he
first months of settling down. Emeline was entirely ignorant of what was
suitable or desirable in a home, and George had only the crude ideals of
a travelling man to guide him. They enthusiastically selected a flat of
four handsome, large, dark rooms, over a corner saloon, on O'Farrell
Street. The building was new, the neighbourhood well built, and filled
with stirring, interesting life. George said it was conveniently near
the restaurant and theatre district, and to Emeline, after Mission
Street, it seemed the very hub of the world. The suite consisted of a
large front drawing-room, connected by enormous folding doors with a
rear drawing-room, which the Pages would use as a bedroom, a large
dining-room, and a dark kitchen, equipped with range and "water back."
There were several enormous closets, and the stairs and hall, used by
the several tenants of the house, were carpeted richly. The Pages also
carpeted their own rooms, hung the stiff folds of Nottingham lace
curtains at the high narrow windows, and selected a set of the heavily
upholstered furniture of the period for their drawing-room. When
Emeline's mother and sisters came to call, Emeline showed them her
gold-framed pictures, her curly-maple bed and bureau, her glass closet
in the dining-room, with its curved glass front and sides and its
shining contents--berry saucers and almond dishes in pressed glass, and
other luxuries to which the late Miss Cox had been entirely a stranger.
Emeline was intoxicated with the freedom and the pleasures of her new
life; George was out of town two or three nights a week, but when he was
at home the two slept late of mornings, and loitered over their
breakfast, Emeline in a loose wrapper, filling and refilling her coffee
cup, while George rattled the paper and filled the room with the odour
of cigarettes.

Then Emeline was left to put her house in order, and dress herself for
the day--her corsets laced tight at the waist, her black hair crimped
elaborately above her bang, her pleated skirts draped fashionably over
her bustle. George would come back at one o'clock to take her to lunch,
and after lunch they wandered up and down Kearney and Market streets,
laughing and chatting, glad just to be alive and together. Sometimes
they dined downtown, too, and afterward went to the "Tivoli" or
"Morosco's," or even the Baldwin Theatre, and sometimes bought and
carried home the materials for a dinner, and invited a few of George's
men f