wave to her
occasionally from the river bank.

"We've been wondering what you would do with this magnificent
drawing-room," said Mrs. White, on her first visit. "The house ought to
take a colonial treatment wonderfully--there's a remarkable man in San
Francisco who simply made our house over for us last year!"

"It must have been a fearful upheaval," said Mrs. Burgoyne,
sympathetically.

"Oh, we went away! Mr. White and I went east, and when we came back it
was all done."

"Well, fortunately," said the mistress of Holly Hall cheerfully, as she
sugared Mrs. Apostleman's cup of tea, "fortunately all these things of
Mrs. Holly's were in splendid condition, except for a little cleaning
and polishing. They used to make things so much more solid, don't you
think so? Why, there are years of wear left in these carpets, and the
chairs and tables are like rocks! Captain Holly apparently got the very
best of everything when he furnished this place, and I reap the
benefit. It's so nice to feel that one needn't buy a chair or a bed for
ten years or more, if one doesn't want to!"

"Dear, sweet people, the Hollys," said Mrs. White, pleasantly, utterly
at a loss. Did people of the nicer class speak of furniture as if it
were made merely to be useful? "But what a distinct period these things
belong to, don't they?" she asked, feeling her way. "So--so solid!"

"Yes, in a way it was an ugly period," said Mrs. Burgoyne, placidly.
"But very comfortable, fortunately. Fancy if he had selected Louis
Quinze chairs, for example!"

Mrs. White gave her a puzzled look, and smiled.

"Come now, Mrs. Burgoyne," said she, good-naturedly, "Confess that you
are going to give us all a surprise some day, and change all this. One
sees," said Mrs. White, elegantly, "such lovely effects in New York."

"In those upper Fifth Avenue shops--ah, but don't you see lovely
things!" the other woman assented warmly. "Of course, one could be
always changing," she went on. "But I like associations with
things--and changing takes so much time! Some day we may think all this
quite pretty," she finished, with a contented glance at the comfortable
ugliness of the drawing-room.

"Oh, do you suppose we shall REALLY!" Mrs. White gave a little
incredulous laugh. She was going pretty far, and she knew it, but as a
matter of fact, she was entirely unable to believe that there was a
woman in the world who could afford to have what was fashionable and
expensive in house