Part 5

Early the next morning Mrs. Arburton drew up the curtains of her room and looked out. There, far below, were the river and the lower town. It was not a dream.

Then for a week nothing in particular happened. Mrs. Arburton was entirely happy in her charming colonial villa. Her mother called and admired everything.

“I suppose next week you will bury yourselves in the lower town. Of course your other house cannot be equal to this lovely place.”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“Why, my child, you told me it was a plain three-story affair. You said you stayed there that first night.”

“Did I? I must have been dreaming.”

The next morning young Mrs. Arburton began to wonder if her mind had given way. She was awakened by the hoarse boom of the lumber yard whistle. She drew up her curtain and pulled it down, again quickly. The street was full of teams. She pinched her arm. She looked at the mantel clock. No; she was awake. Being a wise woman, she said nothing, and after breakfast she bade her husband good-by at the back door.

“I’ll run over to lunch, dear.”

“Very well, Mr. Arburton.”

He looked at her with a peculiar smile.

“What’s the matter, love? Are you offended?”

“Oh, dear, no! I’m a little—a little confused, that’s all. I’ll go and call on mother. I’ll feel better—for a walk.”

“Yes, do. Take the trolley back to town.”

She did, and the moment she reached the broad avenues of the upper city she left the car and stood irresolute on the sidewalk.

“I wish I had been more observing. Let me see. There was a row of trees on each side, and the houses were all of Milwaukee brick.”

She wandered up and down several streets and avenues looking for the colonial villa.

“It was so stupid in me not to know the street and number of our own house. If I knew that I could ask a policeman. I declare, I was never so turned round in my life. This looks like the neighborhood—and yet—”

She gave it up in despair and took the trolley back to her home in the lower town. Then for several days nothing happened. Mrs. Arburton tried to be happy and failed miserably. Her husband, of course, observed it, and said at the dinner table:

“My love, I fear you do not enjoy being down here among these lumber yards and shops. After dinner we’ll go up town.”

She was delighted. When she reached the Heights she would ask him to take her to the other house. Immediately after dinner she went to her room to put on her hat. When she came down again she found her husband calmly reading in the drawing-room.

“I thought we were going to the Heights, dear.”

He looked up in some surprise, and, instead of replying, asked if she wished to go out.

“Yes. I do. I—I want to go to mother’s.”

“Certainly, my love. I’ll go with you.”

A moment later he was ready, and calmly opened the front door and led her out into the broad, familiar avenue in the upper town.

She stood bewildered on the stoop, and looked at the street, at the lemon-colored houses opposite, and at the colonial villa behind her.

“What are you waiting for, dear?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just wondering where we live.”

“Why, how absent you are, dear. This is our uptown house.”

It was all right. The other house was the dream. They spent a pleasant evening with her mother, and then they returned home. It was indeed all right, and just as it should be. She had certainly eaten something that was not best for her, or she would not have dreamed three times about the house by the river. Under the assurance of a stable residence in one place Mrs. Arburton’s spirits rose, and her health visibly improved. She resolved never to mention her absurd dream about the other house. She felt sure that it had never been built—and yet! Oh! she would not think about it any more. She would enjoy the happy present in her lovely colonial villa in the fashionable quarter of the town.

Mr. Arburton never came home to lunch now. He started off very early every morning, and was always late to dinner. It was not in young Mrs. Arburton’s nature to ignore this long.

“My love,” she said one stormy night when he came home tired, cold, and hungry, “My love, if the other house is finished we might go there and stay till this stormy weather is over. I miss you dreadfully at lunch, and it’s such a pity to let you travel so far in the rain.”

“All right, my dear. It would be better to go back again.”

“Back again!” Then it was not a dream.

The next morning young Mrs. Arburton was convinced that her mind was entirely unhinged. She did not dare to mention it to her husband. She went about her morning duties mechanically. They were in the lower town house. She knew the smell of the lumber yards only too well.

