l be
able to come and walk in these avenues whenever you please."

Was this, then, her home? this section of a barrack-row of dwellings,
all alike in steps, pillars, doors, and windows? When she got inside,
the servant who had opened the door bobbed a courtesy to her: should she
shake hands with her and say. "And are you ferry well?" But at this
moment Lavender came running up the steps, playfully hurried her into
the house and up the stairs, and led her into her own drawing-room.
"Well, darling, what do you think of your home, now that you see it?"

Sheila looked around timidly. It was not a big room, but it was a palace
in height and grandeur and color compared with that little museum in
Borva in which Sheila's piano stood. It was all so strange and
beautiful--the split pomegranates and quaint leaves on the upper part of
the walls, and underneath a dull slate-color where the pictures hung;
the curious painting on the frames of the mirrors; the brilliant
curtains, with their stiff and formal patterns. It was not very much
like a home as yet; it was more like a picture that had been carefully
planned and executed; but she knew how he had thought of pleasing her in
choosing these things, and without saying a word she took his hand and
kissed it. And then she went to one of the three tall French windows and
looked out on the square. There, between the trees, was a space of
beautiful soft green; and some children dressed in bright dresses, and
attended by a governess in sober black, had just begun to play croquet.
An elderly lady with a small white dog was walking along one of the
graveled paths. An old man was pruning some bushes.

"It is very still and quiet here," said Sheila. "I was afraid we should
have to live in that terrible noise always."

"I hope you won't find it dull, my darling," he said.

"Dull, when you are here?"

"But I cannot always be here, you know."

She looked up.

"You see, a man is so much in the way if he is dawdling about a house
all day long. You would begin to regard me as a nuisance, Sheila, and
would be for sending me to play croquet with those young Carruthers,
merely that you might get the rooms dusted. Besides, you know I couldn't
work here: I must have a studio of some sort--in the neighborhood, of
course. And then you will give me your orders in the morning as to when
I am to come round for luncheon or dinner."

"And you will be alone all day at your work?"

"Yes."

"Then I