The Comptons were quickly settled in the little cottage in East Granite Street, for as Mrs. Hook’s furniture was solid Ida had not sold it. There was little to do, therefore, but repaper the walls, build a bathroom, furnish a dining-room, send the parlour furniture to the upholsterers--Ida had had enough of horsehair--and chattel the kitchen. Ida had several virtues in which she took a vocal pride, and not the least of these was housekeeping in all its variety. The luxurious side of her nature might revel in front parlours, trashy magazines, rocking-chairs and chewing-gum, but she never indulged in these orgies unless her house were in order. After her arrival in Butte it was quite a month before she gave a thought to leisure. They spent most of this time at a hotel, but Ida was out before the stores opened, and divided her day between the workmen at the cottage, the upholsterer, and the bargain counter. She was “on the job” every minute until the cottage was “on wheels.” Her taste was neither original nor artistic, but she had a rude sense of effect, and a passion for what she called colour schemes. She boasted to Gregory at night, when she had him at her mercy at the hotel dinner-table, that although everything had to be cheap except the kitchen furnishings, colours did not cost any more than black or drab. When the cottage was in order, and they moved in, he saw its transfigured interior for the first time. The bedroom was done in a pink that set his teeth on edge, and the little parlour was papered, upholstered, carpeted, cushioned in every known shade of red. “All you want is a chromo or two of Indian battlegrounds--just after,” he remarked. Ida interrupted tartly: “Well, I should think you’d be grateful for the contrast to them everlasting white or brown mountains. We don’t get away from them even in town, now the smoke’s gone.” “One would think Montana had no springtime.” “Precious little. That’s the reason I’ve got a green dining-room.” Gregory, who had suffered himself to be pushed into an arm-chair, looked at his wife speculatively, as she rocked herself luxuriously, her eyes dwelling fondly on the magenta paper, the crimson curtains, the turkey red and crushed strawberry cushions of the divan, the blood-red carpet with its still more sanguinary pattern. What blind struggle was going on in that uninstructed brain against the commonplace, what seed of originality, perhaps, striving to shoot forth a green tip from the hard crust of ignorance and conceit? He had made up his mind to suggest the tillage of that brain without delay, but, knowing her sensitive vanity, cast about for a tactful opening. “Do you really intend to do your own work?” he asked. “I am more than willing to pay for a servant.”