“Go back,” said Miss Ellison, boldly, and back they ran to the parlor, where they found Basil and the Colonel and his wife in earnest conclave.  The Colonel, like a shrewd strategist, was making show of a desperation more violent than his wife’s, who was thus naturally forced into the attitude of moderating his fury.

“Well, Fanny, that’s all he can do for us; and I do think it ’s the most outrageous thing in the world!  It ’s real mean!”

Fanny perceived a bold parody of her own denunciatory manner, but just then she was obliged to answer Isabel’s eager inquiry whether they had got a room yet.  “Yes, a room,” she said, “with two beds.  But what are we to do with one room?  That clerk—­I don’t know what to call him”—­("Call him a hotel-clerk, my dear; you can’t say anything worse,” interrupted her husband)—­“seems to think the matter perfectly settled.”

“You see, Mrs. March,” added the Colonel, “he’s able to bully us in this way because he has the architecture on his side.  There isn’t another room in the house.”

“Let me think a moment,” said Isabel not thinking an instant.  She had taken a fancy to at least two of these people from the first, and in the last hour they had all become very well acquainted now she said, “I’ll tell you:  there are two beds in our room also; we ladies will take one room, and you gentlemen the other!”

“Mrs. March, I bow to the superiority of the Boston mind,” said the Colonel, while his females civilly protested and consented; “and I might almost hail you as our preserver.  If ever you come to Milwaukee,—­which is the centre of the world, as Boston is,—­we—­I—­shall be happy to have you call at my place of business.—­I didn’t commit myself, did I, Fanny?—­I am sometimes hospitable to excess, Mrs. March,” he said, to explain his aside.  “And now, let us reconnoitre.  Lead on, madam, and the gratitude of the houseless stranger will follow you.”

The whole party explored both rooms, and the ladies decided to keep Isabel’s.  The Colonel was dispatched to see that the wraps and traps of his party were sent to this number, and Basil went with him.  The things came long before the gentlemen returned, but the ladies happily employed the interval in talking over the excitements of the day, and in saying from time to time, “So very kind of you, Mrs. March,” and “I don’t know what we should have done,” and “Don’t speak of it, please,” and “I’m sure it ’s a great pleasure to me.”

In the room adjoining theirs, where the invalid actor lay, and where lately there had been minstrelsy and apparently dancing for his solace, there was now comparative silence.  Two women’s voices talked together, and now and then a guitar was touched by a wandering hand.  Isabel had just put up her handkerchief to conceal her first yawn, when the gentlemen, odorous of cigars, returned to say good-night.

“It’s the second door from this, isn’t it, Isabel?” asked her husband.