CHAPTER III.
"Is Miss Floyd at home ?" The questioner was Mrs.Verrier, who had just alighted from her carriage at the door of the house in Columbia Avenue inhabited by Miss Floyd and her chaperon.
The maid replied that Miss Floyd had not yet returned, but had left a message begging Mrs.Verrier to wait for her.

The visitor was accordingly ushered to the drawing-room on the first floor.
This room, the staircase, the maid, all bore witness to Miss Floyd's simplicity--like the Romney dress of Mount Vernon.

The colour of the walls and the hangings, the lines of the furniture, were all subdued, even a little austere.

Quiet greens and blues, mingled with white, showed the artistic mind; the chairs and sofas were a trifle stiff and straight legged; the electric fittings were of a Georgian plainness to match the Colonial architecture of the house; the beautiful self-coloured carpet was indeed Persian and costly, but it betrayed its costliness only to the expert.

Altogether, the room, one would have said, of any _bourse moyenne_, with an eye for beauty.