begged, "please let me get that one dear Turkish square for the living-room. It will give character to the whole room, and the colours are perfectly exquisite. I simply can't get one of those cheap things to go in front of that beautiful old fireplace. Imagine the firelight on that square; it would make you want to spend your evenings at home. Please!"

"Do you imagine that I shall ever want to spend them anywhere else?" asked Tony softly, looking down into her appealing face. "Why, chum, I'd like to get that Tabriz you admire so much, if it would please you, in spite of the fact that we should have to pull the whole house up forty notches to match it. But even the Turkish square is out of the question."

"But, Tony"--Juliet was whispering now with her head a little bent and her eyes on the lapel of his coat--"won't you let me do it as my--my contribution? I'd like to put something of my own into your house."

"You dear little girl," Anthony answered--and possibly for her own peace of mind it was fortunate that Miss Langham, of California, could not see the look with which he regarded Miss Marcy, of Ma.s.sachusetts--"I'm sure you would. And you are putting into it just what is priceless to me--your individuality and your perfect taste. But I can't let even you help furnish that house. She--must take what I--and only I--can give her."

"You're perfectly ridiculous," murmured Juliet, turning away with an expression of deep displeasure. "As if she wouldn't bring all sorts of elegant stuff with her, and make your cheap things look insignificant."

"I don't think she will," returned Anthony with conviction. "She'll bring nothing out of keeping with the house."

"I thought you told me she was of a wealthy family."

"She is. But if she marries me she leaves all that behind. I'll have no wife on any other basis."

"Well--for a son of the Robesons of Kentucky you are absolutely the most absurd boy anybody ever heard of," declared the girl hotly under her breath. Then she walked over and ordered a certain inexpensive rug for the living-room with the air of a princess and the cheeks of a poppy.

IV.--THE COST OF FROCKS

It may have been that Miss Marcy was piqued into trying to see how little she could spend, but certain it was that from the time she left the carpet shop she begged for no exceptions to Mr. Robeson's rule of strict economy.

She selected simple, delicate muslins for the windows, one and all, without a glance at finer draperies; bought denims and printed stuffs as if she had never heard of costlier upholsteries; and turned away from seductive pieces of Turkish and Indian embroideries offered for her inspection with a demure, "No, I don't care to look at those now," which more than once brought a covert smile to Anthony's lips and a twinkle to the eyes of the salesman. It was so very evident that the fair buyer did not pa.s.s them by for lack of interest.

Altogether, it was an interesting week these three people spent--for a week it took. Anthony began to protest after the first two days, and said he could not ask so much of his friends. But Juliet would not be hindered from taking infinite pains, and Mrs. Dingley good humouredly lent the two her chaperonage and her occasional counsel, such as only the gray-haired matron of long housewifely experience can furnish.

The selection of the furniture took perhaps the most time, and was the hardest, because of the difficulty of finding good styles in keeping with the limited purse. Anthony possessed a number of good pieces of antique character, but beyond these everything was to be purchased. Juliet turned in despair from one shop after another, and when it came to the fitting of the dining-room she grew distinctly indignant.

"It's a perfect shame," she said, "that they can't offer really good designs in the cheap things. Did you ever see anything so hideous? Tony, if I were you I'd rather eat my breakfast off one of those white kitchen tables--or----"

She broke off suddenly, rushed away down the long room to a group of chastely elegant dining-room furniture and came back after a little with a face of great eagerness to drag her companions away with her. She took them to survey a set of the costliest of all.

"Have you gone crazy?" Anthony inquired.

"Not at all. Tony, just study that table. It's ma.s.sive, but it's simple--simple as beauty always is. Look at those perfectly straight legs--what clever cabinet maker couldn't copy that in--in ash, Tony? Then there are stains--I've heard of them--that rub into wood and then finish in some way so it's smooth and satiny. You could do that--I'm sure you could. Then you'd get the lovely big top you want. And the chairs--do you see the plain, solid-looking things? I know they could be made this way.

Then the dining-room would be simply dear!"

