I had a wonderful tramp through the woods, enjoying it so much that it was after four o’clock when I finally returned home.  Dicky greeted me exuberantly.

“Come along now,” he commanded, rushing me upstairs.  “Come, mother!”

The elder Mrs. Graham appeared at the door of her room, curiosity and disapproval struggling with each other in her face.  But curiosity triumphed.  With a protesting snort she followed us to the door of the locked room.  Dicky unlocked the door with a flourish and stood aside for us to enter.

I gasped as I caught my first sight of the transformed room.  Dicky had not exaggerated—­it was wonderful.

The paper had been taken from the walls, and they and the ceiling had been painted a soft gray with just a touch of blue in its tint.  The woodwork was ivory-tinted throughout, while the floor was painted a deeper shade of the gray that covered the walls.

Almost covering the floor was a gorgeous Chinese rug with wonderful splashes of blue through it.  I knew it must be an imitation of one costing a fortune, but I realized that Dicky must have paid a pretty penny even for the counterfeit, for the coloring and design were cleverly done.

The blue of the rug was reproduced in every detail of the room.  The, window, draperies, of thin, Oriental fabric, had bands of Chinese embroidered silk cunningly sewed on them.  These bands carried out in the azure groundwork and the golden threads the motif of the rug.  The cushions, which were everywhere in evidence, were made of the same embroidered silk which banded the window draperies, while blue strips of the same material were thrown carelessly over a teakwood table and, a chest of drawers.

A chaise lounge of bamboo piled with cushions stood underneath the windows, which commanded a view of the rolling woodland and meadows I had found so beautiful.  Three chairs of the same material completed the furnishings of the room, save for a wonderful Chinese screen reaching almost from the ceiling to the floor, which hid a single iron bed, painted white, of the type used in hospitals, a small bureau, also painted white, and a shaving mirror.

“Don’t want any junk about my sleeping quarters,” Dicky explained, as I looked behind the screen.

“Well, what do you think of it?” he demanded at last, in a hurt tone, as I finished my inspection of the walls, which were almost covered with the originals of Dicky’s best magazine illustrations, framed in narrow, black strips of wood.

“It is truly wonderful, Dicky,” I returned, trying to make my voice enthusiastic.

I could have raved over the room, for I did think it exquisitely beautiful, had not my woman’s intuition detected that another hand than Dicky’s had helped in its preparation.

Only a woman’s cunning fingers could have fashioned the curtains and the cushions I saw in profusion about the room.  I knew her identity before Dicky, after pointing out in detail every article of which he was so proud, said hesitatingly: