day's work and to express an opinion. According to Laura it required[Pg 9] a careful balancing of location and conveniences, of neighborhood and modern improvements before the momentous question should be decided.

[Pg 9]

Does an extra bathroom equal one block further west? Is an onyx-lined entrance greater than a buttoned hall-boy? Are palms in the hall worth more than a red velvet hand-rail with tassels?

These were the questions that racked her soul, and, sympathetically, mine.

Then the name. Laura declared that the name was perhaps the most important factor after all. A name that could stand alone at the top of one's letter paper, without the support of a street number, was indeed an achievement. But, strangely enough, such a name proved to be a very expensive proposition, and Laura put it aside with a resigned sigh.

Who does name the things, anyway? Not the man who invents the names of the Pullman cars, for they are of quite a different sort.

Well, it all made conversation, if nothing more.

"I wish you would express a preference, Otis," Laura would say, and then I would obligingly do so, being careful to prefer the one I knew was not her choice. I did this from the kindest of motives, in order to give the dear girl the opportunity which[Pg 10] I knew she wanted, to argue against my selection, and in favor of her own.

[Pg 10]

Then I ended by being persuaded to her way of thinking, and that settled the matter for that time.

"Of course," she would say, "if you're never going to marry, but always live with me, you ought to have some say in the selection of our home."

"I don't expect to marry," I returned; "that is, I have no intention of such a thing at present. But you never can tell. The only reason I'm not married is because I've never seen the woman I wanted to make my wife. But I may yet do so. I rather fancy that if I ever fall in love, it will be at first sight, and very desperately. Then I shall marry, and hunt an apartment of my own."

"H'm," said my sister, "you seem to have a sublime assurance that the lady will accept you at first sight."

"If she doesn't, I have confidence in my powers of persuasion. But as I haven't seen her yet, you may as well go 

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