Once in most lives things turn out as the dreamer dreamed them. This was Vance's day, and when he pushed open the door there was the stove, with a pile of wood and some scraps of coal ready for lighting, and a jug of milk and loaf of bread on the table. The bare boarded room, which looked like the inside of a bathhouse, was as clean as if it had been recently scoured, and the drift of sand and crinkled seaweed on the floor merely suggested that a mermaid might have done the cleaning. Vance laughed aloud for joy. "Oh, Laura Lou, isn't it great?"

She stood on the threshold, looking shyly about her, and he turned and drew her in. The table bearing the provisions carried also a candle in a tin candlestick; and against the wall stood a sort of trestle bed with two pillows and a coarse brown blanket. Two kitchen chairs, a handful of broken crockery on a shelf, a cracked looking glass, and a pile of old baskets and cracker boxes in a corner completed the furniture. Over the bed hung a tattered calendar, of which the last page to be uncovered was dated September 15, and bore the admonition: Little Children, Love One Another.

Vance burst out laughing; then, seeing a faint tremor about Laura Lou's lips, he said: "See here, you sit down while I get at the fire." He began to fear their frail shanty might be too cold for her as night fell; and he dropped on his knees and set to work cramming fuel into the stove. Decidedly it was his day; the fire lit, the stovepipe drew. But as he knelt before it he felt a faint anxiety. Laura Lou sat behind him. She had not spoken since they had entered the shanty, and he wondered if she had felt a shock of disappointment. Perhaps she had expected a cosy overheated room in a New York or Philadelphia hotel, with white sheets on the bed and running water—oh, God, he thought suddenly, how the hell were they going to get washed? There wasn't a basin or pitcher, much less soap or towel. In summer, no doubt, the manager and his wife just ran down to the sea for a dip… . Vance began to be afraid to look around. At length he heard a sound behind him and felt Laura Lou's hands on his shoulders. He turned without rising, and her face, flushed and wet with tears, hung close over him.

"Why, what is it, darling? The place too rough for you—too lonely? You're sorry we came?" he cried remorsefully.

She gave him a rainbow smile. "I'll never be sorry where you are."

"Well, then—"

"Only I'm so tired," she said, her voice grown as small as a child's.