use
before removing the walls that had cut up the lower floor into the
conventional number of rooms and hallways. The house, of no great depth,
was so close to the hill-side, still rising above it, that more than one
enterprising cook had made use of the natural ledges before the windows.
Besides the kitchen department and pantries, there were now but three
rooms on the lower floor: the dining-room, a small reception-room in the
tower, and an immense living-room, broken by the white pillars that
supported the storys above.

Mrs. Belmont and Mrs. Otis, in the time-honored American fashion, had
made a day nest of their bedroom, but Isabel was far too modern for that
lingering provincialism, and lived luxuriously in the big room
down-stairs when she was not in the porch. She had reserved her mother's
old alcoved bedroom with its mahogany four-poster for her own use, but
the rest of the second-story rooms she had fitted for her English
cousins, that they too might have headquarters in town.

Neither appeared to be in any haste to visit the city of their
ancestors. Gwynne had left England in October, now nearly a year ago,
but, having discovered from his solicitor that he could apply for
letters of citizenship as late as the end of the third year after
landing, had announced to Isabel his intention to travel slowly about
the country "before settling down in its remotest part, which, from all
accounts, was sufficiently unlike the rest to provincialize his point of
view unless he saw something first of the East, South, and Middle West."
He had written to her several times, but only on business. She had
returned in January, after a round of visits in England, and had put his
house in order at once. The lease had expired, and Mr. Colton had
engaged a temporary superintendent, but Gwynne sent Isabel his power of
attorney and she was temporarily in possession. She wrote to him from
time to time that all was well, or to send him an account of her
expenditures; but felt no promptings towards a friendly correspondence
with one who showed as little disposition to encourage it.

From Victoria she had not heard directly since she bade her good-bye in
Curzon Street, but Flora Thangue had written that her ladyship's superb
health had (to her ill-concealed fury) given way, following an attack of
influenza, and she would not be able to leave her doctor for an
indefinite time. A few months later she wrote that "dear Vicky" was
outwardly h