he decorations were so Saracenic
and the architecture so Hudson Riverish. They found there on the grand
central divan a large lady whose vast smoothness, placidity, and
plumpness set at defiance all their preconceptions of Mrs. Grosvenor
Green, so that Mrs. March distinctly paused with her card in her hand
before venturing even tentatively to address her. Then she was astonished
at the low, calm voice in which Mrs. Green acknowledged herself, and
slowly proceeded to apologize for calling. It was not quite true that she
had taken her passage for Europe, but she hoped soon to do so, and she
confessed that in the mean time she was anxious to let her flat. She was
a little worn out with the care of housekeeping--Mrs. March breathed, "Oh
yes!" in the sigh with which ladies recognize one another's
martyrdom--and Mrs. Green had business abroad, and she was going to
pursue her art studies in Paris; she drew in Mr. Ilcomb's class now, but
the instruction was so much better in Paris; and as the superintendent
seemed to think the price was the only objection, she had ventured to
call.

"Then we didn't deceive him in the least," thought Mrs. March, while she
answered, sweetly: "No; we were only afraid that it would be too small
for our family. We require a good many rooms." She could not forego the
opportunity of saying, "My husband is coming to New York to take charge
of a literary periodical, and he will have to have a room to write in,"
which made Mrs. Green bow to March, and made March look sheepish. "But we
did think the apartment very charming", (It was architecturally charming,
she protested to her conscience), "and we should have been so glad if we
could have got into it." She followed this with some account of their
house-hunting, amid soft murmurs of sympathy from Mrs. Green, who said
that she had been through all that, and that if she could have shown her
apartment to them she felt sure that she could have explained it so that
they would have seen its capabilities better, Mrs. March assented to
this, and Mrs. Green added that if they found nothing exactly suitable
she would be glad to have them look at it again; and then Mrs. March said
that she was going back to Boston herself, but she was leaving Mr. March
to continue the search; and she had no doubt he would be only too glad to
see the apartment by daylight. "But if you take it, Basil," she warned
him, when they were alone, "I shall simply renounce you. I wouldn't live