"You've done wonders to this place," commented Tom, gazing about.
"Oliver gave me full permission before he went away," Ruth explained. "I've stored a whole load-full of his things. It is rather nice, I think, myself."
"Nice? I should say it was! But did it pay for so short a time?" I inquired.
"Oliver can keep the things as long as he wants them," said Ruth.
"But it must make your room in Irving Place an empty spot to go back to," I replied.
Ruth went over to the lamp and did something to the shade. "Oh," she said carelessly, "haven't I told you? I'm not going back. I've resigned from Van de Vere's. Do all sit down."
Ruth might just as well have set off a cannon-cracker. We were startled to say the least. We stood and stared at her.
"Do sit down," she repeated.
"But, Ruth, why have you done this? Why have you resigned?" I gasped at last. She finished with the lamp-shade before she spoke.
"I insist upon your sitting down," she said. "There. That's better." Then she gave a queer, low laugh and said, "I think it was the sight of the baby's little flannel shirt stretched over the wooden frame hanging in the bath-room that was the last straw that broke me before I wrote to Mrs. Scot-Williams."
"But"
"There was some one immediately available to take
