Mrs. Red Pepper by Grace S. Richmond


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Page 7

"I prefer the green-leaf pattern, it looks so cool and fresh." Martha
eyed details admiringly. "This is your bachelor's room, you say, Ellen?
Oh, you've put a desk in it! The bachelor will want to stay forever. Who
do you suppose he will be?"

"The first friend of Red's who comes. He says he's always wanted to ask
certain ones, and never had a place to put them, except at the hotel."

"He'd better be careful whom he asks--now. They'll all fall in love with
you. By the way, do you know Red has a terribly jealous streak?" Winifred
glanced quickly at Ellen as she spoke.

"No--what nonsense! How do you like my idea of a book-shelf by the bed,
and a drop-light?"

"Pampering--pure pampering of your bachelors. You'll never be rid of
them. But he can be jealous, Ellen."

"What makes you think so? I never saw a trace of it," cried Martha
Macauley.

"It's there--you mark my words. He couldn't help it--with his hair and
eyes."

Ellen laughed. "Hair and eyes! What about my black locks and eyes? Shall
I not make a trustful wife, because I happen to have them? Oh!"--she ran
to the window--"there comes the Imp! You'll excuse me if I run down?
Red's been away all night and all morning."

She disappeared as the Green Imp's horn vociferated a signal of greeting
from far down the road.

"They'll never get time to grow tired of each other," commented Martha,
as the two friends descended the old-time winding staircase. "Isn't this
old hall delightful, now? I never realized the possibilities of the
house, with this part closed so long."

"One more peep at the living-room, and then we'll go. Isn't it just like
Ellen? Such a charming, quiet room, without the least bit of ostentation,
yet simply breathing beauty and refinement. She is the most wonderful
shopper I know. She made every dollar Red furnished go twice as far as I
could. I don't suppose he would let her spend a penny of her own on this
house."

"He's too busy to know or care what she does--till he sees it. I'll
venture she has slipped in a penny or two. That magnificent piano
is hers, you know,--and two or three pieces of furniture. All he'll
realize is that it's delightful and that she's in it. It's all so funny,
anyhow,--this bringing home a bride and having her fall to work to
furnish her own nest."

"She's enjoyed it. I'd like to be on the scene to-night, when she shows
it to him."

"No chance of that. When Red does get her to himself for ten minutes he
quite plainly prefers to have the rest of us depart. Have you noticed?"

"Yes, indeed. I only hope that state of things will last." And Winifred
smiled and sighed at once, as if she were skeptical concerning of the
permanency of married bliss.

Office-hours were full ones that evening, and it was quite nine o'clock
before R.P. Burns, M.D. closed the door on the last of his patients. The
moment he was free he turned to Miss Mathewson, his office nurse, with a
deep breath of relief.

"Let's put out the lights and call it off," he said. "Run home and get an
hour to yourself before bedtime, and never mind finishing the books. Do
you know,"--he was smiling down at her, where she sat, a trim white
figure at her desk, an assistant who had been his right hand for nine
years, and who perhaps knew his moods and tempers better than anybody in
the world, though he did not at all realize this,--"do you know, I find
it harder to settle down to work again than I thought I should? Curious,
isn't it?"

"Not at all curious, Doctor Burns." Miss Mathewson spoke in her usual
quiet tone, smiling in return. "It is distracting, even to me, to know
that a person so lovely as your wife is under the same roof."

This was much for this most reserved associate of his to say, and Burns
recognized it. He regarded her with interested astonishment. "So she's
got you, too!" he ejaculated. "I'm mighty glad of that, for it will tend
to make you sympathetic with my wish to have an hour to myself--and
her--now and then. I'm to see my home to-night, for the first
time,--if--"

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Fri 10th Jan 2025, 5:47