The thing was unbearable. She would settle the matter or perish in the attempt. The moment her husband had gone to his office she put on her things, took the trolley, and went up to the Heights. She found the avenue without the slightest difficulty. The colonial villa had totally disappeared. She asked a policeman if he had seen a white villa in the neighborhood. The man grinned broadly and said he guessed it was off duty.

She turned away indignant. What did the insolent creature mean? Nothing was to be gained by waiting there, and she took the trolley back home. On reaching the lower town she lost her way for the first time in her life. She wandered past several lumber yards, looking for that three-story house, and could not find it. Once she felt sure she had reached the spot—the house was not there. Thoroughly alarmed at what she regarded as her serious mental condition, she went at once to her husband’s office.

“Mr. Arburton is here?”

“No, ma’am. He started to go up to the Heights on business, and said he should stay to lunch at his house.”

That explained everything. The house by the lumber yards was simply a fancy of her disordered brain. She would go at once to their villa-home on the Heights. On arriving there she was not able to find it. Now thoroughly alarmed, she decided to go to her mother’s. Both her homes had disappeared, perhaps forever. She put her hand to her fevered brow. It was icy cold. She trembled as if chilled with terror.

“To think that beautiful home was all a wild fancy—to think I’ve lost that dear, homely, lovely, hideous house by the lumber yards. I fairly loved it. I’ll never stir out of it again—not even to find that colonial villa. And my husband, too,—he may be a fancy—a mere phantom—”

She looked at her wedding ring.

“No. I suppose he is real—”

She stood silent and tearful, looking off over the vast prospect spread out below her. The avenue ended at the very edge of the bluff and gave a magnificent view over the river and valley below—the very view she had dreamed she saw from that chamber window—

Suddenly a picturesque chimney appeared above the edge of the bluff. Then two pretty finials of wrought iron. Then a red roof appeared. Was she dreaming—or—? A number of people on the sidewalk stopped to view the remarkable spectacle. She heard a policeman remark aloud:

“The quare house is going on duty agin.”

The colonial villa stood before her. The front door opened and her husband appeared.

“Lunch is ready, love. Come in as soon as you can, as I want to move back to the lower town.”

“My dear! Am I crazy—?”

“Guess not. Where have you been all this time?”

“But, love!” she cried, “is my mind unbalanced?”

“Guess not. You seem reasonable.”

“Is this our uptown house?”

“Certainly, dear. Do come in to lunch.”

“Then where is—the other house?”

“Right here. Do come into the house, dear. The elevator boy is in a hurry to move her back again, as he can’t go to dinner till we are safe at the bottom of the hill.”

Young Mrs. Arburton entered her uptown house and closed the door. When in the privacy of her colonial dining-room she kissed her husband with enthusiasm.

“My love! It is distinctly great. How does it work?”

“Touch the button in the kitchen once, and the elevator boy will move her up. Touch twice and he will let her down again. You see, dear, I found it was not convenient to live in two houses at the same time, so I bought the old horse-car elevator and put a house in the car.”

“But, my love—the colonial villa and the cheap three-story frame house.”

“Oh! That’s all right. The front is early colonial, the back is recent American, as befits the two landings on the elevator.”

“How perfectly lovely. When I don’t want to be at home to the people on the Heights I live below, and when I’m tired of the lumber yard people I’ll live at the top.”

“Yes. And when we don’t want to see anybody, we can stop her half way. Come. Let’s have lunch while she slides down.”

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* * * * *

RUB IT IN that....

The Orient

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Write for Cat.

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FOR

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Will contain the following

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=The Williamson Safe Mystery.=—By COL. F. S. HESSELTINE. In this absorbing tale is presented for the first time, the solution of one of the most daring and inexplicable series of burglaries ever conceived.

=How Small the World.=—By E. H. MAYDE. A triangular love story in which, by means of a common confidant, two young people who hate each other in Massachusetts are brought to love each other in Colorado.

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* * * * *

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* * * * *

For Flowers Indoors.

Bowker’s Flower Food.