“My dear, will you kindly pour me a second cup of coffee?  Not because I really want it, you know, but entirely for the aesthetic pleasure of seeing your pretty little hands pattering about the cups.”

Lennox Sanderson, in a crimson velvet smoking jacket, was regarding Anna with the most undisguised admiration from the other side of the round table, that held their breakfast,—­their first honeymoon breakfast, as Anna supposed it to be.

“Anything to please my husband,” she answered with a flitting blush.

“Your husband?  Ah, say it again; it sounds awfully good from you.”

“So you don’t really care for any more coffee, but just want to see my hands among the cups.  How appreciative you are!” And there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she began with great elaboration the pantomimic representation of pouring a cup of coffee, adding sugar and cream; and concluded by handing the empty cup to Sanderson.  “It would be such a pity to waste the coffee, Lennie, when you only wanted to see my hands.”

“If I am not going to have the coffee, I insist on both the hands,” he said, taking them and kissing them repeatedly.

“I suppose I’ll have to give it to you on those terms,” and she proceeded to fill the cup in earnest this time.

“Let me see.  How is it that you like it?  One lump of sugar and quite a bit of cream?  And tea perfectly clear with nothing at all and toast very crisp and dry.  Dear me, how do women ever remember all their husband’s likes and dislikes?  It’s worse than learning a new multiplication table over again,” and the most adorable pucker contracted her pretty brows.

“And yet, see how beautifully widows manage it, even taking the thirty-third degree and here you are, complaining before you are initiated, and kindly remember, Mrs. Lennox Sanderson, if I take but one lump of sugar in my coffee, there are other ways of sweetening it.”  Presumably he got it sweetened to his satisfaction, for the proprietor of the “White Rose,” who attended personally to the wants of “Mr. and Mrs. Lennox” had to cough three times before he found it discreet to enter and inquire if everything was satisfactory.

He bowed three times like a disjointed foot rule and then retired to charge up the wear and tear to his backbone under the head of “special attendance.”

“H-m-m!” sighed Sanderson, as the door closed on the bowing form of the proprietor, “that fellow’s presence reminds me that we are not absolutely alone in the world, and you had almost convinced me that we were, darling, and that by special Providence, this grim old earth had been turned into a second Garden of Eden for our benefit.  Aren’t you going to kiss me and make me forget in earnest, this time?”

“I’m sure, Lennie, I infinitely prefer the ‘White Rose Inn’ with you, to the Garden of Paradise with Adam.”  She not only granted the request, but added an extra one for interest.