ath. Miss
Pinnegar was thoroughly scared. But she was not inventive. It was
left to Alvina to suggest: "Why doesn't father let the shop, and
some of the house?"

Let the shop! Let the last inch of frontage on the street! James
thought of it. Let the shop! Permit the name of Houghton to
disappear from the list of tradesmen? Withdraw? Disappear? Become a
nameless nobody, occupying obscure premises?

He thought about it. And thinking about it, became so indignant at the
thought that he pulled his scattered energies together within his frail
frame. And then he came out with the most original of all his schemes.
Manchester House was to be fitted up as a boarding-house for the better
classes, and was to make a fortune catering for the needs of these
gentry, who had now nowhere to go. Yes, Manchester House should be
fitted up as a sort of quiet family hotel for the better classes. The
shop should be turned into an elegant hall-entrance, carpeted, with a
hall-porter and a wide plate-glass door, round-arched, in the round
arch of which the words: "Manchester House" should appear large and
distinguished, making an arch also, whilst underneath, more refined and
smaller, should show the words: "Private Hotel." James was to be
proprietor and secretary, keeping the books and attending to
correspondence: Miss Pinnegar was to be manageress, superintending the
servants and directing the house, whilst Alvina was to occupy the
equivocal position of "hostess." She was to shake hands with the
guests: she was to play the piano, and she was to nurse the sick. For
in the prospectus James would include: "Trained nurse always on the
premises."

"Why!" cried Miss Pinnegar, for once brutally and angrily hostile to
him: "You'll make it sound like a private lunatic asylum."

"Will you explain why?" answered James tartly.

For himself, he was enraptured with the scheme. He began to tot up
ideas and expenses. There would be the handsome entrance and hall:
there would be an extension of the kitchen and scullery: there would
be an installing of new hot-water and sanitary arrangements: there
would be a light lift-arrangment from the kitchen: there would be a
handsome glazed balcony or loggia or terrace on the first floor at
the back, over the whole length of the back-yard. This loggia would
give a wonderful outlook to the south-west and the west. In the
immediate foreground, to be sure, would be the yard of the
livery-stables and the rather slummy