Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/441

  home-made, with the single exception of a cabinet organ which stood in one corner of the reading-room. On the windows of the dining-room and bunk-room were green roller blinds, but those of the reading-room were draped with curtains of flowered muslin. Indeed the reading-room was distinguished from the others by a more artistic and elaborate decoration, and by a greater variety of furniture. The room was evidently the pride of the company's heart. In Ranald's private room the same simplicity in furniture and decoration was apparent, but when the colonel was ushered into the bedroom his eye fell at once upon two photographs, beautifully framed, hung on each side of the mirror.

"Hello, guess I ought to know this," he said, looking at one of them.

Coley beamed. "You do, eh? Well, then, she's worth knowin' and there's only one of her kind."

"Don't know about that, young man," said the colonel, looking at the other photograph; "here's one that ought to go in her class."

"Perhaps," said Coley, doubtfully, "the boss thinks so, I guess, from the way he looks at it."

"Young man, what sort of a fellow's your boss?" said the colonel, suddenly facing Coley.

"What sort?" Coley thought a moment. "Well, 'twould need a good eddication to tell, but there's only one in his class, I tell you."

"Then he owes it to this little woman," pointing to one of the photographs, "and she," pointing to the other, "said so."