“What’s that?”

“‘Grateful Patient.’ Old Mrs. Ludermann, only rich family on my books. Most of this junk”—he waved a complacent hand—“is wedding presents.”

He had many patients who were grateful, it appeared, but only one with taste. There were appalling[5] ornaments and pictures, among them, inevitably, a feverishly tinted copy of “The Dying Child.” Darrow had stirred the edge of the rug with the toe of his boot. “Well, Effie, I’m glad something makes a hit with you! Fact is, I sort of figured we’d take it back to Field’s and get credit for it. Old Lady Ludermann’d never know the difference, and it’s out a’ place with the rest of our stuff.”

[5]

But the bride had cried out in passionate protest. “No, Glenwood, no! Please let me keep it! I think—I feel everything else is out of place with this!”

“Suit yourself.” He had yielded, good-temperedly enough, but he was a little hurt under his crust of gruffness. “It stays. Unless”—he grinned—“unless it takes one good look around and starts crawling back to Persia!”

During the early years of her marriage Effie Darrow had held the lovely rug as a symbol, a goal, but without success. Her husband was a good doctor, and a bad business man. He loved his work, and it bothered him very little when people paid him slowly, in dribblets which never seemed to count, or not at all, but the comfortable, shabby, easy-going poverty which ensued crushed his wife completely.

After the birth of their only child—and Darrow had wanted six, and four of them boys—she began definitely to droop.

A palely pretty creature, Glenwood Darrow continued[6] to love her faithfully, though he had stopped being in love with her rather early in the second year. It is probable that he came to regard her more as a patient than a wife,—a patient who never paid.

[6]

At any rate, when two of his colleagues met in consultation, decreed that she must be moved to a milder climate, he submitted without complaint or audible regret.

Effie rallied immediately. With every mile of the journey southward a faint pink warmed in her cheeks and lips. It was not merely the thought of a more indulgent thermometer: it was escape into a new life, a new world. Not even the thought of the hideous carpets and the glistening golden oak, following her 

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