"Juliet, you're coming on," declared Anthony with satisfaction that evening as the two, back at the Marcy country place, strolled slowly over the lawn toward the river edge. "At this rate you'll do for a poor man's wife yourself some day. That frock you have on now--isn't that a sort of concession to the humble company you're in?"

"In what way?" Juliet glanced down at the pale-green gown whose delicate skirts she was daintily lifting, and in which she looked like a flower in its calyx. She had rejoiced to exchange the dusty dress in which she had come home from town for this, which suggested coolness in each fresh fold.

"Why, it strikes me as about the simplest dress I ever saw you wear. Isn't it really--well--the least expensive thing you have had in that line in some time?"

The amused laugh with which this observation was greeted might have been disconcerting to anybody but Anthony Robeson, but he maintained his ground with calmness.

"How many of these do you think you can furnish Mrs. Anthony with in a year?" Juliet inquired, her lips forcing themselves to soberness, but the laughter lingering in her eyes.

"Several, as girlishly demure as that, I fancy," a.s.serted the young man with confidence.

But Juliet's momentary gravity broke down. "Oh, you clever boy!" she said.

"I shall advise Mrs. Anthony to send you shopping for her when she needs a new frock. You will order home just what she wants without stopping to ask the price, you will be so confident that you know a cheap thing when you see it. Afterward you will pay the bill--and then the awful frown on your brow! You will have to live on bread and milk for a month to get your accounts straightened out. Oh, Tony!--No, I shouldn't do for a poor man's wife--not judging by this 'girlishly demure' gown, you poor lamb.--But, Tony," with a swift change of manner, "I do think the little house will be very charming indeed. I can hardly wait to know that the painting and papering are done, so that we can go down and get things in order. I long to arrange those fascinating new tin things in that bit of a cupboard.

Tony"--turning to him solemnly--"does _she_ know how to cook?"

"I think she is learning now," he a.s.sured her. "Seems to me she mentioned it in to-day's----" He fumbled in his breast-pocket and brought out a letter.

Juliet stole an interested glance at it. She observed that there were three closely written sheets of the heavy linen paper, and that the handwriting was one suggestive of a pleasing individuality. Anthony, in the dim twilight, was scanning page after page in a lover's absorbed way.

Juliet walked along by his side in silence. She was thinking of the face in the photograph, and wondering if Miss Eleanor Langham really loved Anthony Robeson as he deserved to be loved.

"For he is a dear, dear fellow," she said to herself, "and if she could just see him planning so enthusiastically for her comfort, even if he does have to economise, she'd----"

"No, it's not in this letter," observed Anthony, putting the sheets together with a lingering touch which did not escape his companion's quick eyes. "It must have been in yesterday's."

"Does she write every day?"

"Did you ever hear of an engaged pair who didn't write every day?"

"It must take a good deal of your time," she remarked. "But, of course, she can cook. Every sane girl takes a cooking-school course nowadays. It's as essential as French."

"You did, then?"

"Of course. Don't you remember when I used to edify you with new and wonderful dishes every time you dropped in to luncheon?"

"But did you learn the more important things?"

"I paid especial attention to soups, sir," laughed Juliet. "Now, if Mrs.

Anthony has done that you can live very economically."

"I'll suggest it to her," said Anthony gravely.

V.--MUSLINS AND TACKHAMMERS

It took several trips to the small house, and a great deal of hemming and ruffling of muslin on the part of Juliet and the Marcy sewing-woman, to say nothing of many days of Anthony's hard labour, to get everything in place. But it was all done at length, and the hour arrived to close the new home and leave it to wait the oncoming day in September when it should be permanently opened.

"I'll just go over it once more," said Juliet to Mrs. Dingley. The latter lady was lying in a hammock out under the apple trees, waiting for train time and her final release from duties which were becoming decidedly wearisome. It was the first day of August, and the evening was a warm one.

Anthony had gone off upon a last errand of some sort. Mrs. Dingley was too exhausted to offer to accompany her niece, and Juliet ran back into the house alone. She wandered slowly through the rooms, looking about to see if there might be any perfecting touch which she could add.