“Oh, I’m not tired!  I’m just childish enough to want to see how it’s all going to look.  Say, Father, that wasn’t the telephone ringing, was it?  You don’t think we might get a telegram yet to-night?”

“Not scarcely!” said Father, with his mouth full of tacks.  “You see, it’s been bad weather, and like as not your letter got storm-stayed a day or so.  You mustn’t count on hearing ’fore Monday I guess.”

They both knew that that letter ought to have reached the hospital where Bonnie Brentwood was supposed to be about six o’clock that evening, for so they had calculated the time between Stephen’s letters to a nicety; but each was engaged in trying to keep the other from getting anxious about the telegram that did not come.  For it was now half past eight by the kitchen clock, and both of them were as nervous as fleas listening for that telephone to ring that would decide the fate of the pretty pink room, whether it was to have an occupant or not.

“These white madras curtains look like there’s been a frost on a cobweb, don’t they?” said Mother Marshall, holding up a pair all arranged upon the brass rod ready to hang.  “And just see how pretty this pink stuff looks against it.  I declare it reminds me of the sunset light on the snow in the orchard out the kitchen window evenings when I was watching for Steve to come home from school.  Say, Father, don’t you think those book-shelves look cozy each side of the bay window?  And wasn’t it clever of Jed Lewis to think of putting hinges to the covers on that window-seat?  She can keep lots of things in there!  Wait till I get those two pink silk cushions you made me buy.  My!  Father, but you and I are getting extravagant in our old age! and all for a girl that may never even answer our letter!”

There was a kind of sob in the end of Mother Marshall’s words that she tried to disguise, but Father caught it and flew to the rescue.

“There now, Mother!” he said, getting laboriously up from the carpet, hammer in hand, and putting his arms tenderly about her.  “There now, Mother!  Don’t you go fretting!  You see, like as not she was asleep when the letter got there, and they wouldn’t wake her up, or mebbe it would be too much excitement for her at night that way!  And then, again, if the mail-train was late it wouldn’t get into the night deliv’ry.  You know that happened once for Steve and he was real worried about us!  Then they might not have deliv’ry at the hospital on Sunday, and she couldn’t get it till Monday morning!  See?  And there’s another thing you got to calcl’ate on, too!  You never thought of that!  She might be too sick yet to read a letter, or think what to say to it!  So just you be patient, Mother!  We’ll just have that much more time to fix things; for, so to speak, now we haven’t got any limitations on what we think she is.  We can just plan for her like she was perfect.  When we get her telegram we’ll get some idea, and begin to know the real girl, but now we’ve just got our own notion of her.”