CHAPTER IX.
THE DAGUERROTYPE.
Bressant occupied two adjoining rooms at Abbie's boarding-house; one contained his bed and the other was fitted up as his study.

They were on the second floor of the house, and attainable through two turns in the lower entry, a winding flight of narrow stairs, and an uncertain, darkly erratic route above.
The study was some twelve feet by eight; the floor ornamented by a carpet which, to judge from the size of the pattern, must have been designed to grace some fifty-foot drawing-room.

The furniture consisted of a deal table with a folding leaf, a chair, a stove--which, perhaps because it was so small, had been permitted to remain all summer--and a broad-seated lounge with squeaky springs, but quite roomy and comfortable, which monopolized a large portion of the room.

The walls were papered with a bewildering diamond pattern, in blue and white.

Upon the outside window-sill stood a pot of geraniums, and another of heliotrope.
A good many books were stowed away in various parts of the study; piled one upon another in the corner by the stove, ranged side by side beneath the lounge, carefully disposed upon the inner window-sill, and occupying as much space as could be spared to them on the table.