Many excellent and expensive houses were being erected.

The front lawn, with some attempt at floral gardening, was achieving local popularity.

In the homes of the Tighes, the Leighs, Arthur Rivers, and others, he had noticed art objects of some distinction--bronzes, marbles, hangings, pictures, clocks, rugs.
It seemed to him now that his comparatively commonplace house could be made into something charming and for comparatively little money.

The dining-room for instance which, through two plain windows set in a hat side wall back of the veranda, looked south over a stretch of grass and several trees and bushes to a dividing fence where the Semple property ended and a neighbor's began, could be made so much more attractive.
That fence--sharp-pointed, gray palings--could be torn away and a hedge put in its place.

The wall which divided the dining-room from the parlor could be knocked through and a hanging of some pleasing character put in its place.